Here & Elsewhere: Place Writing

Workshop with Paul Scraton and Marcel Krueger

© Joseph Carr

Whether you are writing essays, blogs, a journal of your travels or the story that will become a novel, creating a strong sense of place is crucial. Suitable for anyone interested in turning the sights, sounds and soul of place into engaging prose, this workshop will explore place writing in all its facets and why through the wide world of literature, location matters.

Over two days, participants will discover key works of place writing and learn about the different techniques to be found within this broad genre, including journalism, memoir and creative non-fiction accounts. Through a series of readings and exercises (which will include a ramble through the neighbourhood), participants will try a variety of fresh and creative approaches to writing about place and will work on a draft of a short piece of place writing – fiction or non-fiction – to be considered for publication on the Elsewhere: A Journal of Place blog.

© Katrin Schönig
Paul Scraton is a British-born writer and editor, based in Berlin. He is the editor in chief of Elsewhere: A Journal of Place and the author of a number of creative non-fiction books. Built on Sand, a collection of stories from Berlin, is his debut work of fiction and will be published by Influx Press in 2019.

© John Farrell
Marcel Krueger is a German writer and translator living in Ireland. For Berlin – A Literary Guide for Travellers he has provided new translations.  His articles and essays have been published in The Guardian, the Irish Times, Slow Travel Berlin and CNN Travel and he also works as the Books Editor of Elsewhere:  A Journal of Place. His latest book Babushka’s Journey – The Dark Road to Stalin’s Wartime Camp explores the wartime experiences of his grandmother Cilly through a travel memoir.