It’s that time of the year again! To coincide with NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Writing Month) I am running my April Write-a-thon, a prompt-a-day course aimed at getting you to the end of April with enough poems, notes and thoughts to get you through the year! This year I’m running it again with all new prompts!

How it Works 

Starting on April 1st, this course will run until 30th of April. You will receive a brand new prompt, every single day, including weekends, delivered straight into your email inbox. The prompts are aimed at getting you putting pen to paper, fingers to keyboards to get a first draft of a poem written. You’ll also have access to a closed facebook group where you can share your work with other members of the course and receive and give feedback. I monitor the group daily and try to comment, briefly, on everyone’s posts.

This is a no pressure course. You don’t have to produce anything if you don’t want to and we all know how life gets in the way sometimes so there is no need to post anything in the closed facebook group, if you don’t want to, and the good news is that you will have those thirty prompts to return to whenever you feel like it. This is a fun course suitable for anyone who wants to write poetry, from the absolute novice to the more experienced writer looking for a boost for their writing.

You’ll be able to join in discussions in the closed Facebook group, which will be moderated daily by myself. The group is friendly and welcoming and you’ll receive basic tips and advice from myself alongside lots of encouragement.

How to Sign Up

I now have a simple payment method in my shop (follow this link: https://wendyprattpoetry.com/shop/) where you can make a payment to sign up. If the email address you want your course materials sent to is different to your PayPal address, let me know by emailing me at wendyprattfreelancewriter@gmail.com. 

To make things fair, and to make sure that my courses are available to those on lower incomes, I have a tiered pricing system. Details below. And don’t forget, you can sponsor a place for a writer who doesn’t have the money to sign up. What a great gift that would be! If you are a writer who would not be able to partake in this course due to financial difficulties, drop me a line at wendyprattfreelancewriter@gmail.com for details of available sponsored places.

Payment Tiers

For this course, and all future courses, I am bringing in a method of tiered payment, a ‘pay what you can’  method which relies on the honesty of course attendees. There are three payment levels: £20, £40 and £60 plus a special £90 option which entitles you to more detailed editing suggestions on up to four pieces of work at the end of the course. 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. 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 that £20 has to you:

Sponsored Place – 

If you would need to make a choice between the course and essentials like food and electricity, then you are most likely entitled to a sponsored place.  Get in touch at 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.

£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.

What happens after you’ve paid for your place?

Once you have paid for your place (by visiting my shop: https://wendyprattpoetry.com/shop/) within a day or so you will receive a welcome message to check that the email supplied through your PayPal account is working. This will have your link to the closed facebook page in it too. And that’s it. The 1st April you’ll receive your first prompt and you are off! If you don’t receive the welcome message within a few days after signing up, drop me a line at wendyprattfreelancewriter@gmail.com.

I am so looking forward to the community of writers getting together again for the write-a-thon, it has been such a fun, friendly course in the past and I can’t wait to see you in the group!

Wendy

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