writing workshop uk

Stop fucking about & start writing

Everything you need to get your stories written

Free creative writing course!

Get out of your writerly rut and get your words flowing with the Writers’ HQ Guide to Productivity.

Inspired by more than ten years experience giving writers a much-needed kick up the beehive.

Most popular courses

Plotstormers

How to plot a novel. From idea to outline in just six week.

Couch to 5k Words

Shake off your literary ennui and get moving

Making People

The characterisation masterclass.

For badass writers with no time or money

Get writing

Procrastination-busting, word-writing, story-eating, tea-drinking, biscuit-dunking writing retreats and workshops. Online and irl. In the UK and worldwide.

Stay writing

Immediate start online writing courses. We’ve got everything you need to get going, keep going, plot, edit, unpick, rebuild, and publish your stories.

Finish your story

WHQers are the most productive, supportive, story-making, generous, loving bunch of writertypes anywhere ever, and together we’ll help you through.

Next event in:

Brighton Writers' Retreat

Sat, 18 May @ 10:00 AM GMT

We’re writers too

We understand how it works.

We’ve been helping writers grow and love their writing since 2012.

Writers’ HQ is run by Sarah Lewis and a badass team of hand-baked writers who understand that all stories – your stories – are important.

Join the most word-writing, tea-drinking, story-slinging, biscuit-dunking, productivity-boosting, super supportive writing community this side of the internet

Woohoo yeah do it do it yeah woo etc and so on

Keep your wallet in your pocket

Three free courses, the online writers retreat, Flash Face Off, forum access, and your first steps into your amazing community. It is, as they say, lit.

Gold stars!

The full writers’ hq membership for writerly superstars.

Access all areas, baby! Over 20 in-depth creative writing courses, monthly masterclasses, deep dives into story structure and much much more.

Who’s awesome? We’re awesome!

Well. You’re awesome, actually. You do the hard work, we just provide the warm embrace of swearing and tea and pep.

Life changing

This membership has honestly been life changing for me! After doing the 14 Days to a Solid Writing Habit course, which gave me a great kick start, I have been doing Plotstormers II to help me edit my novel. How do I say this without swearing? Fuck it, it’s been sodding amazing! It’s helping me so much to edit my novel. I’ve also been doing the Flash Fiction course and a piece of mine is on the Welkin Prize shortlist!

WHQ is fantastic

I did a free writing course with WHQ at the start of the pandemic and joined up straight after – since then I have had over twenty pieces published, been long and shortlisted in various competitions and won one at the beginning of this year – the tutors, and the encouragement of the forum members, are fantastic.

I now have the tools I need to do this

Writers’ HQ has played a huge part in getting me to where I am in the novel writing process. If it wasn’t for you guys it would still be a 3000 word draft hidden in a drawer somewhere. Now you have set me off on the right foot for the next stage in the process, knowing that everyone has doubts, but feeling reassured I have the tools I need to do this.

Love you Writers' HQ!

After hanging around as a freebie member and completing the free courses, I was so convinced by the improvements to my writing – and amused by the emails! – I signed up for three months… I’m still here, months later! I’ve learnt so much, from courses like Plotstormers and The First Draft, and from fellow WHQers, I would rather give up cake and chocolate than let my membership lapse! Love you WHQ!

I cannot imagine life without WHQ

I’ve been a subscriber since April 2019 and I now cannot imagine life without WHQ. It’s like my inner sanctum and I bang on about it to everyone all the time. They must get sick of me. In the past when I’ve had to knock other subscriptions on the head because of money, there was never any question of me doing the same for this wonderful organisation.

A wonderful community

Before I joined WHQ I never dreamed of submitting my work to magazines. Since becoming a paid-up member 5 months ago, I’ve had 6 flash fictions and 2 poems accepted for publication – entirely thanks to the inspiration and support of this wonderful community.

Want to be a better writer?

Or just to laugh at bum jokes? Either way, you need the famous Writers’ HQ newsletter. You know what to do – put your thing in the thing.

Name (required) Email (required) Yes, please add me to the Writers’ HQ newsletter of joy and wonder

Bits n bobs

Misc others.

Donate to the bursary

Social hoohas

© 2023 Writers’ HQ

Privacy Policy        Terms & Conditions

Web Design by Douglass Digital

• Our Patron of Writing
• Tutors & team
• What to expect
• Feedback guidelines
• Timetable at a glance

Introduction to Creative Writing

• Introduction 12 Week Course

Writing Poetry

• Life Writing & Memoir Writing

Writing Short Stories

• Writing for Children and Young Adults
• Flash Fiction

Novella Writing

Fiction Workshop Course

• Writing about Nature

Prioritise Your Writing

Editing Your Own Work

Publishing Talk Series

• Your Course Idea
• Lunchtime workshops
• Immersive Summer School
• Drop-in groups
• Talks & Events
• Summer School Showcase
• Student blog

A welcoming online home for all creative writers

Writing Room is all about helping you make space for creative writing in your week. Join us live online for small-group writing courses, friendly discussions and quiet work sessions from Monday to Friday in term times. Check in as often or as little as suits your schedule. Enjoy finding support and inspiration to become the writer you want to be. Read more...

View our timetable at a glance!

BRAND NEW COURSE: Publishing Perspectives Talk Series - read more...

STOP PRESS! HANNAH LOWE & LIZ BERRY LAUNCH OUR NEW LUNCHTIME WRITING WORKSHOPS!

Short creative writing courses, hosted live online

Life Writing & Memoir

Writing for Children & YA

Writing Flash Fiction

Immersive Summer Schools

Weekly drop-ins for students, hosted live online

Monday Start Your Week

Thursday Writing Hour

Feedback Friday

Events, talks, masterclasses & bursaries

Events & talks

Masterclasses

Steve Thompson Bursaries

I WAS TRULY AMAZED

“ An amazing resource for anyone who loves writing at any level. I was truly amazed to discover so much going on. ”

POSITIVE ENCOURAGEMENT

“ What was particularly useful was the positive encouragement from people who could dissect writing in a meaningful way. ”

COMMUNITY THAT BUILDS

“ It's a community that builds as you move from one course to another. You'd be hard put to find that on a Creative Writing MA at 100x the price. ”

DIVERSITY OF STUDENTS

“ I love the incredible generosity of the teachers and the high level of the input from them. I also love the diversity of the students, such a different and interesting profile compared to when I have done other courses. ”

Anon from student survey

NO SNOBBERY!

“ Great, informative, reasonably priced courses. Friendly. No snobbery! It's a very open community, open to all levels of experience, yet it seems to attract writers who are keen to be professionally minded. ”

Writing Room is a registered Community Interest Company: a non-profit arts organisation committed to serving the interests of our diverse community of creative writers.

Email us at, [email protected], or get in touch using the form, about our courses.

© Writing Room CIC Photography © Ruth Guthrie unless stated

Welcome to Pebble Beach Writing.

We offer workshops and mentoring for creative writers of all levels and experience. Among our participants are new writers trying out their first ideas on the page and published authors who want support and feedback as they develop their work.

