Thinking about Euro2014?
I thought I'd share a typical
experience on this ten day cruise and writing conference retreat.
I've been on this cruise twice now so that I could learn the ins and
outs on this extraordinary itinerary so that each of you will get the
most from your cruise and conference experience.
Your writing adventure starts with your
flight from Vancouver about mid-day on November 11, 2014. We'll land
in Rome in 16 hours later depending on the actual flight booked. The
flight won't be direct from Vancouver. There'll be a short lay-over
in either Toronto, Amsterdam, or Paris. In Rome, with our luggage in
tow, we'll take a shuttle to the port town of Civitavecchia where we
will board the Norwegian Jade. After checking out your room and
beginning to enjoy the jade's hospitality, you'll attend our wine and
cheese reception and registration in the late afternoon where you
will pick-up your conference swag and materials. There will be an
activity for conference attendees and their travelling companions so
that everyone can get to know each other and the ship. After dinner,
we'll have our first presentation on Travel Writing and the
writing contests for the trip will be outlined.
Day 2 finds us at sea and it's
the perfect time to bring our workshop and conference into full gear.
The first full day of the conference deals with the theme of The
Business of Writing.
Presentations on this important topic from the likes of 2014 BC Book
Prize nominee for fiction, Janie Chang, Jill Marr, agent from the
Dijkstra Literary Agency, and Joei Carlton Hossack who you met the
previous night at the presentation on travel writing. For those
interested exclusively on presentations on the craft of writing,
we'll have small group presentations throughout the day dealing with
specific and concrete writing which will be informative and helpful
for all writers: poets, fiction, or creative non-fiction. In the
evening, there will be a presentation on the uses of your senses to
help jump-start your writing; a perfect lead-in to some free write
time in our first stop, Ancient Olympia, the birth place of the
Olympic Games.
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| The Calm of Ancient Olympia |
The next day
starts with a 40 minute taxi ride from the quaint port town of
Katakolon, Greece to the site of the ancient Olympics and the modern
town of Olympia. There are many options available to you on Day 3
and our other port stops but I'm giving you a big spoiler alert
here specific to this port: Come along with the visit that the
conference will arrange for you or do it yourself. But be one
of the first people off that ship and get to the site of Olympia as
fast as you can. You'll have forty-five minutes or so before the
hordes of tourists arrive and that time alone with your writing
buddies and families will be magical. There is something eerie and
mysterious about being on this site, a place where one of the Ancient
Wonders of the World once stood, walking the grounds where names in
our history books once spent time and that experience is heightened
by getting their before the crowds. Nero whispers on the breeze. The
crowd roars as you emerge from the tunnel into the stadium. Magic.
But it all starts with getting off that boat fast and into the
waiting cabs at the end of the pier.
Once you are at
the site, you'll do the ruins first and then meander over to the
museum close to the grounds. Our conference’s tour will spend about
two to two and a half hours here and then we'll return to Katakolon.
Once back, I recommend that you take the time to look through their
two streets at the various shops and then either lunch back on the
ship or take in the sights of the dock and shoreline where you can
get some Greek coffee or some of those fantastic desserts. There is
an internet cafe for those that want to catch up back home. You must
venture into the Olive wood shop and the art studio that specializes
in bronze.
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| The Beauty of Katakolon in Mid-afternoon |
There are some wonderful purchases to be made in this
small port town. Sitting port side, lounging with coffee and a treat
as you stare into the rich blue of the Aegean Sea is a memory you'll
hold dear.
Don't forget to check out the different Olympic torches throughout the shops of Katakolon. The owners are proud of their role in the Olympic tradition and will allow you to get your pictures with them. Here's my daughter, Hannah with the torch from Vancouver 2010.
The
cruise ship departs early from this port so we will be featuring an
afternoon workshop from 4:00 to 5:30 on Use of Setting
After we've dined for the night, our first Meet the Author
event will be offered from 7:00
pm to 9:15 pm. The format of the event is an in-depth interview about
the author, their process and their writing life interspersed with
readings from that writer's recent works. If there is time we will
have a condensed open mic for our attendees to highlight some of
their own work. It all ends in plenty of time for you to get to the
theatre for the evening's 9:30 pm performance. All our evening events
are timed so that you won't miss any of the wonderful shipboard
entertainment, an important aspect of the cruising experience.
