Philip Gross Seminar 2023: Environmental Concern & Place
Intimate monthly seminars with Philip Gross.
* This Seminar will take place on the video-conferencing platform, ZOOM *
A regular monthly workshop group for writers who want to push at the edges and find out where else their work might go. Finding our own voice can mean trying on many others, as well as writing in response or in collaboration.
This group will take a special interest in the ways we can listen to each other’s poems – to what they are and what they might be – and what we can do for each other in a workshop group. Come with your experiences of workshops, helpful and unhelpful, and/or convening them yourself. We will explore how a group can balance trust and challenge, space and close engagement, in building a group culture to help each of us become become ourselves, alongside each other. In particular we will ask how working online can widen our options, without losing the closeness of a face-to-face group.
Entry into this group is by application only. If you would like to sign up, please email [email protected] for information and we will assist you in the application process.
Do not book online before applying.
8 x monthly sessions between October and May. Classes will run Tuesday 5.30–8:30pm on the below dates.
3-Oct
7-Nov
5-Dec
9-Jan
6-Feb
5-Mar
2-Apr
7-May
More information about how all our seminars work can be found on the Seminars Course Page.
Image credit: Erol Ahmed
About Philip Gross 
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Philip Gross was born in Cornwall, son of an Estonian wartime refugee; he has lived in Plymouth, Bristol, and, latterly, South Wales, where he was Professor of Creative Writing at the University of South Wales. His recent collection Between the Islands (2020) follows ten previous books with Bloodaxe, including A Bright Acoustic (2017), Love Songs of Carbon (2015), winner of the Roland Mathias Poetry Award (Wales Book of the Year), Later (2013), Deep Field (2011), a Poetry Book Society Recommendation, The Water Table (2009), winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize, The Egg of Zero (2006), Mappa Mundi (2003) and Changes of Address: Poems 1980-1998, his selection from earlier books including The Wasting Game. His collaborative books include I Spy Pinhole Eye (Cinnamon, 2009), with photographer Simon Denison, which won the Wales Book of the Year Award 2010, A Fold In the River (Seren, 2015) with visual artist Valerie Coffin Price, A Part of the Main (Mulfran, 2019) with poet Lesley Saunders, and Troeon/Turnings (Seren, 2021) with Welsh-language bardd Cyril Jones. He won a Cholmondeley Award in 2017.
‘Philip is undoubtedly the finest facilitator I have ever encountered. The group is usually quite diverse which brings variety and interest, and Philip is excellent at ensuring everyone is included and has a voice and diverse opinions are also encouraged and celebrated. I really appreciate Philip’s way of posing questions about a piece of writing; he is never pedantic, but is able to promote creative thinking. When the group is finished I feel quite bereft! It is a great privilege to take part in the group!’
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