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Manuscript Mentoring : Rosie Scott : August 2010

21 – 28 August, 2010

The course
Working on your manuscript with a mentor can make a profound change to your attitude to your writing. It allows you to step back and establish the perspective you need to develop it further. This writing holiday course combines classes with workshopping and one-on-one mentoring. As you analyse and discuss both your own and everyone else’s writing it will give you a dynamic new understanding of how you can shape your work.

Rosie Scott’s course will be limited to 8 people, and she will ask everyone to have at least the beginnings of a manuscript or an idea for one – a couple of chapters of a novel, or two short stories you have written or are working on.

Testimonials from writers who have been mentored by Rosie:

Anne Deveson, writer and broadcaster: I was already a successful author of non-fiction books and articles when – with much trepidation – I decided to venture into fiction. My time with Rosie is still memorable. She helped me breathe life into characters, create tension and stillness, write about the
unsaid as well as the said. She is a beautifully intelligent writer who gives generously to those lucky enough to gain her help. Rosie weaves spells with words.

Georgia Blain, writer: Rosie Scott is a rare teacher and mentor. She knows how to listen, ask the right questions and advise – all without imposing her own ideas on your work. For me, this was the perfect way to learn, find my own solutions and become a better writer.

Roslyn Arnold. Honorary Professor of Education, Universities of Sydney and Tasmania: Rosie Scott is a brilliant mentor. She is wise, empathic and gently constructive. She can read your silences and help you to make them audible. Once she has responded to your work, her voice lives in your head as you spin out your words. It is as if she hovers at your shoulder- a bit like a guardian angel really.

Lynne Talmont: I have recently been awarded a Varuna fellowship, one of three writers selected by Pan MacMillan. Without Rosie’s advice and support I’m not sure I could have achieved this milestone. I owe her a great debt of thanks and would encourage other writers to take on board what she has to say. It will pay off!

Before the course you can send her a hard copy of the writing you want to work on – the earlier the better. If it is an entire novel she will need it a month or so before the course starts. Shorter extracts of your writing can also be emailed around the class beforehand (with your permission) to make the most of the workshopping process. If you have nothing in writing but lots of ideas in your head this workshop will help you to get the confidence and the inspiration to start getting your ideas down on paper.

Rosie is aiming at those people who want to write and have started the process, but need the confidence to get their work into shape. Her approach is inclusive and individually focussed. She eschews any hard and fast rules about writing fiction, and concentrates on inspiring and liberating people to find their own voice, and to discover what works specifically for them. She focuses on affirmation and truthful feedback: What works? Why? What doesn’t work? Why not? And how can it be fixed so that it does?

The programme follows a schedule of morning workshops. They will start with writing exercises and general discussion, and then go on to an intensive workshopping of your writing – and before the course, she’ll ask you to send her the writing you want to have workshopped. This will be a very freeing process: some students initially find it a bit difficult, but always come to value it for the connection it gives to their audience, and the acceleration of learning across all aspects of the craft.

In the afternoons she will give every student a one-on-one mentoring session when she will get to grips with the structure and pace of your work and help guide you onto the next step.

The afternoons will otherwise be free for more writing, activities – or just relaxing and enjoying the resort facilities: have a spa massage, go snorkelling, or lie by the pool and read.

rosie-scott-1 Teacher Rosie Scott is an internationally published, award-winning novelist, playwright, short story writer, teacher, script editor and poet. Her latest book Faith Singer was included in an international list of 50 Greatest reads by Living Writers set up by The UK Guardian, Orange Prize Committee and Hay Festival. She is an experienced and highly successful mentor: Georgia Blain said she couldn’t have written her best selling novel Closed for Winter without her (Closed for Winter was also recently made into a feature film starring Natalie Imbruglia). She teaches creative writing at UTS.

Born in Wellington, New Zealand, her degrees include BA, M.A. Honours in English, a graduate Diploma of Drama, a Graduate Diploma of Counselling (with outstanding student citation) and a Doctorate of Creative Arts.

Rosie’s novels have been shortlisted for most Australian and New Zealand national awards. Her award winning play was the basis for a feature film which won awards in Japan and France, and her short stories have been anthologised widely nationally and internationally.

She has mentored numerous young writers for the Australian Society of Authors and many books both professionally and for writer friends and family including Bella Vendramini’s best-selling Biting the Big Apple, Anne’s Deveson’s Lines in the Sand and Resilience. She has also taught writing to high-security violent inmates at Long Bay gaol for several years and written for the Sydney Morning Herald as a critic.

What’s included…

Pretty much everything except for bar bills and black pearls! Here’s a quick summary of what is and isn’t included, and then a description of the activities.
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