Besides teaching Latin and Greek, William is available for:

Readings & Workshops

I enjoy teaching creative writing to groups and individuals, asking the rates suggested by the Society of Authors, plus expenses. Get in touch for details.

Technical Requirements: computer projector, speakers.

Urchin for a Day: Engineer Josaph Bazalgette on the darker side of Victorian London

We’ve all heard of Victorian gents, the Great Exhibition and Isambard Kingdom Brunel. But how much do we know about the Victorian Underworld? Get to grips with disease, death and dastardly deeds: toshers, mudlarks, hoofers and toffs; costermongers, street sweepers, resurrectionists and baby farmers; cholera, typhus and typhoid.
“Smashers, Swigsmen, Coiners and Bloods. Dubs Men, Cadgers, Footpads and Cloak Twitchers! Omitting neither Patterers nor Merry-Andrews, which ain’t crimes but might as well be!”

The One-Armed Cannibal: a harum-scarum writing course in four parts

Create stories, poems, plays or lyrics to amuse yourself and impress your friends. What makes you laugh, what makes you cry, what makes you squirm? Do you like telling tales? Do you make up your own words to songs? If you want to write stories, funny or serious, ask yourself: what do I love to read? Can I write stories like these? "The Monomyth."
1. Inspiration/Perspiration
2. Developing Stories
3. Just Write It
4. Writing and Rewriting

GREEK WORKSHOP with your friendly philosophical host, Socrates

Mythology, minotaurs, marathons.
- the beginning of the universe to the start of science
- the original Olympics
- & how we learned to tell our own story with history & drama

LATIN WORKSHOP: What have the Romans ever done for us?
Julius Caesar, Roman roads, wine & gladiators.

From Inspiration to Final Full Stop: the nuts and bolts of writing

How do we approach inspiration, character, plot, voice, theme? What techniques can we draw on to generate ideas? How much should we rely on intuition? What kinds of discipline might bring us closer to our writing goals?
1. Plot
2. Character
3. Voice
4. Theme

I Could Write a Book:the long route from first idea to publication (single talk)

Novelist William Sutton talks of the highs and lows of life writing at home and abroad, and answers questions about his own route to publication, including acting in the world’s longest play, teaching Latin, writing for the Times, tutoring the Sugababes and playing cricket for Brazil.

I also perform a one man show, Songs I Sing in Languages I Don’t Speak, an hour of songs and observations about the special zing you get from songs and language learning.

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Translation

I've translated from Latin, Greek, Italian and Portuguese, and a couple of other languages that I don't strictly know. Here are a couple of poems I particularly like.

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Voices

(Constantin Cavafy)

Voices ideal and beloved
of those who’ve died
or those who are
lost for us like the dead.

Sometimes in dreams
they speak with us;
Sometimes in thought
the brain hears them.

And with their echo for a while
echoes of the first magic of
our life come back, like music heard
at night, far off, that fades away.

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Out of Tune

(Desafinado by Newton Mendonça & Antonio Carlos)

If you were to say I’m out of tune, my love,
That would be the worst you could accuse me of,
For you’re one of those people with the effortless caché,
While I just have whatever God has sent my way

If you will insist that my unusual
style of singing’s simply anti-musical,
I, even if I’m lying, have to argue with you
That this is Bossa Nova, it’s still samba, but it’s new.

The thing that you quite clearly have no clue about
is that us out-of-tune boys have a heart that beats and bleeds.
Took a snapshot of you with my Kodachrome.
Your unparalleled ingratitude’s revealed.