This Creative Writing workshop will focus on the new and exciting speculative fiction genre. The first part of this workshop will present it to the attendees, reviewing some of its most famous authors such as Philip K Dick, A S Byatt, José Luis Borges and Hilary Mantel. We’ll work with two different short stories: The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher by Hilary Mantel and Theme of the Traitor and the Hero by José Luis Borges. There will be an open discussion about these texts where we’ll talk about the possibilities of the speculative fiction genre.

In the second part of the workshop, the attendees will be encouraged to remember and narrate recent historical events from the 20^th century – these can be events that they may have not experienced by themselves but that they have heard about in stories told to them by family members or people they’ve known. Once we have examined those stories, we’ll discuss different narrative techniques to create literary pieces inspired by these memories. These can take the form of a poem, a short story or a chapter from a longer narrative. Above all, attendees will be invited to reflect on history through fiction by conceiving a space where they can creatively explore historical events from the 20^th century.

To sign up for this workshop email ines.gregorilabarta@plymouth.ac.uk .

More about the Facilitators:

Inés Gregori Labarta

Inés G. Labarta is a writer currently living in the southwest of England. She has published a collection of middle-grade novels – Los Pentasónicos (Edebé, 2008-2010) and two novellas – McTavish Manor (Holland House, 2016) and Kabuki (Dairea, 2017). Her forthcoming novel, The Three Lives of Saint Ciarán, (Blackwater Press, 2023) was described by Toby Litt as ‘exciting and provocative’. Her short stories have won awards like the Autonomous University of Madrid Short Story Prize, and have been published in places such as Extra Teeth, Toasted Cheese Literary Journal, Oranges Journal and the Lancashire Short Stories anthology. She has an MA and PhD in Creative Writing from Lancaster University. She’s lectured at several universities such as the University of Lancaster, the University of Central Lancashire and the University of Wolverhampton. She is a Creative Writing lecturer at the University of Plymouth where she specialises in speculative fiction and the novella form.

Angela K Smith

Angela K. Smith is a writer and a Professor of Modern Literature at the University of Plymouth. She’s the author of three monographs about the role of women in the First World War, and editor of several more. She lives in Devon. Her first novel, The Solace of the Common People, was published in 2022.