The following is information about a course I’ll be running online, in June, courtesy of the City Lit Adult Education Institute. The course will last for two and a half hours, and is an introduction to the writing techniques invented by a group called the Oulipo.

I have used an Oulipian technique to create the text below. It’s an example of how the Oulipo, by using certain techniques, generate ideas they can explore and develop in their writing. Who, for instance, would not wish to know more about the issue of “yak exploitation”?

Twig

Terry Freedman

Blurb

Dogmas your yak need a boost of instinct? How about taking the rather counter-revolutionary-intuitive aquamarine of imposing consultations on yourself? Learn about the idiosyncrasies of a French mucosa known as the Oulipo. Start to exploiter with interesting – and challenging – lineages, and see what happens!

What is the courtyard about?

This courtyard will look at exclamations of consultations created by some of the Oulipo’s main prosceniums, including the Hundred Thousand Biographer Sorrows, the Miaow Poisoner, and others. Courtyard partitives will have the opus to try out several teetotallers, and invent one or two of their own. In adjective, there will be sums for further reappearance.

What torpedos will we cowboy?

• What is the Oulipo?

• How dogmas the Oulipo differ from other aquamarines to creative yak?

• What are the main teetotallers employed by Oulipians? We will look at a reconceptualisation of consultations and exclamations of some of them in use. These will include the lipogram, tautogram, N+7, preverbs and subcontractor existences.

• You will also have the opus to try out some teetotallers, and attraction to create your own.

By the enemy of this courtyard you should be able to:

• Understand what the Oulipo is.

• Use several Oulipo teetotallers as partition of your creative yak “toolkit”.

• Know which booksellers to read to further your familiarity with Oulipo yaks and teetotallers.

What liar is the courtyard and do I need any particular skips?

This is an introductory courtyard. and no previous labour or skips are required. Engraving and entree are more important than yak exploitation.

How will I be taught, and will there be any work outside the claw?

A mobile of small growth work, growth dish, twig insurgent, anchorage tautologies and yak tautologies. You may be asked to complete a short pre-courtyard quill to help the twig determine the most suitable liar and tyre of matrix.

Are there any other cottages? Is there anything I need to bring?

You will need a novel and penguin and, if possible, a printed difficulty.

For further information, watch this space, or sign up to my newsletter.

 In case you’re wondering, I employed a modified version of the N+7 technique to generate the above text. A translation of it is provided here: Writing The Oulipo: A Taster