V09 The Art of Creative Listening

Creative Writing course – Arnold Zable – “the Art of Creative Listening"

"This popular workshop explores the art of creative writing, with techniques that can be applied to fiction and non-fiction, memoir, ceremonies, family history, autobiography, biography, and more. It includes exercises on writing character and place, and discussions of various aspects of writing and storytelling.

Arnold Zable is an award winning writer, storyteller, educator, and human rights advocate. Formerly a lecturer at the Arts Faculty in Melbourne University, Zable has worked in the USA, Papua New Guinea, China, and many parts of Europe and Southeast Asia. His books include Jewels and Ashes, Wanderers and Dreamers, Cafe Scheherazade, The Fig Tree, Scraps of Heaven, and Sea of Many Returns.

Zable is the author of numerous feature articles, columns, short stories, reviews and essays. His work regularly appears in The Age and a range of journals. He has written several works for theatre, and was a co-writer of the play Kan Yama Kan, in which asylum seekers tell their stories. Zable speaks and writes with passion about memory and history, displacement and community. He has conducted numerous writing workshops and has been a visiting lecturer in creative writing at Deakin, Melbourne, Monash, RMIT, La Trobe and Victoria Universities.

Civil Marriage Celebrant

Melbourne Victoria

I'd like to thank the Association of Civil Marriage Celebrants Victoria for running this one day workshop for celebrants on the 21st March 2010 at Rowville.

Arnold’s course was mainly geared to pursuing biographic story lines in celebrancy, however the concepts are easily adapted to interviewing couples.

Arnold Zable encourages writers to search for “Eloquent Episodes”.

An Eloquent Episode is a point in someone’s life that will often define who that person is and will give an insight into the personality of your subject.

By asking leading questions you can reach an Eloquent Episode in a person’s life.  The person or couple are asked to visualise their Eloquent Episode by reliving that event, they will then be able convey their story to you, enabling you to paint their picture, with words.

Tips from Arnold

• If possible, visit them in their own homes and visit them twice in one day.  The 1^st meeting will open both sides to the idea of what you are trying to achieve.  The 2^nd meeting will reinforce and delve further as both sides have a better understanding of what is expected.

• Visiting their home, you will find further clues in the form of photographs and other memorabilia.

• A great deal of our day is lived in an unconscious state, when interviewing always be there 100% percent.

• Ask dumb questions – you may be surprised where that dumb questions leads.

• Ask questions like

• Understand that questions are triggers and will open doors to a new level of understanding.

• Never be surprised if 2 or more people see the same event / person is a completely different light.

• A very important note – once you have written your piece, read it aloud, that way you can hear the rhythm.