BLANK-SHIFT
CREATIVE WRITERS

Absolutely! Blank-Shift is a natural home for creative writers’ of all abilities and all levels of experience. As long as you are keen to use your imagination, and to develop your skills, we will challenge you at whatever stage you are at.

Yes. Blank-Shift is created to focus on the individual, and the groups are kept to small numbers, so that each writer receives lots of bespoke attention. Group activities are balanced with individual projects, with opportunities for all participants to submit their own work to the director, and to receive detailed and regular feedback.

We’ll be exploring everything! A season will often include explorations of poetry, prose, play-writing, screen-writing, writing for radio, film and literature analysis. We examine writing throughout history, right through to some of the most interesting contemporary writers.

People join Blank-Shift for many different reasons, but each year we are proud to celebrate several senior members graduating to some of UK’s top Creative Writing University courses. Blank-Shift is proud of alumni who are now successful playwrights, screen-writers, poets and storytellers. 

Yes. We regularly host ‘scratch night’ events, where actors are brought in to workshop your material, and to share with audiences. Blank-Shift writers are also regular collaborators on new plays, commissioned by Playbox Theatre. Most recently, Blank-Shift writers worked on Gretel for Christmas 2020, and are in early preparations for a new adaptation of The Ancient Mariner for a major production in 2022. Blank-Shift recently completely an entirely new audio work, Midnight In Raisin Town, which is due to be recorded and released shortly.

There isn’t a typical workshop! We’ll usually begin with warm up, physical, activities, to ensure everyone is energised and ready to work, before moving on to discuss the meat of the session, our writing stimuli, we’ll have group discussions and debates, we’ll create stories, explore writing exercises, brainstorming, generation of ideas, development of work, review of our material…and so much more.

We rarely set ‘homework’ but writers are always welcome to continue their own, personal, projects and to submit material for feedback from the director. Occasionally there will be a stimulus to consider in advance of the next workshop, but the primary focus for the work takes place during the sessions being attended.