Footnotes: Walking and Writing Workshop (Urban) – With Craig Jordan-Baker

Part of New Writing South’s Summer of Writing.

‘When I rest my feet, my mind also ceases to function.’- J.G. Harmann

Writing is a way of thinking, and so is walking. This urban walk is about engaging with our immediate environment and deepening that engagement, in terms of both our senses and the many ways language and story ‘open up’ space. There will be the opportunity to try some foraging treats and along the way we will bump into facts, stories and suggestions about the city’s flora and fauna. We will also learn about Brighton’s hidden river, the Wellesbourne, which flows under the walk’s route. 

Exercises will focus on using the knowledge and suggestions gained to write our own ‘Brighton’ through different senses. There will be the opportunity to ask questions, share work and through extracts and consider the ‘Brightons’ of novelists Ann Quin and Helen Zahavi. The walk is suitable for writers of all levels of experience and aims to give participants a new and vibrant ‘sense of place’.

Accessibility and Information about the Route

The walk will begin in Brighton Museum Education Room. The first part of the walk will take in the Royal Pavilion Gardens and after a small break, the second part of the walk will take us through Victoria Gardens, up to St Peter’s Church. The walk will finish back outside Brighton Museum. 

There will be toilet facilities within easy reach at the start and during the first part of the walk, as well as at the end of the walk. The walk itself will be on flat and paved surfaces, with some small undulations and short grass. The walk should be considered wheelchair accessible, but please contact the event organiser if you have any concerns. While the walk is focussed on the senses and their use, it is suitable to anyone with sensory impairment as excises are designed not to centre around one sense, but multiple. 

Some refreshments will be supplied by New Writing South at the beginning and end of the walk.

About the tutor

Craig Jordan-Baker is a working-class writer with an interest in language, natural history and psychogeography. He studied Creative Writing before going on to obtain a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Sussex. His first novel The Nacullians is a non-linear narrative focussing on the lives of three-generations of a working-class Anglo-Irish family which the Irish Times called, ‘a multi-layered treatise on memory and the stories we tell ourselves’. His second book If the River is Hidden is a non-fiction collaboration with Irish poet Cherry Smyth about their 2021 pilgrimage along the Bann, Northern Ireland’s longest river. It was the Republic of Consciousness Prize book of the month in February 2023 and will feature prominently in this years’ Belfast Book Festival, Skibbereen Arts Festival and the Southbank Centre’s Irish poetry showcase. Craig is currently a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Brighton and regularly runs writing and foraging walks for a variety of organisations. 

Bursary places

We believe the price of our courses should never be a barrier to your learning. We offer a no-questions-asked half price ticket to anyone who is unable to pay full price for this course (£15 rather than £30). If price remains a barrier, please contact us to apply for a bursary place.

Bookings for this event will open soon. To express interest or request more information contact liam@newwritingsouth.com.