T + 796 Writers' Toolkit Part One
Yesterday I attended a one day conference for writers and people involved with the creative writing profession entitled The Writers' Toolkit . This is the 3rd annual conference of its type run by Writing West Midlands . It was a thoroughly enjoyable and well organised event held at the Digbeth campus of South Birmingham College and over the next few blog posts I'll be writing about what I saw and heard at the conference. Beginnings - No Messages After a witty and well delivered introduction to the day from the Chief Executive of Writing West Midlands , Jonathan Davidson , the opening keynote talk was delivered by the author Jim Crace . In an entertaining and heartfelt talk entitled No Messages Jim Crace spoke to what it means to be a writer and how the reality of it differs from many people's perceptions. He began by explaining how for Christmas one year at the age of 11 or 12 in about 1956 his father bought him a copy of the Everyman Roget's Thesaurus, a copy he stil...