17th April - Getting it Out There - What can you do with your poetry when it’s ready to face the world?  Jacqui Rowe takes you through some of the practicalities of preparing manuscripts, submitting to publishers and facing up to rejection and also looks at putting a pamphlet together 

22nd May - Serious Play - masterclass with Mario Petrucci.  Can poetry bring us upside-down deserts, lava penguins or lyres strung by string theory, and still make a serious point?  How can we make free with words, yet stay clear of being merely whimsical or arbitrary?  A master in the methodologies of ‘serious play’, Petrucci will explore some of the core means by which we can circumvent our internal ‘editors’.  The aim is to release the imagination into fresh realms populated by the unexpected and an incisive language with which to meet it.   

19th June - Painting the Picture  with Jacqui Rowe.  A look at ekphrastic poetry and other ways of responding to visual art in poetry, including a chance to visit Birmingham Art Gallery.

17th July - ShadoWork: Writing and Performance as group activity - masterclass with Mario Petrucci. Rather  than  passively accept the notion that each poet has a single 'voice' they are born with, can we help each other to access poetry's voices? Through a group activity, participants will explore Mario's "co-vocal" approach to writing, culminating in the performance of a short piece formulated on the day. Mario will provide gentle feedback on your vocal presentation. Please dress comforably for the day; bring loose paper, a highlighter pen or two, and, (if you wish) some short drafts of work in progress. 

14th August - Finding the Form with Jacqui Rowe - How does a poem find its form? This practical workshop explores how to negotiate with tradition. We will look at haiku, sonnets and more and try these forms for ourselves to see how they fit…

18th September - Ideas in Things with Jacqui Rowe  and Meredith Andrea - using objects as an inspiration for poetry

23rd October - The Mapmaker's Workbox  with Jacqui Rowe and Meredith Andrea - Journeys, real, imagined, your own life. Plot significant points, devise signs, triangulate and locate the arrow that says, 'Your are here!' In this re-run of a popular workshop from last year, you might discover unexpected patterns in time and space.

13th November - Windows and Icebergs - masterclass with Mario Petrucci.  Writing is all about the way we pay attention.  If we look and listen deeply, everything has a story.  Observation, the senses, personal memory, reflection, imagination, other people’s work – all of these are potential paths into new and exciting writing.  We’ll be seeking windows into an individual creativity through such media as objects, art, landscape, ecology and science.  We’ll also be retuning our internal awarenesses to what lies mostly submerged.

11th December - All The Ages We Have Ever Been: writing poetry for children and adults equally -Masterclass with Philip Gross. Qualities of playfulness and sensual delight in sound and form and image, and direct access to astonishment and real emotion. Keen and confident young writers, unfazed by writing alongside adult, would be welcome in this all-age session.

All workshops take place on Saturdays from 1.30 to 4.30 pm