Join us in the picturesque village of Wendover, nestled in the Chiltern Hills less than an hour from London for a day of creative inspiration with a difference. This is a day-long creative writing course with all the counter-cultural panache you’ve come to associate with Rough Trade Books. We’ll be hosting a series of four ‘Rough Magic Days’ over the course of 2025 in which you will spend time with a range of RTB authors on different genres including poetry, fiction, life-writing and the art of the short story as well as a spectacular walking/writing workshop with RTB editor, award-winning author and poet WILL BURNS.

ELLA FREARS is a poet and artist based in London. Her collection Shine, Darling (2020) was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, and the T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry. Goodlord: An Email (2024) was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection as well as the Sky Arts Awards.

She has held residencies and fellowships for the Tate Gallery, the National Trust, Royal Holloway University physics department, John Hansard Gallery, the Dartington Trust, 16 motorway service stations, the number 17 bus in Southampton, and Exeter University’s environmental history department.

She is currently the RLF Fellow at the Courtauld Institute of Art. She hosts “Tears for Frears” on Soho Radio.

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OVERVIEW OF THE DAY

You’ll arrive in the village in the morning and meet at our local bookshop Real Magic Books. After a cup of something warm and possibly caffeinated, we’ll hit the hills with Will Burns, punctuating the views with writing prompts, exercises and literary points of interest.

Back in Wendover, we’ll break for lunch before your special guest writer takes over for your afternoon session in the upstairs space in Real Magic Book shop. After another couple of hours of furious literary activity, we’ll head up to the local pub, where your guest writer will do a short reading before availing themselves of any questions you might have. We’ll soak up the atmosphere in the bar for a couple of hours (or as long as anyone fancies!) before heading our separate ways.

MORNING
10am – 10.15am – Meet up, short introduction at Real Magic Books
10.15am – 12.30pm – Walk through the hills with Rough Trade Books editor, Will Burns, to get the writing juices flowing.

LUNCH 12.30pm – 1.30pm

AFTERNOON
1.30pm – 3.30pm – Rough Trade Books Author Writing Workshop session at Real Magic Books

3.30pm – 5pm – Reading and Q&A session at the King & Queen pub

With a unique blend of outdoor inspiration, the plethora of Rough Trade Books authors who will be running the sessions, and that particular brand of rock’n’roll literary flair we try to bring to all that we do, these really will be writing workshops unlike any others. We promise fun, inclusive, ambitious, intelligent days out for anyone who wants to come and sample a bit of Rough Trade Books life. Real Magic Books is also a one-off—with an expertly curated selection of the best contemporary fiction, non-fiction and poetry, well-stocked classics, as well as a beautiful setting to work in. And for the final part of the day we’ll be welcomed into the King & Queen, a perfect little village local full of stories and characters of its own. What better way to treat yourself or the writer in your life, frustrated or otherwise, than with a day in Rough Tradesville?

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