This workshop will look briefly at the Gothic and especially how to create those darker effects in your writing. Friday, 24th March, 1pm-3pm. We will read an extract from Edgar Allan Poe's short story The Fall of the House of Usher.
Writing exercises will look at the elements of the Gothic and its effect, particularly the effects Poe chiefly sought - terror, passion and horror.
Venue: Fremantle Arts Centre, Upstairs Room 2.
Time: 1-3pm. What to bring: Notepad, pen, laptop or iPad
Cost: OOTA $20 - NON-OOTA $25 (ask for membership form to save).
Please note: No credit card facility and new attendees who arrive
without the class fee will be asked to pay on the day via direct debit
transfer.
For information on joining OOTA and what we do, please visit our website http://ootawriters.com
"The Fall of the House of Usher" is considered the best example of Poe's "totality", where every element and detail is related and relevant.
The theme of the crumbling, haunted castle is a key feature of Horace Walpole's Castle of Otranto (1764), which largely contributed in defining the Gothic genre.
The presence of a capacious, disintegrating house symbolizing the
destruction of the human body is a characteristic element in Poe's later
work.
"The Fall of the House of Usher" shows Poe's ability to create an emotional tone in his work, specifically feelings of fear, doom, and guilt. These emotions center on Roderick Usher, who, like many Poe characters, suffers from an unnamed disease. Like the narrator in "The Tell-Tale Heart",
his disease inflames his hyperactive senses. The illness manifests
physically but is based in Roderick's mental or even moral state. He is
sick, it is suggested, because he expects to be sick based on his family's history of illness and is, therefore, essentially a hypochondriac. Similarly, he buries his sister alive because he expects to bury her alive, creating his own self-fulfilling prophecy.
The House of Usher, itself doubly referring both to the actual
structure and the family, plays a significant role in the story. It is
the first "character" that the narrator introduces to the reader,
presented with a humanized description: its windows are described as
"eye-like" twice in the first paragraph. The fissure that develops in
its side is symbolic of the decay of the Usher family and the house
"dies" along with the two Usher siblings. This connection was emphasized
in Roderick's poem "The Haunted Palace" which seems to be a direct
reference to the house that foreshadows doom.
Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fall_of_the_House_of_Usher
This workshop "Irish Folklore" is a brief study of Irish folklore and also a glimpse at an Irish writer, Peader O’Guilin, who recently attended the 2017 Perth Writers Festival. Friday, 10th March, 1pm-3pm. We will read a short story by Paeder O'Guilin called The Drowner. Writing exercises will look at the elements of folklore and how we gain inspiration for our characters and setting. For some writers folklore may be a stepping stone to fantasy or YA fiction.
Venue: Fremantle Arts Centre, Upstairs Room 2.
Time: 1-3pm. What to bring: Notepad, pen, laptop or iPad
Cost: OOTA $20 - NON-OOTA $25 (ask for membership form to save).
Please note: No credit card facility and new attendees who arrive without the class fee will be asked to pay on the day via direct debit transfer.
For information on joining OOTA and what we do, please visit our website http://ootawriters.com
Folklore includes all the human knowledge, customs, and beliefs that have been passed down through the oral tradition.' Obviously, the definition for folklore is a wider net than myth or legend. In the nineteenth century, W. J. Thomas coined the term 'folklore' for the term 'popular antiquities,' usually used to refer to the unrecorded traditions of a given group. By this understanding, folklore also encapsulates superstitions, customs, proverbs, riddles, and pseudoscientific lore. However, a more commonplace understanding of the term is that folklore is 'stories told by folks,' which generally indicates a level of popularity and informality, even entertainment.
Peader Ó Guilín is an Irish novelist. He grew up in Donegal though he went to school in Clongowes Wood College in County Kildare. He is now based in Dublin where he works for a computer company. Raised speaking Irish and English, Ó Guilín is also fluent in French, and Italian. He has written a number of stories and novels. His first novel, The Call, was published to critical acclaim in 2007 and translations into nine languages including Japanese and Korean. Before writing novels, Ó Guilín wrote a number of plays and worked on a weekly print comic with the artist Laura Howell, Sneaky, the Cleverest Elephant in the World, aimed at kids.
The Times Educational Supplement called his first novel "a stark, dark tale, written with great energy and confidence and some arresting reflections on human nature."
Paeder O'Guilin also writes Short Stories. He has been writing short stories all his life and has published them in all kinds of venues. If you have a kindle reader, you can find his collection, Forever in the Memory of God and Other Stories. Some of his stories have been turned into free podcasts. Heartless, The Sunshine Baron, The Drowner, and The Evil-Eater.
March 20, 2017
