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Moniack Mhor was a fabulous place to spend Easter Monday! From April 9th to April 14th 2007 I attended a stimulating course on Crimewriting, hosted by eminent British crime fiction authors Andrew Taylor and Natasha Cooper. They were inspirational, and the rest of the group wonderful companions.
The course, run by the Arvon Foundation, was held in former croft buildings up in the hills about 3 miles to the north of Loch Ness (which location actually features in Andrew Taylor's recent book "A Stain on the Silence" - highly recommended)
Every day we had morning sessions delving into the creation and construction of crime fiction. The afternoons were free for writing exercises, walking or snoozing. All of us had a private tutorial with both Natasha and Andrew - I found mine extremely helpful, even though I did have to mostly start over with my book!
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In the evenings after the meal we chatted, played Scrabble, gave readings from favourite books, and Andrew and Mark played guitar and sang. On Wednesday we had a guest speaker, Clio Grey, who read from her novel and short stories, and spoke to us about breaking into publishing. So to Anne, Jax, Sheena, Razaz, Joanna, Christina, Mark, Richard and of course Andrew and Natasha - thank you, and see as many of you as possible in Harrogate!
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