Writing Sonnets with Fay Roberts

Website: https://sonnetswithfay.eventbrite.co.uk

Been thinking about learning how to write sonnets but think it’s too difficult or too late for you? Let Fay Roberts, one of the 28 Sonnets Later Challengers and experienced, encouraging creative writing tutor and workshop facilitator, show you how to disentangle your iambs from your trochees and get rhyming like Shakespeare. (Or Petrarch, if that’s more your bag…)

Sonnets are only one of many forms of strictly metered verse, but one of the ones that still sticks in people’s heads as “proper” poetry. If you fancy getting to grips with this, the techniques learned in this friendly, accessible online workshop will help open up other vistas of formal poetry for you to explore.

Learn about the iambic pentameter rhythm, and the different ways you can rhyme the lines of this surprisingly versatile form. You’ll need something to write with (pen and paper, virtual notepad, stone slab – whatever strikes your fancy), the capacity to tap out rhythms, and the willingness to learn together. Automatic subtitles will be provided; please let the tutor know if you have any other accessibility needs in advance, and we will do our best to accommodate them.

Reserve a free space today and pay what you can afford at the workshop itself.

General introduction and workshop guidelines
Aims & Objectives
Introduction to iambs (or: how to feel footsteps)
Exercise: Writing iambic lines
Discussion: Rhyming the ends
Break
What’s a sonnet?
Shakespeare vs. Petrarch (exploration of standard patterns)
Exercise: Write a sonnet (or even just a stanza)!
Round-up
End

About the tutor

Fay Roberts is a British, nonbinary, disabled voice actor, writer, musician, and data manager. There’s a spreadsheet for literally everything (yes, including writing poetry!), and a lot of geekery to be had. Ze has been writing sonnets since 2013, and knows exactly what it’s like to go, as an adult learner, from fumbling terror at the rules to reliably being able to breezily hack one out in under an hour, and aims to help you do the same.

Zir first full collection, which ze describes as a kind of “illustrated poetry concept album”, Spectral, came out with Burning Eye in March 2022. After getting into writing historical fanfic in a big way just before the Pandemic, ze has recently started writing original fiction again, including short stories, scripts, and the inevitable Unfinished Novel, as well as dabbling with creative non-fiction. https://www.fayroberts.co.uk

Entry: free entry, pay what you feel later

Time: 2:30pm (arrive up to 10 minutes beforehand)