John Baker’s Blog

Fifty people turned up in the Drill Hall for the Hay-on-Wye Writing Workshop, quite surprising when you consider that the fee was £25.00 per head for a two-hour session. Maybe billing it as a practical masterclass in the Festival Programme did the trick?
The high entrance fee also begged the question of who would turn up. [...]

The use of language and the training of observation in fledgling writers can be damaged, sometimes irredeemably, by often well-meaning teachers of ‘creative-writing’.
If someone, anyone, presumes to teach you the proper use of language for your own fictions, don’t listen. Put yourself at a distance from that person. All you have as a writer is [...]