Writing Industries Conference 2010

Writing Industries Conference 2010
Saturday 6th March 2010, Loughborough University
A Literature Network, Writing East Midlands
and Loughborough University project.
http://writingindustries.com
Twitter #wic2010

We are very happy to announce that Graham Joyce will be making the keynote speech at the Writing Industries Conference 2010. The theme of this year’s keynote will be ‘The End of the Print Age’, reflecting WIC 2010’s focus on the many changes taking place across the writing industries. We are also pleased to confirm details of three specialist workshops for delegates attending the conference, and an additional speaker joining our programme.

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WIC 2010 Keynote : The End Of The Print Age

This is the twilight of the printed book. As surely as we moved from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age we find ourselves in a transition from the Print Age to the Digital Age. What does this mean for the writer who “merely” wants to write? The complexities of publishing have suddenly been multiplied in a way that challenges every writer who ever had an ambition to publish or make a single penny from the business of writing. But far from being a calamity, the onslaught of digital technologies has opened up new opportunities for the industrious writer who is able to diversify.

Keynote speaker : Graham Joyce

Graham Joyce is the author of seventeen novels and numerous short stories, which have won five British Fantasy Awards, the World Fantasy Award in 2003 and the prestigious O Henry prize in 2009. He grew up in a small mining village just outside Coventry in a working class family and wrote his first novel Dreamside on the Greek island of Lesbos, where he lived for three years after leaving his job to concentrate on writing. After selling Dreamside to Pan Books in 1991, Graham moved back to England to pursue a career as a full-time writer.

Graham’s writing has been classified as fantasy, horror, science fiction and mainstream literature. His stories frequently return to themes of grief, loss, growth and change, the corrupting effects of power, the importance of self-awareness, and the fundamental need for order, meaning, and coherence in the face of a chaotic universe. While the literary quality of his writing has prompted comparisons with magical realism, Graham himself places it in the tradition of the English ‘weird tales’ and writers including Arthur Machen and Algernon Blackwood.

Graham recently collected his memoirs as a goalkeeper in the non-fiction Simple Goalkeeping Made Easy which was nominated for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2009. He has also diversified into new media with the announcement last year that he would be writing the story for the latest in the phenomenally popular series of Doom video games. Graham teaches fiction and creative writing at Nottingham Trent University, and is well known for his insightful creative writing workshops and seminars.

http://www.grahamjoyce.net/

Workshops

Writing for video games
Writer and game designer Steve Ince, author of ‘Writing for Video Games’, leads a workshop about the fundamentals of writing for video games.

Working with an audience
Performance skills are ever more important to writers of all kinds. Performance poet and comedian Rob Gee leads this workshop on working with an audience. Suitable for writers of all levels.

About the Writers Guild
Bernie Corbett, General Seceretary of the Writer’s Guild, talks about the union’s work representing writers in TV, radio, theatre, books, poetry, film, online and video games.

Places on workshops are limited. Delegates can register for workshops on the day on a first come first served basis.

Additional Speaker

Jacob Sam La Rose joins our panel on the spoken word arts. Jacob’s poetry has been described as “fresh, vivid and masterly” (Poetry Book Society). His publishing credits include City State (Penned in the Margins, 2009), Penguin’s Poems for Love (2009), and Identity Parade: New British and Irish Poets (Bloodaxe, 2010); his performance credits include festivals and venues such as the Queen Elizabeth Hall (London), the Arts House (Singapore), the Urb Festival (Finland), the Green Mill (Chicago) and the Aldeburgh Poetry Festival. Jacob is well known for his work with literature in education and programmes for emerging poets, and he serves as a poetry editor for flipped eye press.