Beating The Blank Page

Creative writers can find community at the University of Iceland’s writing salon

Breaking the fourth wall for a moment here, I can tell you, dear reader, that the blank page is the enemy. If you have ever felt the desire to put pen to paper — metaphorically speaking of course, the machines have long taken over -— more likely than not you were hit with the realisation that this writing shit is hard! Luckily, you are not the only despairing soul longing to release your demons via the written word. Help (or enablement) is available.

Diving deep into the dreams of dazzling deeds to be done down in this town I sought out Dr. Jessica Murphy and Assistant Professor Beth Cortese to talk about their writing salon at the University of Iceland.

“We both teach English literature and creative writing,” Jessica says, “but we are also both writers who have our own projects and are interested in the written and spoken word. I used to read my poetry in different venues in Montreal when I was in my twenties, so that was something I was part of — a circuit of writers and like-minded individuals.”

Taking a step away from the image of the lone writer hunched over their desk and trapped in a manic vortex of words, the writing salon provides a more social setting for one’s creative process. Based on her own experiences at Lancaster University, Beth originally started the writing salon with some of her former students, with the attendee list soon expanding to include some of Jessica’s students.

“We wanted to be available to the university community at large,” she says. The focus of the salon is on receiving feedback and varying insights from peers, regardless of their academic background. “We like to see our salon almost as a bit of a halfway house,” Jessica explains. “Meeting people halfway so they don’t have to go all the way up on stage to read their work, but at the same time encouraging them to get it out there.”

“I’m a bit of a social writer,” Beth says. “I like being around a group of writers, it’s inspiring.” Not to mention that the reading-your-work-out-loud-aspect is great for feedback — as terrifying as it can be. Seeing and hearing the differences between the words on the page and in the room as people absorb them and potentially reinterpret them in spite of authorial intent can be quite impactful and may change a work in progress. But watching the progress and evolution of a creative work is at least half the fun of a writing salon. The other half is forming a community.

“That’s what we’re trying to do,” Jessica says. “Bring people of similar interests together, bring writers together, even just people who have an appreciation for creative writing, because we always need audience members and often many of those people write themselves but they haven’t necessarily worked up their courage to share it yet. We want to show them that this is a safe and inclusive and accepting space so once they get a feel for that they are more likely to say ‘I’ll go next, be brave and read my work.’ There are no consequences, just feedback that you can benefit from.”

When it comes to creative writing, a routine like participating in a group can be rather helpful, giving consistency to the process and the deadlines kicking you in the backside to at least get something down on the page. As fickle as the muses might be, Jessica points out that, “You don’t have to go at it alone. At least at different stages there are points where you can connect with people and that can be immensely gratifying.”

Want more people doing strange stuff? Check out more of our On The Fringes series.