Walking helps you think (as anyone knows who has tried to resolve a problem sitting down). So this handbook uses walking as a tool for creative thinking and writing. Offering a whole array of sparks, experiments, projects, catapults, prompts, drifts, and exercises, Sonia Overall invites us to see walking as a creative writing method. She sets out a particular form which she calls walking-writing and suggests ways to gather materials, submit to the sensory, explore your home like a tourist, and scour the streets like a metal-detector in search of the hidden, the forgotten, and the overlooked. This is a manual for creative writers, but the approaches and exercises can readily be adapted by practitioners working in other media. All of the exercises included here have been foot-tested. Use the book to walk and work alone or in groups, together or separately. Use it to generate ideas, create text, and read differently. Walking outside, in varied environments, will offer you novel experiences to draw upon. Many of the exercises here can be carried out in your immediate environment, or if mobility or opportunity are an issue, in your own home. Rescale and adapt at will. About the Author: Dr Sonia Overall is a writer, psychogeographer, and Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing and Programme Director for the MA in Creative Writing at Canterbury Christ Church University. She creates prose, poetry, and text for performance, and experiments with things that fall through the gaps in between. Sonia is the founder of the ‘Women Who Walk’ network of walking artists and academics. She often leads playful, performative, and interactive walks, workshops, and walkshops, and can be found in residence at festivals and public spaces. |