Graham H. Roberts has taken part in two creative writing courses here at Tŷ Newydd, firstly in 2023, and subsequently in 2024, read on to find out more about the experience…

“I didn’t learn how to write at Tŷ Newydd.

But then, I’m not sure that’s the reason I went there in the first place. And I don’t think that explains – at least not entirely – why I keep going back.

I’m a late-middle-aged academic based in the humanities. So I’ve done a far bit of writing over the years. It’s been my bread and butter, you might say, for three and a half decades. But as retirement approaches, I’ve developed a taste for a rather different kind of dish. For years now I’ve longed to write something a little more personal than your bog-standard scholarly article. More subjective. More emotionally satisfying (both for me and for the reader). More sincere, you might say.

More me.

Fortunately, I already have my subject matter. In October 1939 my maternal grandfather bludgeoned my grandmother half to death before throwing himself in front of a train. My mum was 17 at the time, her youngest sibling still at primary school.

But deciding what I want to write about is the easy bit; knowing how to put that story into words has proved an altogether different kettle of fish.

Which brings me to Tŷ Newydd.

Because as we all know, writing is about so much more than merely putting words down on a page. It involves an endless series of decisions about form and content. By all accounts, Flaubert would sometimes spend hours agonising over every sentence in Madame Bovary in his obsessive search for the mot juste. But by that stage, he already knew what kind of book he wanted to write – a scandalous, psychologically realist novel about marital infidelity. He’d made many other important choices too, about such things as plot structure, narrative voice and tone, and point of view. Which makes good old Gustave streets ahead of me.

I’ve been on two courses now at Tŷ Newydd. The first, in October 2023, was Crime Writing with a Twist. The workshops were run by tutors Katherine Stansfield (a writer of, among many other things, highly engaging fantasy crime) and Alis Hawkins (a founding member of the Welsh crime writers’ collective, Crime Cymru). There was also an online seminar with Vaseem Khan. Author of the hugely entertaining The Unexpected Inheritance of Inspector Chopra, he offered invaluable advice on, among other things, plotting and pace.

My second course, in autumn 2024, was Nature and Memoir Writing. The course tutor this time was Anita Sethi, author of I Belong Here. This memoir describes a hike across the Pennines Anita embarked on in response to racist abuse she had suffered on a journey between Newcastle and Liverpool. One day Anita accompanied us all on a lovely walk along the banks of the river Dwyfor that runs past Tŷ Newydd. Our path took us past Jan Morris’ old house – an unexpected treat, and a real thrill for me as I was reading Morris’s monumental Wales at the time. On the Wednesday we had a truly inspiring online seminar with the wonderful Cathy Rentzenbrink, author of Write it All Down, a must-read for all aspiring memoir writers.

You mightn’t think these two courses have very much in common. But each in its own way has helped me gain the confidence I need to tell my grandparents’ story. Indeed, I’ve been so inspired at Tŷ Newydd, I’ve signed up for another course this December. This time it’ll be taught online. Entitled Autofiction: Taking Inspiration from Within, it will be run by Meena Kandasamy, author of When I Hit You, which was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2018. I can’t wait.

So no, I didn’t learn to write at Tŷ Newydd. I’ve learnt so much more than that – about writing, the writing process and the writing life. And I’m sure you will too.”