Deborah Levy Workshop

This workshop revolved around a reading of her story "Stardust Nation". it was a short story about one man stealing another man's memories; A manager in an advertising firm appropriates the identity of another,  his employee.  The employee is always drunk and sad and troubled,  his sister doesn't seem to like what's going  and while the employee is institutionalised  she tries to keep the manager away. However she seems to be somehow feeding off him as well,  although the group wasn't sure about this.

The  group then generated imagery in the workshop after the reading. I decided that maybe the brother  was being appropriated by both the sister and his manager, and in the end barely existed,  apart from in the minds of these two assertive characters.  The manager was quite passive aggressive, the sister was  just a bit angry and aggressive.

I think the writing workshop last year worked better,  this group and that group were more in need of a writing workshop than an image generation workshop.  Especially at this time of year. Similar ground had already been covered by Matt and Andrew Lanyon  in their workshops.

Deborah Levy is a fascinating  and eccentric speaker,  eccentric as in keeps you listening. The talk in the lecture studio the day before the workshop was great,  she has an excellent sense of timing  knows when to place a  surprising phrase, create omnipotent statements that follow the ordinary or humorous  seamlessly.  Reminded me of Laurie Anderson who does this. and others