Creative Writing Workshop: Food as Metaphor

So what's it going to be about? Creative Writing: Food as Metaphor is a beginner-friendly creative writing workshop. Investigating several different usages of food as metaphor in popular media, the workshop will allow participants the opportunity discuss and analyse the topic based on prescribed readings. The workshops will be discussion-based, incorporating time for in-workshop prompt writing, and, after the first week, peer-reviewed feedback sessions. Participants will be asked to submit pieces of writing of either 1,000 words or 2-3 pages of poetry by the Saturday evening ahead of the Tuesday workshop session, to allow time for reading and reviewing of their writing. The aim of this workshop is to deepen participants' understanding of how food can be used as a literary tool in their writing. Through the workshop, participants will learn how food can be used as a lens through which to convey meaning, and how the presence of certain items of food, or the usage of language around food, can help to elevate their own writing practice. The aim is also to give participants the opportunity to engage in group-based discussions about the topic, and to offer peer-reviewed feedback on creative writing pieces based off of given weekly prompts, alongside receiving in-depth, specific feedback from the workshop lead. At the end of the four weeks, we aim to have enough material to create a small published pamphlet for participants to take home, with the opportunity to organise a reading (if enough interest is gathered from participants). Session One: The Orange in Literature Session one will focus on the usage and presence of the orange in popular literature. Looking closely at several extracts across various genres, including Jeanette Winterson’s Oranges are not the only fruit, Foreign Fruit: A Personal History of the Orange by Katie Goh, and the iconic poem The Orange by Wendy Cope, participants will receive a short lecture-type slide-show on the presence and use of language around the orange, and what the orange represents in the various extracts. Then, participants will do some prompt writing inspired by the orange. At this stage in the workshop, they will have the chance to eat, peel, touch, smell, do whatever they want to do with the provided orange. The goal here is to have the physical fruit in front of us, and to see what kind of metaphors arise in writing as a result of the orange. We will then have some time for in-class writing, so that participants can get started on what they will submit for the workshop in the next week. Due to the lack of feedback session in this lesson, we will also discuss the presence of other fruits in metaphor and writing, such as the use of the pomegranate in the myth of Persephone, and the apple in the Garden of Eden. Session Two: The Feast Scene This session will be focused on the trope of the feast scene in popular media. We will look at several examples of the feast scene; the most popular being scenes from Harry Potter, alongside Game of Thrones and other major fantasy series. We will look at the analysis of this literary device and its place in the world of metaphor from Thomas C. Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor, namely the chapter ‘Nice to Eat with You: Acts of Communion’. We will also look at the dinner scene in James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and have group-based discussions on the prevalence of the feast scene, what it represents, and how we can understand it in our writing. Following this, we will have a short prompt-writing session, after which we will engage in our first feedback-based group discussion. One by one, we will review each participant's submitted piece, offering feedback and responses. Session Three: Let Them Eat Cake Materials Needed: Basque Cheesecake by Fondita Mestiza! This session will be focused on the prevalence of writing about desserts in literature, and specifically, we will be looking at the language used around sugar. This topic will tie in with subjects of colonialism, the history of sugar, and, of course, a short history of the iconic Marie-Antoinette quote. We will be looking at writing from the food writer Caroline Hennessy, and analysing the popular topic of pre-recipe personal essay writing. We will then have time for a food tasting in place of in-class writing time. We will look at the history of the Basque Cheesecake, which will lead into our session in the following week due to the connection between the Basque Country and Ireland. Finally, we will have time for our feedback sessions, following the same format as the week before. Session 4: Writing In Times of Famine Our final session will hone in on the writing that emerges as a result of a lack of food. Specifically, we will be looking at the literature that emerged as a result of the Great Hunger in Ireland, and the many lenses through which we can understand the famine as metaphor. We will look at The Famine Road by Eavan Boland as an example of poetry that emerged as a result of the famine, alongside extracts from Padraic X. Scanlan’s book, Rot: An Imperial History of the Irish Famine, and Under the Hawthorn Tree by Marita Conlon-McKenna. Following this, we will have a prompt writing session, and time again for feedback sessions to conclude the 4-part workshop. Writers will have a deadline following the end of the workshop of two weeks to submit a piece of writing to be published in a small pamphlet, which will be launched in late June. Duration: 4 sessions Starts: 28th April 🗓 Dates: 4 Tuesdays :28th April /5th May /12th May / 19th May 🕕 Time: 6:30 PM – 8:15 PM 📍 Location: 14 Exchequer Street, 2nd Floor, Dublin 2 💶 Price: €50 (includes all 4 sessions, materials, food and drinks) 📌 Format: In-person workshop Taught by: Heather Slevin Heather Slevin (She/Her) is a Dublin-based writer holding an Honours BA in English with Creative Writing from University College Dublin. Her work has previously featured in The Cormorant, The Passionfruit Review, and The Martello Journal. Her work spans across the genres of poetry, creative non-fiction, prose, and journalism. As a queer and neurodivergent writer, her work centres around self-love and discovery, found family, and falling in love with the ordinary. Heather can be found on Substack, under the name WhaleBone, a weekly-posted blog featuring essays, poetry, and, of course, some whale facts.