BRIEFLY NOTED:
The next Sunday Essay Club is this Sunday, the 26th of October and we will be discussing one of my favourite essays of all time by Kirsten Dombek “The Selfishness Of Others”. We’re talking bad boyfriends, the apparent question: is everyone a narcissist now? and also why having “a boyfriend or a boss feels so much like having a personal villain anyway”. It will be SO GOOD. I will give a brief lecture on how she structures the essay, looking at her language, style and voice and then in the second hour, I will give you creative writing prompts that explore the themes of the first hour to deepen your craft & technique. Honestly the Sunday Essay Club has quickly became my favourite writing class, so if you’ve been curious to join, this one I am particularly excited about x Sign up here.
If you’re based in Edinburgh, I’ll be at the Radical Book Fair on the 7th of November, in conversation with Fariha Róisín for a special Full Moon Reading. Come around!
Hi writer,
Another week starts as we turn the page to new opportunities to show up for ourselves. I like to remind myself that every day, every hour, minute, second, we can actually start afresh. Hannah Arendt wrote in her essay The Freedom To Be Free how “we are all beginnings”, all entering the world for the first time and ideally always reminding ourselves that the foundation of our existence is: the capacity to begin (again).
So whether it was a slow week, where you stared at the blank page and hardly got words on the page (or worse, ignored the whole thing and watched Netflix instead), this is your moment to reset, to let go of what wasn’t and focus on what is and can be.
You can always begin (again).
THIS WEEK’S WRITING PROMPT
In my essay class we talked about structure this week and how the beginning of an essay shapes the way we enter it, the things we expect and also whether we want to even continue. So this week’s prompts are focused on the idea of beginnings.