"VOICES", This session is about our voice. How to let our voice be heard, through fiction, non-fiction, plays and films. We will be bringing in actors to read and perform participants scripts, in addition we will have instructions on how to read to an audience. Authors and Actors joining us in this exciting session are: Chris Abani, Margaret Drabble, Fidelis Morgan, Anne LeClaire, Harrison Solow and producer Herb Solow, actor Clive Swift, Rebecca Swift, Chuck Wachtel and other Actors from the London stage. Writing Core Instructors: Fiction/Chris Abani; Non-fiction/Anne LeClaire; Playwriting and dialogue/Fidelis Morgan and Clive Swift; Screenwriting/Chuck Wachtel

Founded in 1101 by the hermit priest Robert d' Arbrissel, the Royal Abbey of Fontevraud was unusual in that it received both men and women into its community, one of the largest in France covering over 34 acres and housing as many as 800 brothers and sisters. In 1115 Robert placed an abbess at the head of the Abbey recommending that only a widow should be elected in the future to ensure she had sufficient authority to attend not only to the spiritual but also to the temporal needs of the order. Half of the subsequent 36 abbesses were of royal blood and King Louis XV had his four youngest daughters educated there. The Plantagent King Henry II, his Queen Eleanor of Aquataine and their children Richard the Lionhearted and his sister Joan were all buried at Fontevraud and the recombant statues that once decorated their tombs are on display.

After the French Revolution in 1792 ended convent life it was converted into one of the most notorious prisons in France, with up to 1750 inmates including men, women and children. It was turned over to the Ministry of Cultural Affairs in 1963 with the last prisoner leaving in 1985. The Royal Abbey of Fontevraud is now the headquarters of the Cultural Center for Western France. Numerous activities are organized by the Center including national heritage training courses, Gregorian chant seminars, exhibitions, musical activies as well as a Society for the study of the history of Fontevraud.

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Fresco

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