Pebble Beach tutor, Susanna Jones,  has over thirty years' teaching experience and was the main fiction tutor on the Creative Writing MA at Royal Holloway University of London for fourteen years. She has also taught at the University of Exeter and has tutored courses for the Arvon Foundation.

Courses are held in Brighton and Hove or online. Groups are small – usually 5–8 participants – allowing everyone time for individual feedback and space to develop.

Classes for summer term 2024:

Writing a Novel (new), Saturday mornings, Brighton 

Writing from Life (new), Saturday afternoons, Brighton

Writing a Novel (continuing), Monday evenings, Hove

Fiction Workshop (continuing), Tuesday evenings, Hove 

Online tuition is also possible for individuals or small groups of writers with similar aims. See below or get in touch to find out more.

Join our mailing list below for the latest news and announcements. 

Join our mailing list

Thanks for subscribing!

'Susanna is, without a doubt, the best creative writing teacher and workshop leader I’ve ever come across. Whether you are just starting out on your writing journey, or have a couple of novels under your belt and want to hone your skill, Susanna is the right person for you. She was the lead fiction tutor on my Creative Writing MA and, more recently, has guided me through editing my first novel. I’m not sure I could have done it without her - and I certainly wouldn’t have done it this well. I have complete trust in her judgement and believe she has made me not only a stronger writer but a much better editor. She is generous with her time and with her extensive experience and will give your work the kind of respect, care and attention that most writers can only dream of from a third party. In short, whatever stage you’re at as a writer, Susanna will help you progress, improve and reach your writing goal.'      Louisa S.

One-to-one Mentoring/Small Group Tuition

One-off or a series of sessions for writers of all levels.

Beginners' tuition package of 5 sessions, including prompts and ideas to get you started.

Editorial and developmental feedback on your novel.

Small group Zoom sessions may be possible for two or more writers with similar requirements. 

Pebble Beach Writing is run by Susanna Jones,  the author of several novels, including The Earthquake Bird, Water Lily, The Missing Person's Guide to Love and When Nights Were Cold.   She is currently writing for film. 

Susanna has been teaching for more than thirty years. From 2005 to 2018 she was the main fiction tutor on the MA in Creative Writing at Royal Holloway University of London. Many of her former students have gone on to publish novels and win awards. She has taught and mentored writers of all levels, from beginners to PhD students.

TESTIMONIALS

'Susanna is an amazing mentor.  I was lucky enough to be taught by her when I undertook an MA in Creative Writing before going on to teach the subject myself.  Her insightful advice and editing skills are second to none.  When I started a novel and hit some thorny difficulties, I was so pleased to discover that Susanna was running an Advanced Fiction Writing course.  She was invaluable in terms of helping me pick out the strands which were working and the ones which needed further thought.  She has an exceptional eye for detail and her feedback is positive and constructive.  She offered accessible solutions based on her many years of experience and opened up new avenues I hadn’t considered, which was so helpful.  There is no way I could have produced work at this level and this quickly, without her support.   

     Susanna created a great rapport within a workshop environment.  Even though the sessions I took were online, the respectful and encouraging tone she set, eased us into working comfortably together.  Her sessions were well- run and well-structured and I thoroughly looked forward to each one.  Susanna brought out the best in my writing and I couldn’t recommend her highly enough.'

'Susanna is, without a doubt, the best creative writing teacher and workshop leader I’ve ever come across. Whether you are just starting out on your writing journey, or have a couple of novels under your belt and want to hone your skill, Susanna is the right person for you. She was the lead fiction tutor on my Creative Writing MA and, more recently, has guided me through editing my first novel. I’m not sure I could have done it without her - and I certainly wouldn’t have done it this well. I have complete trust in her judgement and believe she has made me not only a stronger writer but a much better editor. She is generous with her time and with her extensive experience and will give your work the kind of respect, care and attention that most writers can only dream of from a third party. In short, whatever stage you’re at as a writer, Susanna will help you progress, improve and reach your writing goal.' 

'Susanna is incredibly insightful and has been a huge help in identifying areas where my manuscript needed development. She’s helped me work through options while bringing a fresh insight into the work as well as identifying potential pitfalls. She’s a great tutor and coach and all her workshops leave me feeling energised and confident for the next stage.'

'I taught the novel as literature and writing fiction in Universities for over thirty years but putting this experience into practice when writing is much harder. Susanna Jones really knows how to help. She is an accomplished writer who really understands storytelling but also how a novel is structured and built from the blank page. I found her advice and encouragement priceless. Her novel writing courses and workshops are excellent and I recommend them without reservation. I am still writing and learning and I will return.'

'Susanna's artful teaching method helps you get those words down on paper with no pain or shame. Inspiring!'

Madeleine C

'One of the things that made this course so enjoyable was Susanna's enthusiasm for us, her students, and our work. She clearly loves teaching - and is brilliant at pin-pointing what a piece of writing is trying to do, as well as suggesting how to do it. She is entirely undogmatic about how to approach writing. She really listens and gives intelligent but non-prescriptive responses. Every session was thought-provoking and stimulating and really specific about how and what works in fiction.'

'Susanna is a brilliant creative writing teacher and mentor who is now mentoring me through my second book. She has that rare capacity to pinpoint exactly what works and doesn’t work in a piece of writing, and why. Whether you need help with overall structure and direction, or a close critical reading with a scrupulous editor’s eye, she will give you the best possible support to transform your writing.'

'I find it difficult to start, to pick up that one simple thing that can propel me into the creative flow. The 60-minute sessions I did last December were enjoyable, useful, and left me with material to develop into a couple of short stories - and a poem that was published.' 

'I’d like to tell you how much your Creative Writing workshops meant to me. Your guidance encouraged me to think as well as to enjoy writing and we had fun too! Thank you so much, Susanna.'

'Susanna Jones was an outstanding lecturer on my MA course in creative writing – her books were one of the reasons that I chose the course. She provided clear and helpful teaching on how to produce the best writing, together with incisive critical feedback.  Being such a talented author herself gave her a unique insight into the most effective ways to encourage budding writers. I have no doubt that my work measurably improved as a result of her efforts.'

'Susanna was my tutor on the MA and I looked forward to her classes every week. Her feedback was always spot on and encouraged me to reflect on my writing in new ways and dig a little deeper. Susanna is one of those rare breeds of people who both excels at her craft but is also able to pass on her knowledge and years of experience in an engaging way. She is just a brilliant tutor and I can't recommend her highly enough.'

 'I felt a little ambivalent about joining an online writing course but it turned out to have been such a good move. Somehow I found it easier to focus, not harder, and the fact that I could simply continue with what I was writing the moment the class finished made for some very productive Sunday evenings. Susanna is just lovely. She has a knack for nudging you gently towards fresh perspectives, different angles. In just a few sessions I found myself thinking very differently about what I was writing, what I could be writing, and why. Not at all what I’d expected!'

