The Wild Within 2019, Starting 1st September

On By wendycatpratt
deer looking backwards
Photo by Vincent M.A. Janssen on Pexels.com

 

It’s time to re-run the very popular The Wild Within course. It’s a year since I launched this course, and I am rerunning it with entirely new prompts. I have opened it up to poetry, creative non fiction and fiction writing, and I’ve also added video notes, available through the closed FB site. For those who have never attended one of my online courses, this is how it works:

  1. Sign up and pay via PayPal (full instructions further down this page)
  2. Once signed up you will receive a welcome letter with a link to the closed FB group. The closed group allows you to share your work with others in a completely closed environment, allowing you the benefit of group feedback without damaging your potential for publication and competition entry further down the line.
  3. On the first of the month you will begin to receive lesson plans and a daily prompt directly into your inbox. These are yours to keep forever.
  4. Have fun. This is a no pressure course where you can do as much or as little as you wish. The focus is on getting writing and exploring the topics and themes. There isn’t even any pressure to join in on the closed Facebook group, though I would recommend it; to date all the FB groups have been supportive and fun.

What is the course about?

We’ll be looking at nature as a place in which we physically exist, but also as a place which exists inside of us. We’ll be looking at the ways in which poetry is used to describe nature, but also how poetry works to reflect our natural selves, and hopefully we’ll be producing some creative writing of our own.

This is a very popular course, here’s what people have said about it:

“Wendy Pratt’s The Wild Within course is brilliant value – her stimulus poems, weekly rationales, and imaginative daily prompts will inspire both beginners and established poets. 

Chris Kinsey

“A wonderful course which offered daily opportunities for new conversations with your creative self. Excellent, detailed prompts, supported by excellent exemplar material (poems and suggested reference points). A friendly, mutually supportive Facebook group, overseen by a very positive and proactive workshop leader.”

Isabel Palmer

“The Wild Within course has  been amazing. I’ve hardly written any poetry since my collection, Blink came out, but in a month of daily prompts I’ve managed viable first drafts of about twenty poems, and I’ll keep the prompts I haven’t responded to yet for when the course is over. I’m very pleased that with a little work I’ll have some poems to send out. Wendy’s prompts are extremely helpful, her longer weekly lessons are thorough and based on good examples of published poems and the Facebook group is supportive. I hadn’t expected I’d want to post my drafts to it, but in the end I enjoyed doing it and reading other participants’ poems; I also found the groups’ comments thoughtful and helpful. Wendy’s presence in the course is caring and nurturing. I’ll certainly be signing up for further courses.”
Jacqui Rowe

Payment Tiers

For this course, and all future courses, I am bringing in a method of tiered payment, a ‘pay what you can’ meted which relies on the honesty of course attendees. There are three payment levels: £20, £40 and £60. There is also the option to sponsor another place at the price level of your choice so that I can support disadvantaged writers.

Why I have given the option to pay more

Lots of previous attendees have told me, during feedback sessions, that they would have paid much more for one of these courses, comparing it to other courses available to them. But at the same time, lots of people have told me they were grateful for the lower cost as it meant they could afford to develop their writing within their own means. I am from a working class background and still live in a working class town. There’s a grey area when it comes to WC folk, and it’s the place where almost everyone I know lives – the place where you are certainly not living in poverty, but you can’t justify retreats, courses or workshops because there is always something else (Christmas, birthdays etc).
It’s my opinion that everyone should have access to exploring their world through the arts, creative writing is my niche and in a world in which the arts are being slowly eroded, where funding is reduced and reduced, I feel I need to do something practical to help people like me, from my background. At the same time, as a working class writer and workshop facilitator, I need to be able to pay my bills and continue doing the things that I have trained for. Hence the option to pay more if you feel you can.

 

Don’t forget, you can sponsor a place on the course for an underprivileged writer. It’s not going to change the world, but it will make a difference to someone’s month. Here’s what one of the previous sponsors had to say:

“I am not by any means well off however when I was out of work in 2016 it was the kindness of others who supported me and my passion of writing. By me now working full time again sponsoring anonymously someone else who is struggling financially made me feel like I was creating a room to grow for a writer which we all need. Wendy is also for me one of the bravest and talented writers active in the UK and as she has not lost sight of her working class roots how can anyone else look away if they can spend £20 on a sponsored place it makes so much difference to someone”

I know from experience how difficult it is to work out which level is right for you, so I have put some guidance together, below. I’ve based my reasoning mainly on the value of £20 in relation to  food and alcohol for some reason:

Sponsored Place – 

If £20 is a half or full week’s food shopping, then you are most likely entitled to a sponsored place. I have three sponsored places so far for this course and there may be more. Get in touch wendyprattfreelancewriter@gmail.com for a chat. I don’t interrogate, this is an honesty system and giving writers a leg up is important.

£20 

If £20 is what you might spend on a takeaway and a bottle of wine, this is probably the tier for you. Also, if you’ve not done one of my courses before, feel free to pay £20 to see if you enjoy it.

£40

If £20 is what you spend on a bottle of wine and a nice bar of chocolate, the forty pound tier sounds about right for you.

£60

If twenty pounds is the amount that you might put into a charity box, or a church collection, then this is probably the tier for you.

YOU CAN SPONSOR A PLACE

Even if you aren’t interested in doing the course, you can still sponsor a place and give a leg up to a writer who has hit hard times and can’t justify the disposable income for a creative writing course. If you ARE doing the course, you can also sponsor an extra place. You might choose to pay £40 for yourself and sponsor a £20 place, you might be an absolute angel and pay £60 and still sponsor a £20 place, you might be a virtual saint and sponsor two £60 places. It’s up to you. Mix and match.

INSTRUCTIONS

Please follow carefully, especially the bit about giving me the correct email address!
  1. Go to PayPal and make a payment at the tier you have chosen to wendycatpratt@yahoo.co.uk  Please add a note containing the email address you wish the course prompts to come to. Also, if you’re sponsoring a place, add a comment so that I know! Please do let me know if paypal isn’t an option for you and we’ll sort something out.
  2. I will send a brief welcome letter to that address to make sure the address works, this will also contain a link to the closed Facebook group, so don’t panic if you can’t find it on facebook.
  3. Request to join the Facebook group. If you can’t find it, or there are any problems, drop me a line at wendyprattfreelancewriter@gmail.com and we’ll get it all sorted out before September starts.
  4. That’s it. It should be quite straight forward, but again, let me know if you have any questions or are experiencing any problems and I’ll endeavour to get it all sorted.
  5. Everything will arrive via email.

Have fun!

Spaces are limited so please book as early as possible.

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