The Zen Pen Writing Workshop Day
February 14, 2025 @ 10:00 AM
Join writer Kevin MacNeil for a creative workshop day exploring how the tenets of Buddhism can inform your creative writing, including how empathy helps you write realistic characters, how cause-and-effect and the need for development moves a plot forward, and the role of epiphany. There will be writing exercises and secular meditations, and while we're not promising enlightenment, by the end of the day you may find yourself thinking about how the qualities that make you a better writer might just make you a better person too. Everyone is welcome, whether you consider yourself an experienced writer or someone just interested in having a go. Bring along pen, paper and an open mind.
Kevin MacNeil is an award-winning writer and practising Buddhist born and raised in the Outer Hebrides. His first book, Love and Zen in the Outer Hebrides, won the Tivoli Europa Giovani International Poetry Prize and his most recent novel, The Brilliant and Forever, was shortlisted for the Saltire Fiction Book of the Year Award. Currently a lecturer in creative writing at the University of Stirling, Kevin writes in both English and Gaelic, and his next book is a short story collection titled Inner Hearts, Outer Hebrides.