Masterclass on Light and Shade: using heart and humour to explore the darker matters of life
Presented as part of The Writer’s Process writers’ development program
When award-winning writer and journalist was four years old, his mother told him he was an alien sent here from ‘that big night sky by beings unknown to report back on what he sees.’
Rick took this mission to heart with the creation of his debut memoir, One Hundred Years of Dirt, which scooped up awards and short-listings, and was compared to George Orwell for its gritty portrayal of working-class deprivation and inequality. Rick’s voice is that enviable mix of abrasive yet compassionate, ironic yet tender, flinty yet humourous.
In this intimate online masterclass with Rick Morton, you will learn how to position yourself as an alien observer, and to bring nuance and humour to the story you would most like to tell.
You will also discover the power of writing to enable you to find the words through which you can move more easily into the future, ‘beyond the telling’ of the story. As Rick comments, ‘the soft power of human inquiry is a mighty thing.’
This course will be taught by Zoom over a ten-week period, in two-hour blocks from 10am - 12pm* on Tuesdays or Wednesdays. The course will commence in the week of 28 March, 2022.
Each class will consist of discussion of the set texts (to be posted on our WetInk platform) and workshopping exercises, set in response to the group’s interests and questions.
The course will also feature a one-hour online Q&A session with Sorrow and Bliss author Meg Mason.
There will be up to eight participants in this course.
Program outline:
1. You Do Not Have to Be a Comedian (or Even Funny)
2. Finding Your Voice
3. Simile and Metaphor
4. Love Your Characters
5. Change Perspective with Poetry
6. The Brain
7. Humour as Observation (and Keeping a Journal)
8. Q&A with Meg Mason, author of Sorrow and Bliss
9. Writing About Other Peoples’ Pain
10. The Necessity of Doubt
How to Apply
Entry to this course is by application. Writers will be selected based on the creative potential of their work, commitment to craft, openness to collaborating with your peers, and the balance in the group.
Course fees are $1495, or $1345 for Varuna alumni. Payment terms are negotiable if you cannot pay the whole fee upfront. Feel free to call 02 4782 5674 or email amy@varuna.com.au to discuss your application.
Applications close 1 March.
*Please let us know if you’re interested in this program but the time of the sessions doesn’t work for you. It may be possible to offer a similar program later in the year.
Rick Morton
Photo credit: Perry Duffin
About Rick
Rick Morton’s debut memoir, One Hundred Years of Dirt (MUP, 2018) became a national bestseller and was shortlisted for the National Biography Award 2019, highly commended in the 2019 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards and longlisted for the 2018 Walkley Book of the Year, both Biography Book of the Year and the Matt Richell Award for New Writer of the Year in the 2019 ABIA Awards. He is also the author of On Money (Hachette, 2020) and his latest, My Year of Living Vulnerably (4th Estate, 2021).
Rick is also an award-winning journalist and is senior reporter at The Saturday Paper where he covers social policy, national affairs and science.
Meg Mason
Photo: Grant Sparkes-Carroll
About Meg
Meg Mason began her career at the Financial Times and The Times of London. Her first book, a memoir of motherhood, Say It Again in a Nice Voice (HarperCollins) was published in 2012.
Meg is also the author of two novels: You Be Mother (HarperCollins, 2017), and most recently, the instant Sunday Times bestseller, Sorrow and Bliss (HarperCollins, 2020).