Course Description: Participants submit one new haibun, of up to three hundred words, incorporating up to five poems, for each of three assignments over two months. Optional prompts are given for each assignment. Substantial written feedback is given by tutor Alan Summers to each participant, with the group receiving the feedback document by email, in a shared learning experience. On this course, you are also welcome to write with tanka poems in the place of haibun if you prefer.
Level: Participants should have some existing experience of writing haiku, but may be beginners, "improvers", or advanced, at haibun.
Group Size: 5 Haibun
Length: Short to medium - up to 300 words.
Lead Tutor for haiku; tanka; haibun; senryu; and tanka stories.
Alan is a Japan Times award-winning writer, and multi-award winning poet for haiku, plus a Pushcart Prize, and Best Small Fictions nominated poet for haibun.
He’s been President of the United Haiku & Tanka Society (2017 to 2021), and General Secretary of the British Haiku Society (1998-2000).
Alan holds a Masters Degree in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University (U.K. 2007-2008), and a Diploma for Creative Writing from the University of Bristol (U.K. 2000-2001).
In September 2015 NHK TV of Japan made a documentary about Alan's work: http://tinyurl.com/NHKHaikuJourney
Alan’s work regularly appears in haikai genre journals, and prominent anthologies, including Haiku in English: The First Hundred Years (W. W. Norton 2013).
He has extensive experience as a tutor and workshop facilitator in both live and online settings. Alongside this he’s also an experienced editor for anthologies and journals.
Alan’s been an essayist, article writer, critic, book reviewer, international competition judge, co-founder, and founder of various haiku & haibun journals.
Alan is currently editor-in-chief for The Haiku Reader anthology series, and opened with the first presentation at the Haiku Society of America’s 2022 National Virtual Conference (Saturday, June 4, 2022) taking questions about the anthology.
Cost: £165 (approximately US$219).
Early Bird Cost: £155 (approximately US$206) if booking by end of 26 April 2023.
Further details and booking are to be found at the link below.