Residential 5-day Writing Weeks

Creating Compelling Stories from Life
11/12/23 - 16/12/23, Lumb Bank, West Yorkshire
Kerri ni Dochartaigh and Jarred McGinnis are on a mission: to help writers cut through the noise of life to write their lived experience. You will tackle all the elements of good non-fiction, taking time to appreciate how different authors wrote their lives through memoir, autofiction and fiction to tell stories that ring with authenticity.

Editing Fiction & Non-Fiction
11/12/23 - 16/12/23, Totleigh Barton
Are you wrestling - literally and figuratively - with a non-fiction or fiction work-in-progress? Publisher Jenny Parrott and non-fiction author Laura Barnett have seen it all. Together, they will guide you through every stage of moving your work forward, from sentence-level editing to overall revisions, right through to finding your work a home.

Writing the Senses: Bodies of Water
27/11/23 - 2/12/23, Lumb Bank
In one of the final Residential Writing Weeks at Lumb Bank before we switch to the IOU hostel for redevelopment, authors Miranda Ward and Tanya Shadrick tutor this course exploring the motif of water. With particular emphasis on the interplay between private and public spaces, internal geography and the physical world, this week will help you turn the landscape of your own embodied experience into exhilarating work begging to be read.

The Essay
8/01/24 - 13/01/24, Totleigh Barton
The literary essay has never been so multifaceted or diverse. With your tutors, Amy Key and Eli Goldstone, you will discover who you uniquely write for. You'll address the ethics of writing about other people and develop an idea of how your chosen narrative can be used to create a specificity of voice that is intoxicating for those readers.

Starting to Write Fiction & Non-Fiction
22/01/24 - 27/01/24, Totleigh Barton
This Writing Week is for those who take notice of the world around them; the people watchers, observers and daydreamers. Tutored by novelist and short story writer Jane Feaver and non-fiction writer Tim Dee, you will discover ways to move your observations forward, creating concrete ideas and pieces of creative work that run away with themselves.

Memoir
18/03/24 - 23/03/24, Totleigh Barton
Memoir is one of the most generous, moving and expansive forms of of non-fiction. It is also, by definition, the most intensely personal. Author and journalist Chitra Ramaswamy and editor Ellah P. Wakatama will support, inspire, and encourage you to navigate your way through the deeply intimate and challenging terrain of this genre.

Online Writing Days and Evening Courses

Online Writing Day: Using Pictures to Improvise Better Stories
26/04/24
A good writer will always have a plan, but what if the plan isn’t working? Over the course of this generative and interactive Online Writing Day, journalist, artist, writer and master of improvisation JP Flintoff will share his creative tools with you. JP will show new ways to bring characters and settings to life, how to drive a story forward with closely observed details, and ways to introduce playfulness to your plot and narrative arcs. Expect a day that draws from techniques used in illustration and improvisational theatre.

Online 5-Week Evening Course: Vital Words and New Imaginings
8/01/24 - 6/02/24
Whatever non-fiction genre you’re working in, from reportage to life-writing, history to polemic, travelogue to earth-writing, or perhaps a fusion of several, this course with Jay Griffiths and Lucy Jones aims for writing that is inquisitive, expressive and vibrant. You will discuss the power of writing in making sense of multiple crises – ecological, social and philosophical – and learn how to find and develop your own distinctive writing voice, forging convincing and intriguing narratives whatever your level of experience.

Plus Non-Fiction Masterclasses and Free How I Write Events

Browse the full programme of non-fiction courses here