Write & Shine at The London Library

Start your day with a burst of creativity!

Join Write & Shine live from the London Library Reading Room for a 90-minute virtual writing workshop called ‘Memory’. This session takes the work and ideas of author Edna O’Brien as inspiration.

This is the last in a series of four workshops celebrating the spirit of adventure in the women of London Library, especially those who wrote evocatively of travel and place.

O’Brien joined the London Library in 1968. Originally from a small, isolated village in the west of Ireland, she moved to Dublin and then London where she wrote her novel The Country Girls (1960) during the first few weeks of her arrival. The book, she said, described her “experience of Ireland and [her] farewell to it.”

This July, we’ll celebrate the work of Edna O’Brien with a writing workshop on memory and its relationship to place. O’Brien lived most of her life outside Ireland, writing about her home country in sensuous detail, all from a distance. Together, we’ll use the power of recollection as a tool to create a strong sense of place in our writing.

This writing workshop is led by author Gemma Seltzer. It takes place in the early morning light, as we believe the first part of the day is the best time to think, dream and imagine. In Write & Shine workshops, you won’t be expected to share your writing, which offers great freedom and encourages all kinds of unexpected ideas to emerge.

Login at 7.30am for 7.45am start. You will be sent a Zoom link a few days before the workshop (if you do not receive it, please check your junk file or email events@londonlibrary.co.uk).