Arvon Foundation - 10 years of hot housing ideas and high fibre food.

Adrian Thorne

Are you looking for the best writing training the country has to offer? Would you like to develop your skills exponentially and feel palpably more alive than you have in years ? 

Do you struggle to find time to write? Do you wonder if your writing is of a good enough standard to be a professional?

Top class tutors

Arvon offers the opportunity to spend a week with two top class tutors in ideal surroundings.

Recent years can boast tutors of the calibre of Marks and Gran, Simon Nye, Jack Rosenthal, Tim Firth, Anthony Minghella, Peter Flannery and Willy Russell.

Puff and blow fest

Courses are one week long and residential. The course starts on a Monday evening and on your first night you are faced with the most excruciating puff and blow fest as you meet the fellow students. I am always terrified of the staggering CVs and credits of my fellow students. Also a chance to spot this week's vainglorious egomaniac who can talk a great script but fortunately for us can't write one.

Ice breaker

After a hearty meal there is some kind of 'ice breaker'. On my last course we then had to write a one page monologue based on an interview of a fellow student for performance an hour later. Breathtaking new drama was on show already.

Course content

There are then two ways the course tends to go, either it is exercise based with a number of tasks given throughout the week. Or one longish 15 minute piece is written with a performance at the end.

A real commission

One of the TV courses I did, offered the atmosphere of a commission.  A 10 - 15 minute piece of drama was pitched, commissioned,  written to first draft, written to second draft, rehearsed and performed.

Challenging exercises

Another course encouraged us to work in partnership and fostered team writing. On one course you took a scene and added a new character and then added an incident. Then the scene had to be cut to half its length without sacrificing story.

Tutorials

There is usually a chance for a one to one tutorial with the tutors and a series of lectures on key skills. There is also hot gossip and insider industry news. 

On drama courses there is some performance involved, you get to see superlative new writing which turns up on screen and stage within a few years. Some sadly disappear without trace.

What's in it for me?

You can bore on for hours about writing and instead of the usual blank stares and polite nods a vivacious discussion breaks out. A chance to network with the great and the good and a chance to see new work first. 

Demographics

Who goes? Roughly a third are new to writing -  for some it is their first taste of it. A third are fairly experienced. A further third are professional - perhaps established in another field or the next Simon Nye on the verge of a major success. 

Who should go?

The serious

If you're serious about becoming a professional writer or already are one Arvon can connect you with that poetic soul of yours. Arvon is often a place where I hatch a completely new idea which has been buzzing around for months but crystallises in tangible form here. On other occasions under deadline pressure I've written completely out of my skin in a genre I'd never considered.

The beginner

If you are at the beginning it's a flying start and you can short circuit some of the bogus ill informed advice from writing groups. If you struggle to find time to write it ring fences a week . There have been times in my life when Arvon has been the only thing keeping the dream alive. 

Wonder if you have the touch?

If you wonder if you have the magic dancing in your brain. usually the answer is yes but each Arvon one or two students have to come to terms with the painful fact that it's probably not in them. I have felt like that myself but the result was really a spur to greater effort and it was worth testing myself at that level to realise my limitations and subsequently overcome them..

Crisis, resolution, Aftermath.

At worst you will come away with a couple of good contacts and two or three new ideas. At best perhaps you have hatched a series in thirteen parts. Improved your skills exponentially. Lived deep and dangerous and sucked the marrow out of life. I normally return ebullient self confident and stride round Asda telling all, I'm the new force in British drama!

Accommodation

The accommodation is of reasonable standard . A few years ago you needed an arctic survival kit to endure a winter course. Not now.  The centres are insulated and heated well enough for urban hot house flowers like me. If you like your food high fibre and healthy its an aduki bean feast. Pie eaters are less well served though. 

Which is the best course for you?

I have found it's normally best to pick someone whose work you really like rather than the course title. It's worth getting a brochure for the current year although vacancies are rare. This will give you the feel of the courses and to make sure you are on their mailing list for January when the new courses come out . You need to react quickly when they are announced as they fill up very quickly.

Contact details

There are currently three centres: Yorkshire, Devon and Inverness-shire. There is a course at each centre each week April through to November.

Courses cost around £300 pounds but there are a number of grants available if this is beyond your means.

Arvon Foundation

Lumb Bank, Heptonstall, Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, HX7 6DF
Tel: 01422 843 714
l-bank@arvonfoundation.org

Totleigh Barton, Sheepwash, Beauworthy, Devon, EX21 5NS
Tel: 01409 231 338
t-barton@arvonfoundation.org

Moniack Mhor, Teavarran, Kiltarity, Beauly, Inverness - shire, IV4 7HT
Tel: 01463 741 675
m-mhor@arvonfoundation.org

Mention this article at the puff and blow fest, who knows? I might be this weeks vainglorious egomaniac...