What's Your Story? with Reece Goldstein

What's Your Story? is a creative writing course for adults which consists of 24 weekly 2 hour sessions. During this course, the participants have been learning about various aspects of creative writing including prose, poetry, spoken word performance, short stories and script writing.

The previous What's Your Story? project has focused on working with group who suffer mental health, stroke survivors and refugees. The current course is aimed to work with unemployment adults, an issue I can strongly relate to having faced the realities and struggles many go through in life without work. Unemployment affects approximately 3 million people in the UK alone, a country still facing recovery from a recent economic crisis.

The class originally consisted of 22 people who I am proud to know. Over time, each participant has demonstrated their true character, revealing their individualities with growing confidence during the process of the course. Some have previously engaged in some form of creative writing or performing arts i.e. poetry, short stories, drama etc and others have or wish to participate in literature as an art form.

The group has been very considerate and respectful towards one another as well as towards me in the duty of facilitating the sessions. Despite the fact that some may not feel like them usual selves on occasions, due to various reasons, the group as a whole have seemed to be very keen and willing to engage in the activities. The group have a very positive attitude towards the course and the people around them.

Attendance of the participants has had a variation of positive and negative statistics. Due to the nature of courses in general, the numbers have diminished to a smaller portion of attendees, though this has linked to various reasons including personal commitments, health issues, finding work and simply a lack of money to cover travel costs. Some of the class members can only find it possible to attend on occasions, because of their commitments on the day, and some are available to attend on a weekly basis but sometimes have to leave early.

Each tutor contributed interesting sessions each tailored to their given subjects, being professionals in the creative industry themselves. Sarah MacLennan taught prose, Mandy Coe taught poetry, Curtis Watt taught spoken word performance and Maurice Bessman taught script writing.

Sarah gained an interest in poetry at just 8 years old, where she was exposed to creative writing through myths and poetry with her grandparents. She now works as a lecturer in creative writing at John Moores University and the Open University. On top of this, she runs the Dead Good Poets Society, a local open floor poetry event where I first had the pleasure to meet Sarah in my late teens once I started writing poetry myself. I've always know Sarah to be very honest, friendly, laid back and supportive with myself and others in their work. She is very talented as a writer herself, though this ceases to diminish her attention to detail, giving very constructive feedback and assistance to all. If you were to follow any writer that Sarah has worked with, you would see the a distinctive amount of progress and knowledge they have gained. I am grateful for the confidence and maturity in both my writing and performance that I have gained from Sarah and would highly recommend her as a tutor for any creative writer.

Mandy Coe is a prize winning poet and author of 6 books. She has a high reputation in children's poetry, running workshops in various communities and age ranges. Mandy added a positive contribution to the group with her uplifting attitude, equal approach and welcoming personality. Though Mandy is more renowned for her work with children, she did a great job running a class for a mature age group and ensured everyone was involved in the actives. Despite only teaching two sessions, it was amazing to witness her flexibility in teaching and her poetic flare and influence with the people in the group.

Curtis Watt is a Liverpool based artist who engages in many art forms including performance poetry, rapping, beat boxing, music and acting. Reputed as one of Liverpool's most versatile artists, Curtis has worked internationally on both stage and screen as well as running a variety of creative workshops across the country. Curtis took a dynamic approach to his sessions with the class, providing a very enjoyable experience with the group. His sessions ran more like a workshop than a lesson or lecture, presenting props and instruments in order to inspire the group in finding their unique performance delivery. He taught the group the principles of delivering rhythm and acting in performance/slam poetry, and how to build structure on using these elements in spoken word. He demonstrated an enthusiastic and charismatic attitude towards his work with the group who all wrote and recited their own piece of spoken word poetry. Although most of the group were used to more traditional forms of literature, they enjoyed working with Curtis and working out of their comfort zone.

Maurice Bessman is a script writer who has worked in TV for more than a decade. He has previously written episodes for many British television shows including Hollyoaks, Brookside and Holby City. Maurice took a more formal approach to the class, delivering a series of lectures using clips from films and TV shows to demonstrate examples for his subjects. Maurice presented a knowledgeable analysis of his topics, focusing on characters, story lines and the criteria stories need to create a novel, play, film or TV show. Maurice has always given intelligent detail to his topics when teaching the class, always keeping them interested with his approach. Since Maurice's time teaching, pretty much every member in the class has started their own ideas for a script, even the writers that didn't originally work on stories have been making a keen effort on their script. Maurice has been very helpful to the class as individuals, offering constructive feedback to everyone's script ideas.

Overall, I believe the course has been a great success. The class have started their projects and seem to be making great progress, all taking in a lot from each lesson. They began as strangers and have evolved to friends. It's clear that they are thoroughly enjoying the course with their attitudes towards the work. One student is also in the middle of getting their first published book. It's been a great privilege meeting and working with the class and tutors as a whole. I've enjoyed working with the writers and wish them all the best in future. I'm looking forward to seeing their published work and seeing all their hard work pay off.

Reece Goldstein