Covert 6 workshops - Writing underwater with Gemma Weekes

Writing Underwater: Language to Probe the Depths

Are you curious about what else your writing might reveal if you let yourself go deeper?

In this workshop, critically acclaimed novelist, poet and screenwriter Gemma Weekes will guide participants through a series of self-exploratory quick writes designed to help plumb the subconscious for buried treasure and monsters alike.

Each participant can expect to leave the session with a brand new piece of work and an understanding of how writing can be a means of transformation for both writer and reader.

This workshop is part of Covert Literary Magazine Issue 6 is Water/Water in People’s Lives. For this issue, we welcome Guest Editors: Roy McFarlane FRSL, Fawzia Kane, Gemma Weekes, Remi Graves and Alinah Azadeh. The editorial team include: Amy Z. Glass, Claire Jacobs, Zita Holbourne FRSA, Jackie Mendoza, and Pauline Rutter.

Location & Access

This event will be online via Zoom. Captions and transcripts will be activated.

BSL interpreters are available upon request. For any questions or requests, please email access@writingourlegacy.org.uk

Who’s this workshop for?

This workshop is open to everyone

About Gemma Weekes

Gemma Weekes is a novelist, poet, screenwriter, and educator whose work spans literature, film, television and performance. Her debut novel Love Me (Chatto & Windus, 2009) was released to critical acclaim and translated into Dutch and Italian. Her poetry and short fiction appear in anthologies including IC3: The Penguin Book of New Black Writing in Britain (Penguin, 2001and 2021), Too Young, Too Loud, TooDifferent (Corsair, 2022) and most recently in Glimpse (Peepal Tree, 2022). Her theatre work has been performed at venues including Stratford East Theatre Royal, The Royal Festival Hall, and most recently at Ladbroke Hall when her Nicki Giovanni-inspired piece B.R.I.B.E. was brought to life by Oyinkansola Yusuff for the Monolithic series.

About Covert Literary Magazine

Covert Literary Magazine is a yearly publication of literature and visual art for Black, Asian and ethnically diverse writers and artists of colour. The magazine is based in Brighton, UK and was established in 2020. We publish fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, hybrid forms and artwork, with future issues embracing more experimental, journalism and audio visual content. Our aim is to provide a platform for new and underrepresented diverse talent for whom mainstream publishing opportunities are inaccessible, whose work is reviewed, edited and published alongside more established names.

Funders

The Covert Talent Development Programme is part of our Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation programme.

This issue is part of Downs to the Sea, a three-year nature programme that focuses on recovery and resilience in wetland habitats, led by the South Downs National Park Authority and supported by development funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

The programme brings together a partnership comprising the South Downs National Park Trust, South Downs National Park Authority, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Western Sussex Rivers Trust, Brighton and Hove City Council and Writing Our Legacy.