Angela locke MA
CREATIVE WRITING RETREATS
'If you can't find inspiration on Iona, it's time to chuck your quill into the Atlantic. This retreat at the Argyll hotel with Angela Locke, the novelist and travel writer, draws on the island's mystical rhythms and dune-fringed landscape to help writers find their muse.’ Jeremy Lazell, Travel Editor, Scottish Times.
Iona
TAMARISK: LOVE AND WAR IN FRANCE
With the marking of D-Day 80th Anniversary in 2024 – this Spellbinding New Novel Shares a Story of Survival and the Renewal of Hope. Read more via the buttons below...
The Universe Is Imagination Set Free...
These are the words at the heart of my organisation, where I seek to allow others to flower in their own creativity. It is a beautiful thing to see someone open like a flower, often having been crushed by circumstances for so long from expressing their true creative voice. They seem to change physically, even in a few days, particularly on special places like Iona, and it is an immense privilege to share in that process. For me, as a writer and teacher, creativity is at the heart of who we are. This may be expressed through words, through photography, painting or dance, or in so many other ways.
People say to me 'I don't have a creative bone in my body', and then go on to tell me how they have envisioned a beautiful garden or have a dream of the future by the sea, or of getting to the top of the mountain. Or sometimes they may say 'I once wrote a poem when I was a child, but I grew out of it, and I'm no good now... 'and that makes me sad. For where would the universe be without creativity? As Einstein knew when he said we should all be like children playing...
Keep scrolling to learn more about our range of courses...
The Latest review of Tamarisk:
This novel is a romance between the Anglo-French Pierre, an SOA agent sent into occupied Northern France in the months leading up to D-Day, and the courageous farmer’s daughter, Rebecca. However, this is no Mills and Boon love tryst with the war as a backdrop. With painstaking detail, based on much research, a believable, compelling and harrowing adventure unfolds. It is at times a painful read, informed by the knowledge that while the story is the creation of the author, it is grounded in the terrible reality experienced by millions. Those darkest times are described in unflinching detail, from the fate of captured French Resistance fighters to revealing the dystopian aftermath of the war in Europe.
Yet despite the depravity and bleakness portrayed, this story is ultimately uplifting, of good triumphing over intolerance and prejudice, of the resurrection of civilised life, and of love and reconciliation between people and peoples.
While awareness of both the extraordinary bravery of the French Resistance, and the depths of carnage resulting from war, is fading fast from the collective consciousness as the last protagonists pass away, this book is a timely reminder of the danger that the rise to power of populist demagogues bring to us all.
John Lloyd Thomas
Photograph by Malcolm McGregor.
The Dream of Iona
The dream of Iona….A magical, sacred island set in a turquoise sea. An island where generations of Scottish kings are buried, where Druids and Celts and early Christians shaped the landscape of myth and dream. An island made up of the oldest rocks on the planet, where crystal clear waters lap the white sands of empty beaches, a nature sanctuary where dolphins leap in the Iona Sound and sea otters run among the rocks.
This inspirational island is the setting for a series of unique residential Writers Retreats, where beginners and published authors alike are welcomed, based at the Argyll Hotel on Iona, and led by one of the U.K.’s leading innovative Creative Writing tutors, international author and poet Angela Locke MA. Angela co-led the first British/American Writing Retreat on Iona in June 2000, and has now been teaching her very successful and inspirational series of Writers Retreats on the island for more than 20 years.
Lake District
Update on the Rydal Hall course 20-23 June 2025
There are still a few places available for my annual Writers Retreat weekend, in the stunning grounds and house of historic Rydal Hall in the beautiful English Lake District. So do get in touch with me if you would like to come. Beginners and published authors, all are welcome to come to what is the most gorgeous time in the Lakes for an inspiring time among the ancient trees and beautiful gardens of Rydal Hall.
Please note there is a change in the assistant tutor who will be working alongside me on the Saturday. Prize-winning author and poet Kerry Darbishire is replacing Kathleen Jones, who was unable to take part. Kerry was Writer-in-Residence at Rydal Mount, Wordsworth’s family home, which is just up the hill from Rydal Hall. (There will an opportunity to visit Rydal Mount if wished over the weekend!) Kerry and I have worked together often and I am looking forward so much to writing with her again. Kerry lives in Cumbria which inspires most of her poems. She has won and then placed in many competitions and published widely in anthologies and magazines. Publications include a prize-winning biography of her mother Kay’s Ark, three poetry collections, and three pamphlets including a collaboration. River Talk was published by Hedgehog Press in 2024.
It will be so exciting to inspire the whole weekend with this theme through poetry and prose. Attached is the new brochure.
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