The weekend brought a tale of public transport terror, flooding fiascos and a walk into the wilderness on my arrival here.

A wonderful first evening brought a meal that was possibly the best Spag Bol, a lady could ever ask for. For the fear of judgement, I daren’t ask for meatballs, a checkered tablecloth and Belle Notte be played in the background.

I attach the schedule of our stupendous stay.

Meeting the wonderful facilitator Joann from Young Critics in person was so lovely and felt immediately comfortable. The mentors DeAnn, Ian and Natasha were an array of helpful hints, tips and feedback. Natasha Tripney as our lead tutor has been so patient and constructive with our work it has felt miraculous to be given such a wonderful opportunity. We crafted a review of an all-female cast of Henry IV of which they all did Julius Caesar and The Tempest and during a one-to-one session I was called eloquent which may be my own personal highlight. I feel an ease in being given criticism now I have more confidence in my own abilities. I take that on and found that the positive comments with delight and felt as if the negativity (if there was any?) this was fed into a constructive way of improving my work.

DeAnn has been intrinsically psychic in her ability to understand my thoughts when they were incomprehensible in rationale and cohesion, but we managed it. A wonderful performative session of sharing review styles involving personas that we could inhabit to reflect on the censorship we pose on ourselves. This allowed us a safe space to say all those things about a performance under the guise of a different character. We came up with a lead sentence that encapsulated our entire review after discussing a gender-bending performance of The Taming of the Shrew and looking at our imposed reality that gender is a straightforward notion. We discussed the altered reality of a matriarchal society that skewed the balance of chasteness and beauty where male virginity was prized.

We then had lunch and met for a discussion with our guest speaker Gail Renard, originally from Montreal, Canada regaled us with her experiences as a writer, broadcaster and all-round friend to the celebrities. From her days of reporting on the bed-in with John Lennon and Yoko Ono at 16 and having to ask her mum for permission where that bloke from the Beatles personally phoned in and sold her first article to a magazine (Give Peace a chance), to her radio show, winning a BAFTA, working on Children’s TV, a show called Monty and Co., in comedy and writing for the Chuckle Brothers (To Me, to you. Sorry, I couldn’t resist) she was extremely well versed in several fields. I applause her many achievements and can only hope I will be half as successful.

Sunday brought a lie-in and a chilled couple of sessions to finish our weekend. DeAnn gave a session for wellbeing for our writing to help us get into a positive mindset and to ensure our negativity is focused in a different way for the most effective writing practices.

The weekend brought a tale of public transport terror, flooding fiascos and a walk into the wilderness on my arrival here.

A wonderful first evening brought a meal that was possibly the best Spag Bol, a lady could ever ask for. For the fear of judgement, I daren’t ask for meatballs, a checkered tablecloth and Belle Notte be played in the background.

I attach the schedule of our stupendous stay.

Meeting the wonderful facilitator Joann from Young Critics in person was so lovely and felt immediately comfortable. The mentors DeAnn, Ian and Natasha were an array of helpful hints, tips and feedback. Natasha Tripney as our lead tutor has been so patient and constructive with our work it has felt miraculous to be given such a wonderful opportunity. We crafted a review of an all-female cast of Henry IV of which they all did Julius Caesar and The Tempest and during a one-to-one session I was called eloquent which may be my own personal highlight. I feel an ease in being given criticism now I have more confidence in my own abilities. I take that on and found that the positive comments with delight and felt as if the negativity (if there was any?) this was fed into a constructive way of improving my work.

DeAnn has been intrinsically psychic in her ability to understand my thoughts when they were incomprehensible in rationale and cohesion, but we managed it. A wonderful performative session of sharing review styles involving personas that we could inhabit to reflect on the censorship we pose on ourselves. This allowed us a safe space to say all those things about a performance under the guise of a different character. We came up with a lead sentence that encapsulated our entire review after discussing a gender-bending performance of The Taming of the Shrew and looking at our imposed reality that gender is a straightforward notion. We discussed the altered reality of a matriarchal society that skewed the balance of chasteness and beauty where male virginity was prized.

We then had lunch and met for a discussion with our guest speaker Gail Renard, originally from Montreal, Canada regaled us with her experiences as a writer, broadcaster and all-round friend to the celebrities. From her days of reporting on the bed-in with John Lennon and Yoko Ono at 16 and having to ask her mum for permission where that bloke from the Beatles personally phoned in and sold her first article to a magazine (Give Peace a chance), to her radio show, winning a BAFTA, working on Children’s TV, a show called Monty and Co., in comedy and writing for the Chuckle Brothers (To Me, to you. Sorry, I couldn’t resist) she was extremely well versed in several fields. I applause her many achievements and can only hope I will be half as successful.

Sunday brought a lie-in and a chilled couple of sessions to finish our weekend. DeAnn gave a session for wellbeing for our writing to help us get into a positive mindset and to ensure our negativity is focused in a different way for the most effective writing practices.