Start Date
30 January, 2024
There will be 8 weekly meetings on Tuesday, 11am - 1pm, starting from 30 January.
Overview
Family is the theme which links this diverse selection of contemporary writing by Australian, British, Irish and American writers. Pip Williams’s The Dictionary of Lost Words explores ideas of power, language and gender through the story of a lexicographer’s daughter in the early 20th century. Sexual exploitation, criminality and the law are key concerns of Kate Atkinson’s densely plotted novel, Shrines of Gaiety. Set in 1920s Soho, club owner, Nellie Coker, has ambitions beyond the ordinary for her 6 children. Claire Keegan’s Foster presents a child whose life seems to open out when she finds herself in a new family; and in Small Things Like These, a man’s discovery of a child will transform his own family’s life. Elizabeth Strout’s Lucy Barton stories present compelling narratives of her writer heroine’s past and present. We shall discus Anything is Possible where Lucy returns to her rural home town of Amgash, and Oh William!, where the focus is Lucy’s first husband and their daughters.
Week 1 Introduction to texts and themes. Opening of Pip Williams, The Dictionary of Lost Words
Week 2 Pip Williams, The Dictionary of Lost Words
Week 3 Kate Atkinson, Shrines of Gaiety
Week 4 Kate Atkinson, Shrines of Gaiety
Week 5 Claire Keegan, Foster
Week 6 Claire Keegan, Small Things Like These
Week 7 Elizabeth Strout, Anything is Possible
Week 8 Elizabeth Strout, Oh William!
Please note that the ‘last date available to book’ date is only a guide. We reserve the right to close bookings earlier if courses are over- or under-subscribed. In order to avoid disappointment, please be sure enrol as soon as possible. Registrations will not be processed until the following day if received after 3pm.
Course Lecturer: Dr Shirley Jones
At Continuing Education, I currently run courses on contemporary women's writing, nineteenth-century writing, and the thematic strand, The Monthly Novel. Previously I have also taught courses on classic authors, such as Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins, and Dorothy Wordsworth. My Ph.D was a study of the Victorian writer, Margaret Oliphant. Outside of Continuing Education, I am a member of a writers' group and I run community writing workshops at the V G & M and the Lowlands centre in West Derby.
Courses fees: Full fee £120/Concession £60.
Back to: Continuing Education