Thurs 18 July | 9am-5.30pm
The Old Swan Harrogate

Ticket: £100
Unreserved Seating

Please note that all transactions are subject to a £1.75 booking fee

JOIN THE CREATIVE THURSDAY ALUMNI
Hear from four successful authors who took the plunge to attend Creative Thursday and subsequently found themselves on the path to publication! Who knows, one day that could be you! Hear from this year’s Programming Chair Mari Hannah (from alumna to chair!), Lesley Thomson, J.S. Monroe and Chris Ewan on their journeys to publication and beyond, as they reveal all to Natasha Cooper. The session will be topped off with a quickfire guide to pitching with Natasha Cooper.

JUST BLOODY WRITE
Isabel Ashdown and Kate Rhodes – Creating Chilling Characters
Queen of the quickfire exercise, creative writing tutor and award-winning author Isabel Ashdown will help you to get beneath the skin of two characters: your killer and your protagonist. In this workshop, Isabel will encourage you to write fast and instinctively, to unlock strong, authentic characters who will drive your narrative forward. What makes your protagonist tick? What makes your villain truly dangerous? How do they operate under pressure – when in danger, when in private, when in love? By the end of the session, you will take away two new characters, fleshed-out and ready to do battle on the page! Combine this with help from award-winning crime novelist and poet Kate Rhodes who will help you truly find your voice. Kate will explore some of the best ways to make your crime novel unique and distinctive, by creating a compelling voice. Join us to learn successful forms of narration through discussion and a range of short, enjoyable creative tasks.

GET IT RIGHT…FIRST TIME
Simon Brett and David Mark – Getting your Plot in the Right Order
How to get it right in 5 steps…
Inspiration – How to turn everyday situations, weak characters and half-formed ideas into an outline for a killer novel.
Plot/Structure/Style – You may have a great idea for a story but there are still dozens of different ways to tell it.
Character – An in-depth look at ensuring the characters who drive your story are believable, interesting and above all, worth the reader’s time.
Fine tuning – A look at all those tricky aspects of novel-writing, such as how and when to research, what to cut and what to save and how to keep going when inspiration dries up.
The next step – At a time when there have never been so many possible outlets for your writing, what precisely should you do with your finished work?

The Dragons’ Pen
Four brilliant publishing professionals. Two minutes to convince them that your synopsis
and first chapter are worth reading. One audience full of your fellow would-be writers.
Our literary version of the popular TV show, Dragons’ Den, hosted by Mark Billingham is not for the faint-hearted.
Featuring:
Mark Billingham, Jane Gregory (David Higham),
Ruth Tross (Hodder), Tom Witcomb (Blake Friedmann),
Ben Willis (Orion)