Lisa Selvidge lives in the Monchique mountains where she writes and teaches creative writing. As well as teaching online courses for the University of East Anglia, Oxford and York, she runs monthly writing workshops at the Bica Boa Inn, Monchique.
There are two workshops, each an hour and a half long, one fiction (for those who like making things up) and the other is memoirs (for those who want to write their life stories).
The atmosphere is relaxed and friendly, and every month the workshops focus on a different aspect of writing, including plot development, characterisation, different forms of narration, and use of language. There are writing exercises and published examples to analyse.
Everyone is welcome to join and there are normally between 6-8 participants in every group. After the workshop, students are welcome to submit 500 words for feedback.
Together with other colleagues, including Janice Russell, Lisa is also an editor for an independent publishing company, Montanha Books. The aim of the company is to publish books about Portugal, and the Algarve in particular.
Lisa has edited a collection of writings about the Algarve called Summer Times, complemented by several sketches by Willy Russell, the playwright and author. She is also the author of Beyond the Sea – Stories from the Algarve, a collection of inter-linking stories set in the Algarve in 2007, the year when Madeleine McCann disappeared. This book is also available in German and Portuguese. Her other publications include the Writing Fiction Workbook, a book about how to write fiction, The Last Dance over the Berlin Wall, a love story set in Berlin before and after the Berlin Wall and The Trials of Tricia Blake, a story of teenage rebellion.
All Lisa’s books can either be purchased from English bookshops in the Algarve or through Montanha Books, or Amazon. They are all available on Kindle.
For more information visit www.lisaselvidge.com or www.montanhabooks.com
