Great Loves

“I want you to tell me about every person you’ve ever been in love with. Tell me why you loved them, then tell me why they loved you.” - Andrea Gibson

We have a single word for love in the English language, yet other languages & cultures offer us numerous ways of naming its different forms, shades and intensities. What happens when we expand the word love and start to interrogate it through our writing?

This course is an exploration of love in all its many forms and complexities.

Each week we’ll take a word for love from another language as our theme and a touchstone for our writing. Such as:

SAUDADE
grief, longing, yearning, nostalgia

MERAKI
doing something with total love, passion and soul

FERNWEH
aching or longing for distant places

WABI SABI
finding beauty in imperfection & accepting peacefully the natural cycle of growth and decay

LA DOULEUR EXQUISE
exquisite pain or unrequited love

KHALIL
a beloved companion, friend, soulmate

‘OHANA
familial love that also extends out to community

EROS
Desire and passion

These are just some possibilities. The course will leave room to follow the group, bringing in other words, ideas, writers and forms of love that emerge along the way.

“Over and over, the answer is the same, isn’t it? Love, love, love. The salve and the cure'“ - Stephanie Foo

Is writing itself an act of love? An act of preserving our memories, stories, experiences, ideas, feelings? Is every story, poem, memoir really at its heart, a love story?

Great Loves is open to all levels of experience. Join a supportive, fun and inspiring group. Carve out some space for creativity, accountability and self enquiry.

“Where there is great love, there are always miracles.” ~ Willa Cather in My Ántonia