Join Pushkin House for a workshop with acclaimed memoirist and the Sunday Times bestselling author of Write It All Down (2022) Cathy Rentzenbrink. The workshop will build on Rentzenbrink’s latest book which offers a wise and practical toolkit for new and seasoned writers. Its aim is simple: to get you writing and help you overcome some of the typical psychological obstacles to expressing yourself freely on a page and enjoying the end result.
With the act of writing typically being a solitary activity accompanied by spells of self-doubt and angst over the process, it is important for writers to equip themselves with hands-on techniques, motivation and heaps of humour in order to share their story. This is exactly what this book is about. We look forward to welcoming Cathy for this workshop full of practical advice, anecdotes and wisdom that will introduce some of the author’s own trusted tips and tricks to unleashing one’s creativity as a writer.
And if you are still in doubt, here is a candid excerpt from the book that testifies to the fact that moments of hesitation and anxiety are common for all of us:
It is pointless to worry whether the work is any good or whether you are any good. It’s all about learning to tolerate the gap between our aspiration for the finished thing and the current dog’s breakfast that we see before us. With each of my five books I wasted aeons of time fretting about whether it was rubbish and I was useless and would everyone laugh at me and had I bitten off more than I could chew, and why did I not have a proper job with holidays and a pension where I would have colleagues and could enjoy water-cooler moments and wouldn’t feel so terribly and horrendously alone.
This event is organised as part of Pushkin Book Weeks – a series of events dedicated to Russian culture and its translation as well as to wider literary and cultural debate and learning.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Cathy Rentzenbrink is an acclaimed memoirist whose books include The Last Act of Love and Dear Reader. In 2021 she published her first novel Everyone is Still Alive. Her book about how to write a memoir is called Write It All Down and is out now. Cathy regularly chairs literary events, interviews authors, reviews books, runs creative writing courses and speaks and writes on life, death, love, and literature. Despite being shortlisted for various prizes, the only thing Cathy has ever won is the Snaith and District Ladies’ Darts Championship when she was 17. She is now sadly out of practice.