You’ve heard it said, either in a book club or book review, ‘the landscape was like another character’. How does a writer create this sense of depth and complexity when it comes to place-telling?
You’ll consider how the careful and strategic layering of the medium creates a unique rendering of time and place. You’ll learn to play with texture, composition, style, themes, scale, context, depth, tones, light and shade to enhance your writing.
This workshop provide the opportunity to begin (or continue) a piece of writing about a significant place. There will be a mix of readings, exercises and discussion, as well as peer feedback.
You will learn:
How research enhances place writing
How to place metaphors that don’t feel like clichés
How to use all five senses to create authentic places
About the tutor:
Claire Van Ryn hails from Launceston and is an awarded writer, journalist and author whose work explores universal themes of connection, compassion, trauma and healing. Her writing always includes a deep affinity with various landscapes. Her debut novel, The Secrets of the Huon Wren, was a bestseller and was named in the Better Reading Top 100 Books for 2024. It is set beneath the Great Western Tiers in Tasmania’s heartland where Claire was born and where generations of her mother’s family line have lived since the 1830s. Claire’s second novel, Where The Birds Call Her Name, was published in March 2025, and explores Australia’s diverse landscape with a particular focus on family secrets, taxidermy and the seaside township of Stanley.
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