• Creative Writing Programme (In-person)
• Creative Writing Programme (Online)
• The Life Writing Programme (In-person)
• Advanced Writing Workshops (In-person)
• Advanced Poetry Workshops (In-person)
• Advanced Poetry Workshops (Online)
• Creative Writing Programme (Blended)

The Creative Writing Programme UK

Uk and international in-person and online creative and life writing courses, university-level courses from £700 per year.

The Creative Writing Programme is one of the leading centres for creative writing in the UK. After moving out of the University of Sussex it has established a reputation for excellence in Brighton and the south east.

Our approach to teaching creative writing

At a time when the cost of higher education has made university study an expensive luxury, our programmes offer a practical course of study, taught at university level, at an affordable price.

Our innovative approach to teaching focuses on individual creativity and on teaching writing skills within the context of the creative process. Through a practical course of study designed to teach you how to build and structure narrative, our team of experienced writing tutors will help you develop your creative potential.

Our creative writing courses

We offer a mix of courses: in-person and online. Our in-person classes are taught from the Friends Meeting House in central Brighton and in Kemptown Bookshop in east Brighton and are perfect for writers who live along the south coast within travelling distance of Brighton.

Online creative writing courses

Our online teaching uses the Zoom video conferencing platform and our online creative writing courses bring together writing students from across the UK and the world. We have experience of teaching distance learning courses and have spent time researching and developing new approaches to teaching creative writing online. We’re excited about the potential of video conferencing as a teaching tool. Video conferencing allows us to maintain the interactive element we feel is crucial to successful teaching and have discovered that in many areas it offers effective approaches to teaching beyond those available in the traditional classroom. In an ever-shrinking world we believe our online writing groups offer a rich cultural and creative experience for developing writers.

On one of our online courses you will be able to stay in touch with other writers in your group, communicating through a dedicated course page on our website and meeting up outside seminar times on Zoom to get to know each other. You will click on a link on your online course page to access your online classroom where you’ll meet as a group once a week for virtual, face to face sessions led by your creative writing tutor. We also offer one-day masterclasses online and online student and alumni readings so you can be assured of a full experience. 

If you’d like to know more about how we work, you can find out more on the Creative Writing Courses page and on our Blog

If you would like to receive information and updates from the Creative Writing Programme you can subscribe to our newsletter at the bottom of this page.

OUR 2024-6 COURSES ARE NOW OPEN FOR ENROLMENT. 

From October 2024 we are offering our two-year, part-time Creative Writing Programmes and the Life Writing Programme;  a range of Advanced Poetry courses and our popular Advanced Writing Workshops . Full details are on our Creative Writing Courses tab. You can book your place on the booking tabs at the bottom of the course description page. If you would like to make any enquiries about our courses, contact [email protected]

In the meantime, why not sign up for our taster sessions in July and September? Join one of our writing tutors for a practical writing session to explore our unique approach to teaching, meet other writers and find out more about our courses. Sessions last for two hours and are held either  online or in-person at the Friends Meeting House or Kemptown Bookshop in Brighton. Visit our Eventbrite page to find out more and book.

To find out more about how we work on the Creative Writing Programme and creative writing courses in general visit Creative Writing FAQs

 Creative writing course for teenagers 

From 29th July to 2nd August 2024, join other young adult writers at the Friends Meeting House, Brighton to spend a week understanding the craft of writing and producing your own short story.

Over the five days, you will spark your imagination and empower your inner storyteller with our interactive and fun workshops. Your tutor for the week is Beth Miller , the author of six novels including the bestselling  The Missing Letters of Mrs Bright . She will help you to develop your characters, plot and setting,  hone your voice, story structure and editing skills so that by the end of the week you have a finished short story or the start of a longer piece of work.

Embark on your creative odyssey and sign up today.

This course runs from 10.30pm-4.30pm every day and is aimed at young adults aged 13-16.

Click here to book a place

Writing Otherness 

On 20th and 21st June, we’re running a short course in Brighton on how to write different perspectives from our own. This thought-provoking course led by writer Sharlene Teo explores ways of navigating and presenting characters in fiction by confronting our biases, privileges and stereotyped perceptions.  For more details, click here . 

Books by students and tutors

Panic Response

Panic Response: John McCullough, Penned In the Margins, 2022. Published earlier this year, Panic Response is John's...

Magnetism: Ruth Figgest, Myriad Books. Magnetism is Ruth Figgest's sharply observed and darkly comic tale that tells...

Sleeping under Clouds

Sleeping Under Clouds: Sue Wallace-Shaddad and Sula Rubens Sue first met the artist Sula Rubens in late 2019. This led...

The Call - an unputdownable thriller. PD Viner, Canelo Hero 2022. The Call is a high octane read, an unputdownable...

She Clown and other stories

Hannah Vincent's short story collection, She Clown and other stories, was published by Myriad in March 2020. Captured...

Enter your email to subscribe to the Creative Writing Programme mailing list

You are using an outdated browser. Please upgrade your browser to improve your experience.

Home / Courses & Retreats

COURSES & RETREATS

Arvon writing houses are open for Residential Writing Weeks and Retreats. We also have a full Arvon at Home online programme of Online Writing Weeks, Masterclasses, 1-1s and free How I Write events. Courses Overview

• Inua Ellams' Spring Season
• Residential Writing Week
• Online Writing Week
• Masterclass
• Masterclass Recording
• How I Write
• Online Five Week Course
• Residential Tutored Retreat
• Online Writing Day
• Residential Retreat
• Children and Young People's Events

Non-Fiction

• Starting to Write
• Screenwriting
• Children & YA
• Short Story

Totleigh Barton

• Hebden Bridge

Fiction , Non-Fiction

Residential Writing Week: Editing Fiction & Non-Fiction

Take a fresh look and dive deep into self-editing

Residential Writing Week: Poetry

Poetry can do everything!

May 20-Jun 18

Online 5-Week Evening Course: Non-fiction

Growing your life writing

Starting to Write , Theatre

Online Writing Day: Write a Short Play in a Day

From idea to script

Masterclass: The Poetry of Care

How to write a poem when you've got 100 more important things to do (and how it can help)

May 27-Jun 1

Residential Writing Week: Fiction

Find your unique voice

Fiction , Poetry , Short Story , Other

Online Writing Week: Starting to Write

Honing your working class voice

Fiction , Starting to Write

How I Write: Isabel Waidner

Q&A and Reading

Masterclass: Poetic Metaphor

Nailing the mechanics of metaphor

Hebden Bridge Town Hall

Arvon Writing Festival: Lemn Sissay

Let the light pour in

Fiction , Poetry , Screenwriting , Other

Arvon Writing Festival: Henry Normal

Everything and more

Fiction , Poetry , Non-Fiction

Festival of Writing Day

Residential Writing Week: Non-Fiction

Writing place as character

Residential Writing Week: Writing a Novel – Work-in-Progress

Cross the finish line (and make your novel shine)

Masterclass: Playwriting

Five types of experience

Online Writing Day: Non-Fiction

Get unstuck in a day – from fear to joy

Clockhouse Retreats

Give your writing the time and space it deserves with Arvon’s dedicated Writers Retreat at The Clockhouse. The Clockhouse is open year-round, set in the grounds at The Hurst.