Athens,
home of the Acropolis and the enthralling New Acropolis Museum should
be part your destination of choice for your Day 4
sight-seeing. The sight-seeing at this port starts and ends early
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| The Greek Army on Patrol at the Acropolis |
we
arrive in Athens for a 7:00 am disembarkation. Again, we'll offer to
arrange your sight-seeing day for you or perhaps you'd like to do it
on your own. But make sure you visit the Plako district to souvenir
shop, have an amazing Greek lunch, visit the Temple of Olympian Zeus
with its colossal over-turned columns, and stop for a quick photo op
at the first modern Olympic Stadium before returning to the cruise
ship for our departure. For those of you that have seen the Acropolis
before, I can suggest the Temple of Poseidon up the coast a bit as
another interesting choice.
Once
your sight-seeing is done, there will be an optional craft
presentation from 4:45 – 5:45 pm on Point of View.
The evening dinner will be at a speciality restaurant at an event I
call Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.
Each table will be hosted by one of our authors and faculty members.
After the dinner, we'll have an open mic event where you can share
your work with other attendees if you'd like.
Day 5 is
the land of Cleopatra and Marc Anthony, the Virgin Mary, the
disciple, John and perhaps
the best preserved ruins from that ancient
period, the site of Ephesus. You'll take a 45 minute cab ride
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| Ephesus |
to the
area surrounding Selcuk where you'll see Ephesus, the House of Mary,
St John's Castle, the ruins of Artemis, the second Original Wonders
of the World that you'll see on this cruise ,and the museum in
Selcuk. We've arranged for Greg Boorman, a historical fiction writer,
Director and
Treasurer with the Federation of BC Writers, and expert
on Ephesus and Istanbul to give us a tour of these various sites.
Again, you do have the option of doing it alone or through the cruise
line. But I do want to stress at this point that a lot of the travel
is by cab and the cab will cost approximately 110 Euros for the
entire day in Izmir and the Ephesus area. Our plans have us returning
via the beautiful Turkish coast and sampling some oranges and
pomegranates that are in season while we visit this area.
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| House of Mary |
The day
will conclude with an optional presentation from 7:30 -9:00 pm on
Book/ Chapbook Design and Creation including the steps of how to make your own wonderful hand-made books. Perhaps you might want to pick up some uniquely Euro2014 paper and materials to make your book a hand-made memory.
On the morning of
Day 6, there will be two alternate streams of workshops from
8:30 pm – 12:00 pm. As we head towards Istanbul One stream will be
poetry based and the other will deal with character development. The
materials from both will be in your manual so you don't need to worry
about missing one over another. You'll be required to register in one
or the other after you've registered for the trip and conference.
We
arrive in Istanbul at 1:00 pm. Greg Boorman will offer a two day tour
of the highlights of Istanbul that you can purchase each day
separately or together. If you are doing Istanbul on your own, make
sure you speak to me about a few tricks you need to know ahead of
time. Our tour is divided into two parts. Day one will see you spend
time at the Topaki Palace, a palace and harem turned into a museum
and the Spice Bazaar.
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| Spice Bazaar |
Day one ends at the Spice Bazaar where you'll
find the pier for our ship a short walk across the Galata Bridge
loaded with fisherman plying their trade.
The tour ends this way so that you can have the choice of continuing
to explore Istanbul at night or returning to the ship for dinner and
the evening. I'll have all sorts of ideas for you if you want to
examine Istanbul by night. Just ask.
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| The Blue Mosque |
The
next day in Istanbul is heavy with many of the key sites in the
Sultanhmet area and the Bazaar Quarter: Haghia Sophia, Basilica
Cistern, Blue Mosque, the Hippodrome and the its various columns,
Suleymaniye Mosque, Grand Bazaar, and the Museum of Calligraphy. Make
sure you purchase your Turkish Coffee, Apple Tea, and Turkish Delight
before you return to the ship for its departure. There are several
well-known and reputable shops near the cruise terminal. In the
evening, the second Meet the Author takes
place from 7:30 pm to 9:15 pm.
Day 8 and 9
are the two remaining days of our conference. You'll have the
opportunity to meet with agents and publishers for one on one time
during these days. Make your pitch. A dream vacation could lead to
fulfilling your writing dream. One on one editing sessions with our
instructors will be available to you as well. The theme of Day 8
is Everything Plotting and our final day of the conference is
entitled Second Draft where conference registrants will work
on issue surrounding self editing and
re-visioning their
work once that first draft is completed. On the evening of Day 8,
we'll hold our Euro2014 Writers' Idol with all sorts of fun,
prizes and surprises. There will be a wind-up dinner in one of
the speciality restaurants during the evening of Day 9
followed by an open mic which focuses on writing that you completed
during the conference including for our various writing contests held
throughout the cruise.
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| Pompeii |
With the formal
part of the conference completed, Day 10 brings you to Naples,
the birth place of pizza. It's free time to do as you like. Perhaps
visit Naples's famed tunnels or visit the world famous ruins of
Pompeii as Vesuvius looks on as the ancient sentinel. Pompeii is a
simple quick train ride away.
