Drumroll please! Our 2017 course programme is now live. After months of endless emailing, phoning and posting letters (we didn’t have to use Owls this year), we’re bursting with excitement and can’t wait for you all to see what’s in store at Tŷ Newydd for 2017.

The programme offers day, weekend and week-long courses and retreats suitable for beginners and more experienced writers both in English and Welsh. Inspired by the Government’s announcement that 2017 is the ‘Year of Legends’ in Wales, the courses will focus on ancient literature in the landscape, re-imagining familiar folktales and experimenting with the magic of words.

In partnership with Beyond the Border, Daniel Morden and Hugh Lupton will encourage beginners to take up the craft of storytelling; and the ever-popular Storytelling Retreat will return to explore some of the world’s strangest and most beautiful traditional fairy tales. Former Young People’s Laureate of Wales, Catherine Fisher, will be joined by Kevin Crossley-Holland to tutor a course on myths and folktales in literature for Young Audiences; and Jay Griffiths and Angharad Wynne will combine walking the mythically and archaeologically rich landscapes of Snowdonia and the Llŷn Peninsula with creative writing about place.

The magic will continue on the fiction courses with the enchanting Mavis Cheek returning to co-tutor with Francesca Rhydderch; Niall Griffiths pairing with Julia Bell; and Cardiff based writers Kate Hamer, the author of The Girl in the Red Coat (Faber & Faber), and Holly Müller leading a course on writing a novel from beginning to end. Crossing from the realm of fiction to fact, Horatio Clare and Jon Gower will tutor a course entitled Dazzling Non-fiction: Making the Most of the Real; and literary journalists Arifa Akbar and Alex Clark will give guidance on editing and publishing life stories.

Poetry headliners Gillian Clarke, Carol Ann Duffy and Maura Dooley will return with two exclusive Masterclasses in 2017 for committed poets. Poetry courses in 2017 also include award-winning poets George Szirtes and Deryn Rees-Jones; Pascale Petit and Karen McCarthy Woolf; the Guardian First Book Award winner Andrew McMillan and Helen Mort; spoken word artists Will Burns and Hollie McNish; and Annie Freud and Pamela Robertson-Pearce will combine the practice of visual art with words.

Literature Wales’ Writing for Health and Wellbeing project will continue with courses on Yoga and Writing, Poetry and Dementia and Writing and Mindfulness to offer a range of therapeutic writing approaches through the interactive use of poetry, prose and guided meditation. If you’re a Welsh-learner, the programme includes a Creative Writing for Welsh-learners course, and many of the courses feature a Welsh-speaking tutor who will be able to discuss your work-in-progress.

The list of guest readers is once more made up literary giants including A.L.Kennedy; poet and broadcaster Ian McMillan; Tessa Hadley; Patrick Gale; performance poet Luke Wright, and poet Imtiaz Dharker. Yet more will be confirmed during the year.

To celebrate the announcement of the 2017 course programme, Literature Wales is offering a discount of 10% off residential courses until midnight on 31 January 2017 with the code TN2017.

Click here to see all the courses on our website, but do get in touch should you prefer a hard copy in the post.

We hope to see you soon at Tŷ Newydd; the perfect place to start your story.