Ty Newydd Writers' Centre in Llanystumdwy near Cricieth is a truly inspirational place. I've not long returned from tutoring a schools' course there and all the students ( 6th formers from Newport and district) fell in love with it and what it signifies.
I have delivered adult courses there in the past, but this one was something else. The pupils came from a diverse range of schools and one college, from Hartridge with its tough reputation to posh Caerleon. They got on really well and relished being taken seriously as writers ....... and also as cooks/chefs! The sticky toffee pudding rivalled the short,pithy prose-pieces as highlights of the week.
Workshops in the morning, tutorials in the afternoon and evening readings ( with guest reader Tom Bullough entertaining us in mid-week) provided so much stimulus and I was very fortunate to share tutoring with the excellent Anne Caldwell, a poet from Yorkshire.
What crystallized the whole week was the anthology produced by students, teachers and tutors at the end and fittingly entitled 'Anthology of Friends' for this week. It brought together so much exciting and various work in prose, poetry, drama, artwork and photography.
Ty Newydd's location - so close to the sea, with a sweeping view of Snowdonia across Cardigan Bay - is vital to its allure ; yet it is the atmosphere created which is more important. I recall one writer who described a tortuous course, where his fellow tutor was 'knitting chickens' by the end! So it isn't always as idyllic as this one was.
One student said this ' has been the best week of my life' and none wanted to leave. A few years ago its very existence was in jeopardy, but I believe we now need a similar Centre in south Wales, possibly at Ogmore. It can be such a life-changing experience that if a mere fraction of the money spent on opera were invested in such a place, it would be invaluable.
Later this year, an anthology of poems about Ty Newydd will be published, edited by Gladys Mary Coles. When I read the following contribution from the very spot it depicts, there followed a series of ghost stories to make the appearance of Lloyd George's phantom seem mundane..........
THE VOICE-MIRROR
Blank white page of Ty Newydd in the snow,
then, two trails of footprints across the lawn :
a poem or a story begins to grow,
tiny bird-claw messages like scratchings of thorn.
The half-circle, half-cone of the bay window,
so far from toy town Portmeirion,
the frames are five negatives of a photo,
images just waiting to be born.
Inside, by a crescent-chair, is the voice-mirror,
the very place where Lloyd George died :
his tones living one second after,
a sound like the back-flow of the tide.
Each word you read f
I have delivered adult courses there in the past, but this one was something else. The pupils came from a diverse range of schools and one college, from Hartridge with its tough reputation to posh Caerleon. They got on really well and relished being taken seriously as writers ....... and also as cooks/chefs! The sticky toffee pudding rivalled the short,pithy prose-pieces as highlights of the week.
Workshops in the morning, tutorials in the afternoon and evening readings ( with guest reader Tom Bullough entertaining us in mid-week) provided so much stimulus and I was very fortunate to share tutoring with the excellent Anne Caldwell, a poet from Yorkshire.
What crystallized the whole week was the anthology produced by students, teachers and tutors at the end and fittingly entitled 'Anthology of Friends' for this week. It brought together so much exciting and various work in prose, poetry, drama, artwork and photography.
Ty Newydd's location - so close to the sea, with a sweeping view of Snowdonia across Cardigan Bay - is vital to its allure ; yet it is the atmosphere created which is more important. I recall one writer who described a tortuous course, where his fellow tutor was 'knitting chickens' by the end! So it isn't always as idyllic as this one was.
One student said this ' has been the best week of my life' and none wanted to leave. A few years ago its very existence was in jeopardy, but I believe we now need a similar Centre in south Wales, possibly at Ogmore. It can be such a life-changing experience that if a mere fraction of the money spent on opera were invested in such a place, it would be invaluable.
Later this year, an anthology of poems about Ty Newydd will be published, edited by Gladys Mary Coles. When I read the following contribution from the very spot it depicts, there followed a series of ghost stories to make the appearance of Lloyd George's phantom seem mundane..........
THE VOICE-MIRROR
Blank white page of Ty Newydd in the snow,
then, two trails of footprints across the lawn :
a poem or a story begins to grow,
tiny bird-claw messages like scratchings of thorn.
The half-circle, half-cone of the bay window,
so far from toy town Portmeirion,
the frames are five negatives of a photo,
images just waiting to be born.
Inside, by a crescent-chair, is the voice-mirror,
the very place where Lloyd George died :
his tones living one second after,
a sound like the back-flow of the tide.
Each word you read f
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