JOIN OUR MAILING LIST

Want to know what's coming up in the next week? Arvon’s newsletter is the best way to avoid missing out on anything - from new and upcoming courses, to Arvon giveaways and writing and self-development opportunities.

Privacy Overview

Welcome to WriteClub

WriteClub offers creative writing workshops, courses and writing sprints where everyone is welcome - no matter what your writing experience to date.

Sessions are run online and face-to-face in the lovely city of Bristol in the South West of England and are all delivered by experienced writer, teacher and coach, Alison Powell. She will support you to find your voice, develop your craft and share your words with the world.

You'll find a welcoming space here where you can take small steps (and giant leaps!) towards your writing goals. You (and your words) can become part of the global community of fabulous humans that make up WriteClub.

What they're saying about WriteClub

J M Joseph,

author of Fire Boy trilogy

Alison Powell of WriteClub is a writer’s dream, a reader who sees your story before you do, an editor with an ear for the rhythm of prose. Her notes helped me carve out the opening for Fire Boy, the novel that helped me find an agent and publisher. Her classes are a godsend for any writer looking for help and inspiration.

Rebecca Rogers

author of The Purgatory Poisonings

With Al’s help and the wonderful support of the WriteClub community, I eventually finished the book!

longlisted for Bridport Prize 2021

With the support and encouragement of WriteClub, I’ve written much more than I thought I was capable of.

Fiona Fletcher Reid

author of Work It Out

Al is always encouraging, seems so genuinely invested in everyone taking part which was lovely. She created a warm, welcoming space which made showing up to take part very easy.

Community, Creativity, Craft & Career

“joining the writers workshop has been fantastic. because of the expertise, the events, and also the supportive nature of everyone i've met, i'm writing much more regularly now.” — nisha.

Founded by Beverley Ward in 2021 and run by professional writers and creative practitioners, The Writers Workshop supports all authors at every level of experience. Based in Sheffield, England, we offer in-person and online writing classes and development opportunities to writers locally, nationally and internationally.

Join The Writers Workshop today to enjoy discounts across all our activities and special member privileges.

The Writers Workshop is funded only by membership fees and ticket sales. We aim to strike a balance between providing quality, affordable events for writers whilst also supporting our associates (self-employed professionals) to make a living. By joining The Writers Workshop, you’re playing a vital role in ensuring the community continues, We hope you find plenty to participate in! Check out our What’s On page or the Join page for more information.

Sign Up to Our Mailing List

Use this form to register to receive emails from The Writers Workshop. Please note: joining the mailing list does not mean you are a member of The Writers Workshop. For membership information, please visit the Join page. Thanks!

We respect your privacy.

• Skip to main content
• Skip to primary sidebar

Writing Tips Oasis - A website dedicated to helping writers to write and publish books.

16 Top Creative Writing Workshops in London

By Katrina Kwan

Different types of writing classes in London are aplenty.

And if it’s a creative writing class you’re looking for, continue reading.

Below you’ll find 16 top creative writing workshops in London.

1. Half-Day Writing Workshops with Creative Writing Workshops London

Hosted by Diane Chandler, the winner of the 2016 People’s Book Prize for Fiction , Creative Writing Workshops London is currently offering half-day writing workshops through the months of March, May, and June of 2020. These writing workshops are available for a flat fee of £40.00, and includes provided coffee and baked goods. Based out of Chiswick, London, classes primarily take place in the morning.

These classes will help you create better characters, develop page-turning plot, help to create engaging dialogue, and assist you with writing captivating description. Each workshop takes roughly three hours and accepts up to eight people per class, so be sure to reserve your place as soon as possible. For more information or general inquiries, you can contact Diane via email .

2. Space to Write Wednesdays with Creative Writes

Creative Writes is a creative writing and poetry reading workshop that was founded by Nichola Charalambou. Based out of Muswell Hill, London, Creative Writes offers Space to Write Wednesdays , a creative writing workshop hosted between the months of April to June of 2019. Each class takes place between 7:30PM to 9:30PM.

This creative writing workshop in London is designed to help you with free flow writing, as well as to help develop your work in progress. The fee for this course is £25.00 per class, with included refreshments. For more information or general inquiries, you can contact the team at Creative Writes through their website’s online contact form .

3. Write Better Short Stories with Jane Rogers

Led by award-winning novelist and short story writer Jane Rogers, Write Better Short Stories is a creative writing course offered through London’s very own Faber Academy. This course takes place between May 2 nd , 2019 to July 18 th , 2019, and costs a flat fee of £995.00. Classes take place between 7:00PM to 9:00PM every Thursday evening. Tea and coffee will be provided!

This 12-week course will help you develop your writing skills, increase your knowledge about the short story genre, provide you with individual feedback, and will even help to take three of your stories and prepare them for submission. There are only two places left, so it’s imperative that you register for the course as soon as possible to reserve your spot. For more information or general inquiries, you can contact the team at Faber Academy either through their website’s online contact form or call 0207 927 3868.

4. Folk Tales in New Fiction with London Lit Lab

The London Lit Lab is a creative writing group that offers a wide range of writing resources and workshops for both professional and aspiring authors. They are currently offering Folk Tales in New Fiction led by Zoe Gilbert, who is a published author through Bloomsbury and a PhD candidate for Creative Writing. The course itself will look at symbolism, how to develop recognizable characters, use preexisting tales as jumping off points for your own fiction, and examine what makes successful re-imaginings.

The course takes place on May 11 th , 2019 between 10:00AM to 4:00PM and costs a flat fee of £115 for early bird registration, or £139 for regular registration. The class will take place at the Keynes Library, Birbeck School of Arts located at 43 Gordon Square, London. Class size is limited to fifteen students, so be sure to register right away . For more information or general inquiries, you can contact the team via email or visit their Facebook page .

5. How to Write A Poem with Richard Scott & Maurice Riordan

How to Write a Poem is a creative writing workshop currently offered by Faber Academy, led by poets Richard Scott and Maurice Riordan. This is a three-month poetry course designed for beginners looking to develop their poetic skills. The course takes place between April 30 th , 2019 to July 16 th , 2019 and costs a flat rate of £480.00.

All classes take place between 7:00PM to 9:00PM on Tuesday evenings and will explore topics like voice, self-portraiture and objects, drafting, line breaks, genre mixing, and more. There are only seven spot left, so it’s imperative you register right away.

6. Write & Shine with Gunnersbury Park & Museum

The Gunnersbury Park & Museum offers a program known as Write & Shine, an early morning writing workshop that offers several classes in London and online. Led by Gemma Seltzer, a talented writer who’s worked with organizations like Age UK, BBC Radio 3, Tate Modern, and the Venice Biennale, Write & Shine offers 90-minute writing workshops based out of central London.

