Skyros Island and the Magic for Writers on a Skyros Writers’ Lab holiday by Crysse Morrison

Crysse Morrison will be leading one of the popular Skyros Writers Lab fortnights on Skyros island in Greece in August (5th -18th). Crysse lives in Frome in southwest England, where she is a member of the Frome Writers Collective, writes for Feet First Theatre Company, co-runs Nevertheless Pub Theatre, runs the Frome Poetry Cafe, reviews theatre in the southwest area for Plays International, and gives performances from her collection of poetry recently published by Burning Eye Books. (It’s called Crumbs from a Spinning World, which seems apt!)

We asked Crysse how, with all this going on, she still makes time to come to Skyros.

’Skyros courses are the only ones I say yes to, these days,’ Crysse admitted, ‘I started my own writing career on the island, so I know how inspirational being here can be. Being in an unfamiliar place triggers fresh ideas anyway, but Skyros has a very special energy. There really does seem to be a kind of magic here for writers. Maybe it just comes from the sensual stimulation of a fabulous location, or even from something deeper – the footfall of so many story-tellers on the cobbled lanes and the inspiration of legends since the days of Achilles.’

So, how does the writing group access this legendary inspiration, we wondered?

‘It always seems to happen. We work together as a group in the morning, using short shared exercises on a range of writing techniques from finding ideas to developing characters and creating effective dialogue. Because I write plays and poetry as well as fiction, everything I do can be adapted to most genres – even sci-fi or song-writing. Sometimes we plan our session time so there’s a shorter, more flexible, session later too – it depends on how the group wants to pace their energy on a hot day! And I always offer participants a one-to-one before the end of the course, to look specifically at how they can best take their writing forward when they get home.’

Find out more about Crysse and her Writers’ Lab courses on Skyros island this summer here: https://www.skyros.com/facilitators/crysse-morrison/

You can catch up with Crysse’s busy life in Frome through her blog here ( http://crysse.blogspot.co.uk) or go to her website to see more: (http://www.crysse.com/)