A few members from the club attended a free workshop at the Burns Monument Centre in Kilmarnock (http://www.burnsmonumentcentre.co.uk) on writing Historical Crime Fiction. It was tutored by well known author Alanna Knight, who is a founding member of the Scottish Association of Writers and has written over 60 novels, including romance, thrillers and, of course, historical crime fiction.
Students sat patiently as the nice gentleman from the Centre welcomed us, then introduced Alanna, before remembering to introduce himself and other members of the centre who could offer assistance. We then had a ‘quick’ bio from each of the attendees while Alanna took notes. Following this session, any men in the room subsequently had to go and shave their now fully grown beards.
We were then sent away with the task to look at the myriad of documents on show showing the history of the Kilmarnock region. Some found this an interesting contrast to the story of a real life unsolved murder from 1884 in the nearby hamlet of Moscow, which we were maybe, perhaps, meant to be basing a story on, or writing our own story if we wished, or solving the crime. It was sadly a little confusing and, for this writer, two hours of a lifetime I’ll never get back.
The centre is certainly very good and interesting for those who like history, sadly as a writing workshop it was of no comparison to the quality we see week in week out at Ayr Writers Club.
Andrew Leslie