The next session is schedule to take place on April 14 th , 2019 between 10:15AM to 12:00PM. A light breakfast will be provided for those who attend. If you’re interested in this writing workshop, you can apply for a spring membership for a flat rate of £129. For more information or general inquiries, you can contact the team at Write and Shine through their website’s online contact form .

7. Fiction Skills: Plot with Tom Bromley

Tom Bromley is currently hosting Fiction Skills: Plot through Faber Academy. He is an author, editor, and ghostwriter with a ton of experience writing both fiction and nonfiction books. The course itself takes place between June 3 rd to 30 th , 2019 and actually takes place online for the convenience of his students.

The course will go over tips and strategies on how to plot, provide a creative and supportive writing group to help you nurture your writing skills, as will provide you with the opportunity of writing a 2k word piece to be critiqued and worked on over the duration of the course. There is a flat fee of £120.00 and there are currently twenty-eight places left to register!

8. One to One MasterClass with Creative Writes

Creative Writes offers one to one masterclasses to assist you in your writing career. They offer one-hour masterclasses for a flat rate of £60.00 and two-hour masterclass for £110.00. All classes are located at their Muswell Hill location, and you can book the course based on your schedule availability. In this workshop, you will be guided through how to adapt your work structure and truly organize your thoughts to help give your writing clarity and a unique voice. You will work closely with Nichola Charalambou, the founder of Creative Writes, who will guide you through the writing process. For more information, you can call 079 4109 1313.

9. Getting Started: Beginner’s Fiction with Helen Shipman

Getting started on a brand-new project can sometimes be tricky, but with a guiding hand, you may be surprised at just how quickly your words find a blank page. Helen Shipman is a writing coach with over 30 years of experience. She is currently offering Getting Started; Beginner’s Fiction , a creative writing course offered through Faber Academy. This 8-week course takes place between June 3 rd , 2019 to July 28 th , 2019 and costs £300.00. There are currently seventeen places left, so it’s important to register as soon as possible if you’re interested.

The course will go over how to develop your creativity and discipline, point of view, character development, setting establishment, dealing with time, structure, and how to organize your writing time. This is actually an online course, which means that students can participate regardless of location!

10. Creative Writing Through Art with Gina DeCagna (Studio 73)

Studio 73 present Creative Writing Through Art , lead by writer, editor, and visual artist Gina DeCagna. The workshop will take place April 23 rd , 2019 between 7:00PM to 9:00PM at the Studio 73 Gallery in London. This workshop is intended for novice and expert writers alike, and will go over development of writing techniques in the genres of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and more. The workshop itself costs a flat fee of £16.58 and will be located at 73 Brixton Village, London. You can register for the course here . For more information or general inquiries, you can contact the organizers via email or call 020 7274 7773.

11. Start Your Novel in Five Days with Kathryn Heyman & Mark Haddon

If you’re an aspiring author looking for guidance on how to start your very first novel, consider checking out the Star Your Novel In Five Days workshop led by authors Kathryn Heyman and Mark Haddon. This course will take place between June 17 th to June 21 st , 2019 and costs a flat rate of £550. There are only eleven spots left, so be sure to register right away. This workshop was designed to guide you step by step to help get your novel from idea to reality. This intensive course will take place at Faber Academy located at 74-77 Great Russell Street, London. For more information, you can call 207 927 3827 or email the organizers for general inquiries.

12. Film and Creative Writing Workshop with Amir Darwish & Adam Skup (Hikayetna)

In collaboration with Hikayetna and Near Neighbours, Film and Creative Writing Workshop is a free workshop lead by Amir Darwish and Adam Skup. This course is intended to help creative individuals develop their ideas through visual, oral, and written forms of art. Refreshments will be offered. The course will take place on April 6 th , 2019 between 12:00PM to 4:00PM at Noel Rd, London. For more information or general inquiries, you can contact the event organizers via email .

13. Free Your Creativity and Get Started on Your Book with Guardian Masterclasses

The Guardian is a renowned newspaper that also offers writing courses at their London location. They are currently hosting the Free Your Creativity and Gest Started On Your Book masterclass, which will take place between May 18 th , 2019 to May 19 th , 2019 from 10:00AM to 4:00PM. Led by Philippa Pride, who has been running the course since 2006, the workshop will go over how to set up a consistent writing schedule, how to practice your creativity, how to develop your narrative, create compelling plots, characters, and dialogue, and more. The course costs £499.00 plus a £7.80 registration fee. For more information, you can contact Guardian Masterclasses via email .

14. Introduction to Creative Writing (Goldsmiths, University of London)

Goldsmiths University of London offers several creative writing programs that can help you develop your skills and put you on the right track to starting your writing career. They are currently offering Introduction to Creative Writing May 1 st , 2019 between 6:30PM to 8:30PM (10-week duration), and November 9 th , 2019 between 10:00AM to 3:00PM (5-week duration). The flat fee for the course is £295. The course is led by Dr. Catherine Humble, a writer, lecturer, and journalist with experience as a creative writing teacher. For general inquiries, you can contact the organizers at Goldsmiths via email .

15. Write Here with Emma Filtness (Cultural Connections Christ Church)

Cultural Connections Christ Church is currently hosting Write Here led by author Emma Filtness. The workshop will take place on May 18 th , 2019 between 2:00PM to 4:00PM at the Clapham Library, located at 91 Clapham High Street, London. No previous writing experience is necessary.

The workshop is designed to help writers develop their short story, poetry, life writing, and flash fiction writing techniques. It is a free event, but space is limited. If you’re interested in participating, be sure to sign up as soon as possible! For more information, you can contact the Cultural Connections Christ Church via email or call 020 7498 4625.

16. How to Write Compelling Memoir with London Lit Lab

The London Lit Lab is currently offering How to Write Compelling Memoir led by novelist and creative nonfiction writer Lily Dunn. This class will take place on October 5 th , 2019 between 10:00AM to 4:00PM at the Keynes Library, Birkbeck, University of London, at 43 Gordon Square, London. Early bird registration starts at £115, and regular registration starts at a rate of £139.

This workshop will help budding memoirists in their pursuit of recounting personal experiences, discuss confidentiality and ethical issues, as well as explore the use of creativity in memoir. Space is limited to fifteen members, so be sure to register if you’re interested! For more information, you can contact the organizers via email .

Do you know of any other creative writing workshops in London, England? Please tell us about them in the comments box below!

K. Z. Kwan is a freelance writer based out of Halifax, Canada.

Course details

Creative writing summer school.

The intermediate-level strand of the summer school is currently full, with an extensive waiting list, and we are no longer accepting applications.

Immerse yourself in your writing over three intensive weeks spent in Oxford. 

This unique summer school offers opportunities for writers at both intermediate and advanced levels to work under the guidance of experienced tutors.

You will write, develop your technique, sharpen your critical faculties and discuss your work in small, focused seminars. Each weekday you will attend a talk given by an author, publisher, agent, or editor. You will live and work in beautiful Exeter College, the environment that nurtured J R R Tolkien, Philip Pullman, Martin Amis, William Morris, and many others.

