Writers Victoria

In this workshop you are invited to write towards, around, or out from within something that grips you, shakes you or wakes you up. Together, we will consider the ways creative non-fiction can unearth, question and re-imagine what feels urgent, astonishing or curious to you. To start, we will study some creative non-fiction works that approach the unapproachable, uproot what has been buried. We will consider what is beautiful, strange and unguarded about these works. We will discuss the relationship between research and writing in creative non-fiction. Come to this workshop with an idea or topic that you would like to grow or unpack, smash, repair or enumerate. I will offer prompts that invite you to explore your topic. Together we will reflect on what comes up for you when you challenge what is familiar to you, and we will consider how you might persist with writing, especially when you feel map-less.

You Will Learn:

• Develop an understanding for the shape and structure of some creative non-fiction works.
• Navigate your own ideas in critical and curious ways.
• Gain an understanding for writing as a process of thinking-on-the-page, instead of already knowing.
• Consider strategies for researching, drafting and re-drafting a work of creative non-fiction.
• Explore ways to hold what feels startling or even mystifying, while resisting easy conclusions.

Bring pen and paper, or your fully charged device, to join in the writing exercises.

This page is for the workshop only. If you would like to book the workshop and Online Feedback Rounds with Hayley click here.

About the Tutor:

Hayley Singer's first book, Abandon Every Hope: Essays for the dead, was published by Upswell in 2023. It was shortlisted for the 2024 Stella Prize. Hayley has published essays and reviews in The Sydney Review of Books, The Monthly, The Lifted Brow, Cordite Poetry Review, Art + Australia. Hayley teaches creative non-fiction at the University of Melbourne. For Hayley, teaching, like writing, is about thinking deeply and carefully, with many voices. Hayley lives on the sovereign, unceded, lands of the Bunurong People. Hayley lives in a place so small it’s only got one road, and it ends at a cliff.