Creative Writing Workshops with Sandra Hill
Sandra Hill is a creative writing facilitator with many years of experience working with organisations and groups. Her poetry and prose has been published by New Contrast, Aerodrome, Jacana and Umuzi. She has a masters degree (cum laude) in Creative Writing.
The Things Writers Need …
It is the middle of a busy Thursday afternoon and I have a long list of things to do, places to be, deadlines to meet, and an unformed poem is poking its bony elbows into my ribs, asking for attention, asking to be written down. I am in that glazed-eyed state that follows me on busy days, pre-occupied days, bad tempered and ratty days. I am not really paying attention to anything, or anyone, but as I reach the top of Omega Street, where tar turns to gravel, and suburbia to farm-land, something awakens, and slowly, slowly, I let out the breath I’ve inadvertently been holding.
I was not at Rozendal to look for a venue that day – but I found one – the perfect one at which to offer my creative writing workshops and retreats. It has something to do with the quiet, the lack of clutter, the simple beauty of the buildings, the land, and of the mountains beyond. It has something to do with Rozendal being both an auberge, a place for travellers to find hospitality, companionship and rest, and a vinaigrerie, a place of ferment, craftsmanship and creativity. For these are among the things writers need.
Write Through Your Heart: Four mornings of immersion in creative writing at Rozendal
Companionship, craft and creativity … if these are among the things you need, join us at Rozendal and learn to Write Though Your Heart. Whether you want to write non-fiction, poetry, short stories, novels, memoir, or simply for yourself, this four-morning course offers you a practical immersion in creative writing aimed at introducing and honing the essential aspects of the writing craft. For beginners or any writer needing inspiration, Write Through Your Heart will make your writing more alive.
Dates: 3, 4, 10 & 11 June 2014
Time: 9h00 – 13h00
Invest: R1400 (deposit R300)
Write for your life: Writing retreats
Drawing inspiration from the turn of the seasons, these two retreats aim to fan the creative flame and nourish the writing impulse. Beginners welcome.
Dates: 24 May & 20 September 2014
Time: 10h00 – 15h30
Invest: R450 for one or R750 for both.
Bookings & enquiries: E-mail: sandra@write-now.co.za. Mobile: 082 7292 351
Birthing
by Sandra Hill
On the surface nothing happens.
Yet dig down a little, through
the gauze of time and dreamy idleness
where everything is less distinct,
to the place deer leave their heart shaped prints.
For there lies a poem, blood smeared
and white with vernix.
When you leave
by Sandra Hill
Bitter sweet the news that you
are going away. Again.
The children finish eating in silence.
An ice cube clinks forlorn in my glass.
I smile and say; ‘we’ll miss you,
Sweetheart’.
But my mind is already racing
to the empty evenings we can fill,
my muse and I,
with the pages we will write
and the conversations we will have,
with reading my words and
hearing her voice – deep,
slightly hesitant, slightly accented,
read hers.
Writers write, and when you leave,
I become a writer, rather than a wife.
