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• WS131 Bilingual Books: The Arab of the Future: A Childhood in the Middle East, (L'Arabe du futur) 1978-1984: A Graphic Memoir

  • When
    13 Sep 2019
  •  
    2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
  • Location
    WICE, 10 rue Tiphaine, 75015 Paris: metro La Motte Picquet Grenelle
  • Spaces left
    12

  Riad Sattouf’s L'Arabe du futur is a graphic work that won the prestigious Fauve d’Or at the Angoulême Festival de la bande dessinée in 2015.

  This deeply personal account of his childhood, ranging from rural France to Libya and then Syria, is drawn in a simple yet confident and expressive style, and his observations of people and hypocrisy, cowardice and the absurd are finely textured.  The theme of cross-cultural alienation has been exhaustively explored in literature, yet Sattouf's take brims with life and dark humour. 

  ‘Exquisitely illustrated, and filled with experiences of misfortune bordering on the farcical, Mr. Sattouf’s book is a disquieting yet essential read.’ The New York Times 

  ‘L’Arabe du futur confirme la place de son auteur dans la bande dessinée contemporaine, aux côtés des autres « grands » de sa génération.’ Le Monde

  Registrations open Saturday 7 September

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• WS281 Writing Features for Fun and Profit (4 sessions)

  • Start
    28 Sep 2019
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  • End
    06 Oct 2019
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  • Schedule
    4 sessions
  • Location
    WICE, 10 rue Tiphaine, 75015 Paris: metro La Motte Piquet Grenelle
  • Spaces left
    6

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  A thriving market exists for features, including content for websites and blogs. This class begins by defining the important distinction between the feature article and "hard news", and explores how to find viable ideas for articles. We will then cover several aspects of feature-writing, focusing on the vital lead paragraph (hooks, angles, and grabbing  the reader's attention), structure, and narrative techniques that can enrich the article. Finally we examine a range of research resources and ways to market the feature.
  

  About the Instructor: Alecia McKenzie is an award-winning writer and journalist based in Paris. She holds an MSc from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and worked at The Wall Street Journal/Europe.  She is the founder and editor of the arts-news site SWAN. Alongside writing books, she has written articles for a news agency and international magazines.

  
  

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• WO111 Bilingual Books: The Road Home (La route du retour)

  • When
    11 Oct 2019
  •  
    2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
  • Location
    WICE, 10 rue Tiphaine, 75015 Paris: metro La Motte Picquet Grenelle
  • Spaces left
    12

  Jim Harrison deploys humour, humanity and the evocation of the American spirit in an epic that spans three generations of a Nebraska family starting from the end of the nineteenth century - a tale that recounts the strength and fragility of family bonds and existence, happiness and healing.  

  ‘La Route du retour est un pur chef-d'œuvre. Ambitieux, foudroyant.’ L’Express

  ‘A graceful novel...To read this book is to feel the luminosity of nature in one's own being.’  The New York Times

  You may read the book in your language of choice. Discussions are in both French and English. Registrations open Saturday 14 September
  

  
  

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• WO231 Novel Writing: Back to the Basics (4 sessions)

  • Start
    23 Oct 2019
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  • End
    20 Nov 2019
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  • Schedule
    4 sessions
  • Location
    WICE, 10 rue Tiphaine, 75015 Paris: metro La Motte Piquet Grenelle
  • Spaces left
    6

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  This class explores the basic ingredients of the novel: character, plot, setting, point of view, theme. Over four weeks we will review the core techniques of novel-writing and examine excerpts from established writers to see what works and what doesn't. You will be encouraged to consider how these techniques apply to your own writing. Wherever you are in your writing, the course will help you achieve a new nevel in the long path from idea to print.

  About the Instructor: Gretel Furner is one of our most popular instructors. She grew up in England and was educated at Oxford University. She obtained a PhD in the modern novel at the University of the Saarland, Germany. Gretel has been Associate Professor at George Washington University, and instructor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.  She lives between London and Paris, and since 2003 has been an instructor at WICE in French Literature and History, the Migrant Soul series and Creative Writing.

