Spring has sprung at Arvon in Devon

This week saw the start of the new season at Totleigh Barton. Spring is a violent time of the year here in the South West, nature being reborn with all the force and clumsiness of the lambs slamming their snouts in their mothers bellies to extract the gallons of milk they need to grow into the healthy, juicy Devonshire specimens of which even New Zealanders should be jealous. The weather is erratic, sleet interspersed with patches of sunshine all doused in heavy downpours that flood the roads next to the river Torridge, a hose pipe ban seems highly unlikely this year! After a long winter the first novelists and poets have started battling their way down here. The programme for this year has been out for a couple of weeks and aspiring writers are banging the door down in search of that perfect course, some booking up in a matter of days.

All in all it is a very exciting time. This week we have a partnership week with writers from the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture. A very diverse group, from all regions of the world with very different and sometimes troubled backgrounds, tied together by their shared experiences and desire to write. Neil Rollinson and Catherine Fox are doing a fantastic job in stimulating their imaginations and handling with delicacy the possibilities of what they feel their writing is capable - with astonishing results.

Huib Boekelman, Esther O’Toole and Julia Wheadon
at Totleigh Barton, Arvon’s writing house in Devon