At the end of your three weeks, you will have acquired new skills, made new friends, and developed a fresh portfolio of creative writing.

• A three-week residential summer school.
• Take part in interactive seminars featuring writing exercises and group discussion.
• Benefit from guidance by tutors who are both published authors and experienced teachers.
• Attend daily talks given by established authors, agents, editors and others.

Participate in open mic nights and peer-led workshop sessions.

• Study and live at Exeter College, founded 1314 - one of Oxford University's oldest colleges.
• Enjoy a range of social events, including walking tours and excursions.

What is meant by intermediate and advanced?

The intermediate strand of the summer school is open access; it is for keen readers aged 18 and over who have written regularly and read widely over a sustained period. Students on the intermediate programme take two seminars, one in fiction and one in creative non-fiction. Applications for the intermediate strand do not require samples of written work.

The advanced strand of the summer school is an intensive programme which is suitable for writers who have completed or nearly completed a single-honours degree in Creative Writing or English Literature, or who have taken a significant number of courses in creative writing or English literature. Students on the advanced strand are likely to have developed specialisms in their work; they choose two from seven available seminars: creative non-fiction, fiction (two options), middle-grade and teen/young adult fiction, poetry, scriptwriting, and short story. Applications for the advanced strand include a statement of purpose and samples of written work.

Both strands live and work in beautiful Exeter College, socialising, dining and attending plenary lectures together.

All of the seminars involve writing exercises, group discussion, and the development of a portfolio of creative writing.

Each seminar has two two-hour meetings per week. Classes typically contain no more than 15 students.

(See "Programme details", below, for seminar descriptions.)

Contact hours

The programme provides you with a minimum of 46.5 contact hours, comprising:

• 24 hours of seminar meetings (12 hours per seminar); and
• 22.5 hours of talks (15 sessions, each lasting 1.5 hours).

Social programme

You can enjoy optional social events throughout the summer school. These may include a walking tour of Oxford, after-dinner talks and weekend excursions to sites of literary and/or historical interest. Most of these activities incur additional costs.

You will have an opportunity to share ideas and work with your fellow students at open mic nights (one per week) and informal peer-led workshop sessions (two per week).

Beyond the summer school, Oxford is a vibrant and cosmopolitan city with a busy cultural and social scene offering a wide variety of plays and shows, concerts, films and exhibitions.

Programme details

Intermediate-level seminars.

Click here to download the intermediate-level seminar timetable .

Creative Non-Fiction

Writing about real lives and experiences – your own, or someone else’s – is rewarding but also daunting. What if you have too much information, or your story involves other people? How do you fill the gaps? How do you keep the reader reading? What if your core purpose is to write creatively not about a life, but about a specific place or time, journey or sickness, idea or vocation? And when does storytelling tip over into fiction? In this course we will use practical exercises, examples, discussion and the sharing of writing to explore ways of imagining, researching, developing, shaping and voicing real-life material to form a narrative.

Tutor: Dr Emma Darwin’s memoir,  This is Not a Book About Charles Darwin  (Holland House Books, 2019), explores her disastrous attempt to write a novel about her family. Her debut novel,  The Mathematics of Love  (Headline Review, 2006), was nominated for the Commonwealth Writers’ and other awards; her second,  A Secret Alchemy  (Headline Review, 2009), was a  Sunday Times  bestseller;  Get Started in Writing Historical Fiction  (John Murray Learning) was published in 2016. She has a PhD in Creative Writing (London) and was an Associate Lecturer at the Open University; she blogs at  This Itch of Writing .

In this course you will explore who you are as a writer, reflecting on the stories that you see and hear in the stuff of everyday life and thinking about what you, uniquely, can bring to those stories that you choose to tell. We will discover how to depict fictional worlds, characters, relationships, situations and sequences of events so that they seem ‘real’ but at the same time sing on the page and make for compelling reading. To this end, we will be spending our time on writing exercises and discussion - sharing our work, ideas and experiences as and when we are comfortable to do so.

Tutor: Suzannah Dunn has published two collections of short fiction and twelve novels, seven of them historical, one of which,  The Confession of Katherine Howard,  was a Richard and Judy Pick. Her thirteenth novel,  Levitation for Beginners , will be published by Little, Brown in 2024. She has decades of experience as a tutor of creative writing in all kinds of settings with writers of all levels of confidence and skills. For five years she was Director of Manchester University’s MA in Novel Writing, and is now a tutor and mentor at Curtis Brown Creative.

Advanced-level seminar options

Click here to view the advanced-level seminar timetable .

We tell stories about ourselves and others every day. Taking a close look at autobiography, memoir, and biography, we will discuss how these stories are told and the extent to which this influences what we think we know about our own lives and those of others. The course will focus on narrative prose. It will provide an opportunity for students to work on an idea for a life story or an existing project. Students will be encouraged to work on their own writing during the course. We will discuss the challenges we all face as writers and how to address them. There will be opportunities to explore contemporary examples of life-writing that challenge traditional autobiographical and biographical narratives and the boundaries between fiction and non-fiction. We will address questions about form and style that help us to decide what kind of narrative we want to write, whether it be a book, an article, or a short life story.

Tutor: Rebecca Abrams is the author of Touching Distance , which won the MJA Open Book Award for Fiction and was shortlisted for the McKitterick Prize for Literature, The Playful Self ,   Woman in a Man's World , and Licoricia of Winchester: Power and Prejudice in Medieval England .  She is the editor of Out of Exodus , two anthologies of new fiction, and Jewish Treasures of Oxford Libraries , which was long-listed for the 2021 Wingate Literary Prize.  A journalist of many years standing, Rebecca is a regular literary critic for the Financial Times , a former columnist for the Daily Telegraph , and the recipient of an Amnesty International Press Award for Journalism.

Fiction: Turning Ideas Into Narratives

This course is aimed at those who are starting to write prose but do not yet feel fully confident. Using a variety of exercises and some examples from literature, we shall investigate the formation of character, and develop character arcs. Then we shall develop story and plot outlines together, planning scenes. Finally, we shall attempt to identify and discuss your unique strengths and preferences with a view to finding your USP - unique selling point.

Tutor: Dr Rachel Bentham has been Royal Literary Fellow at Bath University, and teaches for both Bristol and Bath Spa Universities. Her plays and short stories have been regularly broadcast on BBC Radio 4, and her poetry is internationally published. She has recently completed a novel set in nineteenth-century Tahiti. A recent collection of haiku was called  Let All Tongues Flower  (Firewater Press, 2013); and her most recent collection, also of haiku, is titled  Other Roads North  (2019) and reached number one on Amazon.

Fiction: Fine-Tuning Your Writing

This course is designed to help you hone your craft as a writer and see your project through to its completion. We shall start by examining your aims and motivation, troubleshooting any problems you are having in maintaining commitment and progress. We shall explore how to give your writing maximum resonance and power, analysing how you can use voice and point of view, give your characters extra depth and weave together story strands, themes and images. Finally, we shall look at sending your work out into the world, with workshopping and advice on editing and pitching.