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• WN071 Writing Poetry: Craft and Inspiration (6 sessions)

  • Start
    07 Nov 2019
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  • End
    19 Dec 2019
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  • Schedule
    6 sessions
  • Location
    WICE, 10 rue Tiphaine, 75015 Paris: metro La Motte Piquet Grenelle
  • Spaces left
    7

  Register

  A poet needs both something to write about and skill in writing. We will focus on these two themes so important in strong poetry - mastering elements of craft and finding inspiration. Each week we will do some writing in class and a homework task will be set so that we can share what we've written the following week. Teaching will cover how to write stronger poetry and where to find sources of inspiration.  

  All levels of experience welcome.

  About the Instructor: David Barnes is a British poet who has run a weekly writers' workshop at Shakespeare & Company and an open mike poetry night every Monday (SpokenWord Paris) for a decade. He is the Editor in Chief of The  Bastille, the literary magazine of SpokenWord Paris. His poetry has been published in a number of magazines. He was the co-editor of Strangers in Paris - New Writing Inspired by the City of Light (2011, Tightrope Books) which included work by such writers as Alice Notley, Jorie Graham and John Berger. He has previously taught classes for WICE in short fiction, travel writing and turning life into fiction.

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• WN151 Bilingual Books: Notre-Dame du Nil (Our Lady of the Nile: A Novel)

  • When
    15 Nov 2019
  •  
    2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
  • Location
    WICE, 10 rue Tiphaine, 75015 Paris: metro La Motte Picquet Grenelle
  • Spaces left
    12

  Born in Rwanda, Scholastique Mukasonga moved to France in 1992, two years before the genocide in her home country.  Her lavishly-praised debut novel, Notre-Dame du Nil, uses the context of an all-girls lycée near the source of the Nile to portray preconceptions and attitudes in 1970s Rwanda.  

  Parents send their daughters to the school hoping they will be moulded into respectable citizens and to escape the dangers of the outside world. Yet the lycée itself is a microcosm of the country’s own  mounting racial tensions and violence; behind its closed doors unfolds friendship, curiosity, fear, deceit, prejudice, and persecution. 

  Notre-Dame du Nil was awarded the 2012 Prix Renaudot, the 2012 Prix Ahmadou Kourouma, the 2013 Prix Océans and in 2014 was named a Best Book by Publisher’s Weekly.

  ‘[Mukasonga] helps readers without experience of the setting become immersed at once, feeling out the tribal tensions without being overburdened with exposition.  This is a moving, nuanced portrait of fear and survival.’ Publishers Weekly

  ‘D'une écriture âpre et tendue, Notre-Dame du Nil dépeint une société qui chemine inexorablement vers l'horreur .... Poignant et implacable.’  Le Monde

  You may read the book in your language of choice. Discussions are in both French and English. Registrations open Saturday 12 October.

  Photo Credit: Scholastique Mukasonga

  
  

  
  

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• WD131 Bilingual Books: Les Liaisons dangereuses (Dangerous Liaisons)

  • When
    13 Dec 2019
  •  
    2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
  • Location
    WICE, 10 rue Tiphaine, 75015 Paris: metro La Motte Picquet Grenelle
  • Spaces left
    12

  Published seven years before the French Revolution, Pierre Choderlos de Laclos' Les Liaisons dangereuses is often lauded as the ultimate epistolary novel.  This disturbing and damning portrayal of moral and emotional depravity in the ancien régime is told through a criss-cross of letters between members of the nobility.  It earned de Laclos a place as one of the most subtle and skilful writers of his era, as well as a ban in France from 1815 until 1875, while the Vatican placed it on its Index Librorum Prohibitorum until 1966. 

  Today, the themes of egotism, manipulation, superiority, score-settling and the struggle for power resonate as powerfully as nearly two and a half centuries ago.  The novel found a broader public in 1988 with Christopher Hampton's acclaimed movie adaption, which won three Oscars.

  '[Les Liaisons dangereuses] implicates a whole society so founded on falsehood that a single act of emotional truth is tantamount to an act of subversion.’  The New York Review of Books 

  ‘On peut désormais tout savoir des Liaisons sans avoir lu le roman.  Mais on peut aussi le lire : après tout, c’est l’un des plus grands livres qui soient.’ Catriona Seth.

  You may read the book in your language of choice. Discussions are in both French and English. Registration opens Saturday 16 November.

  
  

  
  

  
  

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