After saying your
good-byes and packing up the previous evening, you'll disembark on
the morning of Day 11 and take the shuttle back to Rome
airport for your return to Canada.
Sounds incredible,
I know but you probably have a few questions.
Any other classes and presentations
you haven't mentioned?
Yes, other than
days 1 and 10, there will be an optional breakfast and coffee meeting
from 6:30 – 7:30 am for those who want to meet in the main dining
room for an informal discussion about some aspect of craft or the
writing business.
What will my family do while I'm
busy at the conference on Day 2, 8, and 9?
While there are
plenty of things to keep your travelling companions busy on the
cruise ship, we will have some fun events for the non-writers
attending with you on the trip while you're busy honing your craft.
I'll be arranging some in-house gambling tournaments, some cribbage
and card tournaments as well some athletic pursuits on interest. Of
course, the cruise ship has services for children and teens and I'll
leave that to them. I'm talking about your adult travelling
companions.
Of course, your
travelling companions can participate in our nightly events as part
of registering with our group on this trip.
I've heard about tipping on board.
Is it included in your price schedules? What about shuttle costs to
and from the airport?
No, the cruise and
conference prices do not include your gratuities which are charged
directly by the boat on your room account. It's $12 per day per
person.
Shuttle costs to
and from the airport are not included in these costs as well.
What about all those ship
activities? Will I have time to do any of them?
Everything in the
conference is optional. You decide what you want to do. This is a
workshop holiday so don't get stressed out by trying to do
everything. Our workshops have been scheduled to give you a degree of
flexibility and allow you to participate in events like the evening's
entertainment, the art auction or gambling in the casino.
What happens if I want to stay in
Italy longer?
I'm happy to give
you some ideas of some great places to see in Rome and some ideas of
where I stayed when I was there. I've revised the pricing system to
include an option where you're free to book your own flight. Any
flights that I book for our attendees and their travelling companions
will reflect flights to and from Rome such that there will be no
extra nights' stays before and after our trip
What is the pricing?
There are several
different options:
a.
Cruise, flight and conference with an outside cabin: $2600
b.
Cruise, flight and conference with an inside cabin: $2450
c. Cruise and
flight with an outside cabin: $2100
d. Cruise, flight
with an inside cabin: $1950
Unfortunately
since the time that our original pricing was announced, fuel charges
have sky-rocketed resulting in flights increasing by $200 across the
board. It is important that registrants understand that there are no
margins on the cost of the cruise and flights. These would be your
costs if you booked the trip yourself.
We have pricing
for those that want to do their own flights:
a.
Cruise and conference with an inside room: $1250
b.
Cruise and conference with an outside room: $1400
c.
Cruise with an inside room: $750
d.
Cruise with an outside room: $900
Once you've
registered, I will forward to you a payment schedule particular to
your choice.
Any payments made
will be held in trust in a dual signature back account until such
time as the funds are required to be paid over to the airline service
provider or the cruise line to secure the bookings of our travellers
and the cost of our presenters.
Sounds like a huge undertaking. What
about changes to the program?
Yes, there is a
lot of details that need to be finalized and some change after
thinking that's been decided. I can tell you that the program and
presenters are subject to change but the program will be firmed up by
July 10 and you'll be advised of any significant changes. Should a
presenter cancel, we will do our best to arrange a like presenter of
similar quality. Sometimes things come up for our instructors and they need to drop out of this unique opportunity.
What about the cost of your
excursions in the various ports?
Once a person
register for the cruise with or without the conference, I will advise
you of your tour options again and the costs so that you can make a
decision about how you want to approach your days in port. What I
can tell you at this point is that our prices will be significantly
less than that for a similar excursion through the cruise line.
Who is the organizer, Fraser Valley
Writing School and its founding director, David Blinkhorn?
David Blinkhorn is
an award winning poet and fiction writer who completed Simon Fraser
University's Writers' Studio in 2011. Seeing a need for a community
writing school, he created the Fraser Valley Writers School in
January, 2012. It specializes in providing education and guidance to
beginner, emerging and intermediate writers. Many of its participants
have work published that was created during one of David's or another
instructor's classes.
David is remains
the school's sole director and is presently the Executive Director of
the Federation of British Columbia Writers where he has brought
unique programming and change to their policies which has resulted in
a doubling of the membership since he took over that position. He is
regarded as a skilled and supportive instructor by his students of
the school and the members of FBCW. Education of writers is his
passion when he isn't working on his poetry, mysteries, and fantasy
works.