Tutor: Lorna Fergusson is a writing coach, editor and speaker. She runs Fictionfire Literary Consultancy and has taught on various Oxford University writing programmes since 2002. She is the author of The Chase and An Oxford Vengeance . Her stories have won an Ian St James Award and the Historical Novel Society’s Short Story Award, as well as being shortlisted for the Bridport Prize and Pan Macmillan’s Write Now prize. In both 2021 and 2022 she was runner-up for the Mogford Prize. She is developing one of the Mogford stories into a novel, and is working on poetry, a collection of short stories and a book on mindset for writers.

Middle-Grade and Teen/Young Adult Fiction

The middle grade and teen/young adult fiction markets are exciting, and rewarding, areas of publishing. This course, run by an established novelist, will look at the way successful writers have chosen subjects and themes, explored fantasy and/or social realism, and found exactly the right voice to appeal to younger readers. It will also explore such key topics as planning, plot development and perspective. Students will be guided in the development of a story of their own, and there will be plenty of opportunities to workshop ideas and get feedback on stories as they progress.

Tutor: Julie Hearn is the critically acclaimed author of a number of novels for young adults, all published by Oxford University Press. Included are:  Follow Me Down,  shortlisted for the Branford Boase First Novel Award , The Merrybegot,  shortlisted for the  Guardian  Children’s Fiction Prize and the Highland Children’s Book Award ,  and  Rowan the Strange,  shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal and described by  The Guardian  as “nothing short of extraordinary”. Her eighth novel,  I am NOT adorable,  written for younger children, was published by Jolly Heron in 2018 and a collection of short stories,  The Princess Thing,  is in the pipeline.

Poetry may well be 'a pheasant disappearing in the brush', as Wallace Stevens quipped, but on this course we will carefully and cunningly follow that pheasant into the underwood. In this series of workshops, we will go in deep and examine new and old examples of poetry, to figure out how it can be made. You can write poetry in so many ways these days, and you will experiment with traditional and avant-garde methods of writing poems, learning not only how to write different kinds of metrical lines but also accomplished free verse, among other things. Ben Jonson knew that 'a good poet's made, as well as born', and on this course you will be made into one through continual practice, innovative imitation, and workshop discussion.

Tutor: Dr Edward Clarke teaches English literature and art history at various colleges and the Department for Continuing Education, Oxford University. He is the author of two books of criticism, The Later Affluence of W. B. Yeats and Wallace Stevens and The Vagabond Spirit of Poetry , and he has edited a selection of poems by Henry Vaughan and George Herbert, Divine Themes and Celestial Praise . His collection of poems, A Book of Psalms , was published 2020. ‘Clarke’s Psalter’, the documentary he presented about writing these poems, was broadcast on BBC Radio 4. His latest collection of poems is called Cherubims . A selection of his poems, The Voice inside Our Home , was recently published.

Scriptwriting

This course is based on the study and creation of scripts for stage, screen and radio and on helping aspiring dramatists to develop a practice to engage with a golden age of script writing. Convincing characters in coherent plots, with a keen awareness of genre, is the basis of all good fiction. We shall explore such core elements, culminating in the submission of a short script. In the third week, students can workshop a script begun outside the course. Dramaturgy will be strictly focused to help writers to develop individual writing for performance projects, using processes that are ‘industry standard’.

Tutor: Shaun McCarthy has had over a dozen stage plays professionally produced and a range of radio dramas broadcast. His adaptations include J.M. Synge’s  The Aran Islands  (BBC R4 Classic Serial), a stage version of  A Christmas Carol  that was a critique of David Cameron’s ‘big society’ and had a happy, unexpected ending; and a re-set of Strindberg’s  Miss Julie  to Oxford 1963. He teaches a range of creative writing courses for OUDCE, runs Hooligan Theatre Productions to develop his new plays and co-runs the writing events and residential writers’ retreats company ‘Stage and Page' in the UK and Italy.

The Short Story

This course encourages you to become a braver, more vital writer by experimenting with the short story form. As close to poetry as it is to prose, the short story is ideal for testing uncommon characters and situations, innovative structures and syntax. Unlock voices and creative techniques that will transform your writing practise. In the final week we will focus on intensive self-editing and how to transform a saggy, weak story into a powerful, shapely narrative, through close examination of language, rhythm, energy and pace. Perfecting short fiction is a great way to build your track record through publication in literary journals and entry to awards judged by agents and publishers.

Tutor: Susannah Rickards' collection of short fiction,  Hot Kitchen Snow,  drawn from experiences of growing up in North East England and working in East Africa, won the international Scott Prize in for best debut fiction collection in 2010, and is published by Salt. Her writing regularly appears in journals and anthologies and has been broadcast on BBC radio. She read English at Oxford University and now lives in Surrey, UK, where she writes and mentors new and established authors.

Recommended reading

Each seminar has its own requirements for preparatory reading.

Students will be enrolled as readers at Oxford University's main reference library, the Bodleian. They will also have access to the Continuing Education Library.

Certification

All students who complete the programme will receive an attendance certificate.

Those seeking credit at their home institution may request a detailed certificate which lists contact hours (for seminars and talks), an assessment of their contribution to seminar discussions, grades achieved for written work, and the number of private study hours required. Certificates will usually be sent to students' home institutions within a month of the end of the summer school.

As Oxford University does not offer credit for this summer school, those wishing to obtain credit from their home institution for attending this programme must make appropriate arrangements with that institution in advance.

Residential: Standard (shared bathroom) - £4,380; Residential: En suite (private bathroom facilities) - £4,765; Non-residential (no accommodation; limited meals) - £2,255

Programme fees

Residential: Standard (shared bathroom facilities) - £4,380 Fees include tuition (2 seminars and the daily programme of talks); access to IT facilities and libraries; accommodation in a standard single room with shared bathroom facilities for the nights of Sunday 21 July to Friday 9 August 2024 inclusive; meals in hall from dinner on Sunday 21 July to breakfast on Saturday 10 August 2024 (except lunch on Saturdays and Sundays).

Residential: En suite (private bathroom facilities) - £4,765 Fees include tuition (2 seminars and the daily programme of talks); access to IT facilities and libraries; accommodation in a single en suite room with private shower and toilet for the nights of Sunday 21 July to Friday 9 August 2024 inclusive; meals in hall from dinner on Sunday 21 July to breakfast on Saturday 10 August 2024 (except lunch on Saturdays and Sundays).

Non-residential - £2,255 Fees include tuition (2 seminars and the daily programme of talks); access to IT facilities and libraries; no accommodation; lunch Monday-Friday, and the programme`s formal opening and closing dinners on Sunday 21 July and Friday 9 August 2024, respectively.

There are no sources of funding (scholarships, bursaries, etc) available for applicants.

Invoicing and payment

Successful applicants who accept their offer of a place on the summer school will be invoiced for the appropriate programme fee once they have been formally enrolled on the programme.

