Maggie Mackellar: Writing Memoir
First Catch Your Chook: a workshop on beginning
The title of this workshop comes from the recipe for Roast Chicken in Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management and I love it as a reminder on how to start a project, or even less dauntingly, how to start a writing session. So, bring your notebook and pencil, or laptop, (that is something to write on) along with a sense of wonder and curiosity and let’s see where catching our chickens will take us.
More practically, in this workshop we will be focussing on how generative writing from fragmentary prompts can help you find your way into your project. We will have a focus on memoir, but the writing prompts work across genres. We will start at the beginning with a question around why we write. Writers will leave (hopefully) with a greater sense of the power of their subconscious to make connections between lived experience and bringing that experience to life on the page. My workshops are fun, encouraging, safe places to bring your tender ideas.
MAGGIE MACKELLAR is an historian and writer who has published two books on the history of settlement in Australia and Canada and three memoirs, When It Rains, How To Get There and Graft, which was short listed for the 2024 Prime Minister’s Literary Award and won the 2025 Tasmanian Premier’s Prize. Maggie lives on the banks of Kanamaluka/River Tamar in Tasmania with her partner. She runs the much-loved newsletter The Sit Spot.
Registration Information
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TASWRITERS STUDENT MEMBER TICKETS:
Only 1 ticket per student member.
A maximum of 5 Student Member tickets per workshop.
CANCELLATION POLICY:
Cancelling your registration four days or more before the workshop: you can request a 50% refund of the fee.
Cancelling your registration within four days of the workshop: there is no refund of the fee. However, instead of forfeiting the fee, you can do another workshop for half price.
