How might we go about dramatising a novel? And is it ever possible or desirable to turn a poem into a play or a short story into a poem? How do we settle on the genre for something we want to explore through writing? What happens to a text when we change its form? What’s the point – is there a point, ever, in adapting an existing text? This workshop will consider these questions and experiment with some of the fun, creative discoveries and challenges to be had when we adapt our own or other people’s writing and/or style of presentation.

We will produce some new writing in response to an existing text or texts. We will try out new skills and techniques around adaptation and reflect on our writing processes and how we decide which form or genre we want to write in and how some material might be better suited to one form or another. We’ll also have had a go at turning a piece of our own writing into a different ‘form’ or genre.

Bring one extract of your own writing, and something to write with and on.

Amanda Dalton is a West Yorkshire-based poet and playwright and currently visiting lecturer at Manchester University and visiting teaching fellow at MMU’s Writing School. Poetry collections include How To Disappear and Stray (Bloodaxe), 30 Poems In Thirty Days (Arc) and, most recently, Notes on Water (smith|doorstop 2022). A third collection with Bloodaxe is in process. She writes drama and adaptations for theatre and BBC Radio 3 and 4. She has had several theatre commissions including with Manchester’s Royal Exchange, and Sheffield Theatres. Currently working on an adaptation of a children’s novel for Keswick’s Theatre By The Lake and texts for some short films with Manchester Camerata. Radio projects include radical versions of the silent movies Nosferatu and The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, original plays and versions of texts by writers including Tove Jansson, Henry James, Carson McCullers and Virginia Woolf. Before becoming full-time freelance in 2017, she worked as a teacher, as a Centre Director for the Arvon Foundation and as Associate Director leading on work with communities and audiences at Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre. Her website is at amandadalton.co.uk

Lost in Translation: Adapting and Reimagining Text with Amanda Dalton