Invoices will be emailed to students together with full instructions for payment. Fees may be paid online with a credit or debit card, or by bank transfer.

Students are required to pay the full fee within 30 days of the date on which their invoice was issued. Late applicants (see "Apply for this course", below) are required to pay the full fee within 7 days of their invoice date.

Please note that:

• students need to purchase travel insurance to cover the programme fee, travel costs, and any other expenses incurred (see "Cancellations", below);
• a student's place on the summer school is not confirmed until their fees have been paid in full;
• places will not be held for students whose fees are not paid in full by the due date; and
• in no circumstances will students be admitted to the summer school unless all fees have been paid in full.

When you have paid your fees

Your place on the summer school is confirmed as soon as your payment is received by OUDCE.

You will receive a receipt for your payment: an automated email from [email protected] if paid online, or via email from [email protected] if paid by bank transfer.

The Programme Administrator will provide all non-UK/Irish nationals enrolled on the summer school with a standard format pdf letter by email confirming enrolment and course details (see "Level and demands", below).

Cancellations

Intermediate-level strand

All enrolments are subject to OUDCE's Open Access Terms and Conditions .

You will enter into your contract with the University when you pay the course fees in full.

You have the right to cancel your contract at any time within 14 days, beginning on the day you paid your fees. You will receive a full refund of any payments you have made.

Advanced-level strand

All enrolments are subject to OUDCE's Short Selective Course Terms and Conditions .

By accepting your offer of a place on the summer school you enter into your contract with the University.

You have the right to cancel your contract at any time within 14 days, beginning on the day you accepted the offer. You will receive a full refund of any payments you have made within those 14 days.

Both strands

If you cancel your place at any time after the expiry of the 14-day period you will not be entitled to a refund.

You need to purchase travel insurance to cover the programme fee, travel costs, and any other expenses incurred.

If you wish to cancel your place on the summer school you must inform the Programme Administrator by email at [email protected]

OUDCE reserves the right to alter details of any course should illness or any other emergency prevent a tutor from teaching, and to cancel a course or individual seminar if exceptionally low enrolment would make it educationally unviable.

Course aims

Each seminar has its own course aim and objectives.

Teaching methods

Students will attend a programme of talks and readings.

Elements of seminar teaching will normally include:

• mini lectures by tutors;
• tutor-led class discussions;
• writing exercises;
• small group activities; and
• individual student presentations.

Students will attend short (10-minute) one-to-ones with their tutors to receive feedback on their written work.

Learning outcomes

Each seminar has its own learning outcomes.

Assessment methods

Tutors will monitor and assess students’ contribution to class discussions.

Students are expected to submit an assignment of 2,500 words in length for assessment for each seminar taken.

Application

Before you submit your application.

• ensure you meet the admissions requirements (see "Selection criteria", below);
• check the seminar timetable  carefully to ensure that your first and second choice courses do not run at the same time (advanced-level applicants only);
• make sure you have all the required supporting documents listed below;
• ensure you are familiar with the terms and conditions of enrolment on the summer school, especially those relating to payment of fees and cancellations (see "Payment", above); and
• read the 'Important information regarding immigration and visa requirements' (see "Level and demands", below).

The application process - intermediate strand

Complete the application form (intermediate) .

Please ensure all sections are completed fully, clearly, and in BLOCK CAPITALS.

The form must be accompanied by:

In the case of non-native speakers of English, official evidence of English language proficiency.

A portrait photograph (JPEG format).

Applications should be emailed to: [email protected]

Application deadline

Applications for the intermediate strand will be processed on a first come, first served or rolling basis until 1 May 2024.

Subject to the availability of places, late applications may be accepted until 1 June 2024.

After you have submitted your application

Applicants will normally be offered a place by email from [email protected] within 14 days of their application having been received.

Applicants who are offered a place on the summer school must respond in writing within 14 days to accept or decline the offer. In accepting an offer of a place applicants are committing to paying their programme fees in full by the due date.

Late applicants will normally be offered a place within 7 days of their application having been received, and will then have 7 days in which to accept or decline the offer.

The application process - advanced strand

Complete the application form (advanced) .

The form must be accompanied by the following documents as PDF files unless otherwise indicated:

• A brief statement of purpose (250-300 words) detailing your academic reasons for wishing to attend the summer school. This should include what you feel the programme would offer you and your writing, and what you feel you could bring to the summer school. This may include details of creative writing courses you have previously taken, or the relevance of the summer school to your present course of study or professional development. It is essential that you clearly state your reasons for wishing to enrol on specific seminars.
• Please provide samples of your work relevant to your first and second choice courses and ensure that the name of the seminar is printed at the top of each sample. As a guideline prose fiction, creative non-fiction and dramatic dialogue samples should be no more than 1,000 words in length (please provide an extract of a longer piece of work if appropriate); applicants for the poetry seminar should provide five short poems.

You will receive an email from [email protected] confirming receipt of your application materials, and informing you when your application will be reviewed by the admissions panel.

Application deadlines

The advanced strand of the summer school operates a gathered field closing date system by which applications are reviewed fairly and equally in batches at specific dates throughout the admissions period rather than on a first come, first served or rolling basis.

There is a limited number of places available on every seminar within each gathered field, and in assigning successful applicants to seminar groups the admissions panel will pay particular attention to applicants' personal statements.

There are three deadlines for applications to the advanced strand of the programme:

• Gathered field 1 - 1 March 2024
• Gathered field 2 - 1 April 2024
• Gathered field 3 – 1 May 2024

Subject to the availability of places, late applications may be considered on a first come, first served basis until 1 June 2024.

Notification of the admission panel's decision

Applicants will normally be notified of the panel's decision by email from [email protected] within 14 days of the relevant gathered field deadline.

Late applicants will be notified within 7 days of their materials having been received, and successful applicants will then have 7 days in which to accept or decline the offer of a place.

Enrolment - both strands

Students will be formally enrolled on the summer school once they have accepted their offer of a place.

The enrolment process includes the issuing of invoices, which will be emailed to students together with full instructions for payment (see "Payment", above).

Any queries?

Please contact the Programme Administrator by email at [email protected]

Level and demands

Participants are expected to.

• undertake preparatory reading in advance of the programme;
• attend all seminar sessions and talks and readings;
• be actively engaged with their seminar topics;
• submit an assignment of 2,500 words in length for each seminar taken; and
• undertake approximately 96 hours of private study during the programme (elements of private study will include: reading, writing and other preparation between seminar meetings, work in the library, writing papers, etc).

Important information regarding immigration and visa requirements

OUDCE welcomes international students on all its courses. However, it is the responsibility of successful applicants to ensure that they conform to UK immigration law.

If you are not a UK or Irish national, you might need to apply for a Standard Visitor visa to study in the UK. We strongly recommend that you establish whether you will require a visa before submitting your application.

Information regarding visiting the UK to study is available on the UK Government’s website  as well as Oxford University’s Student Immigration website .

If you will require a visa, you should ensure your summer school application is submitted as early as possible to allow yourself sufficient time to complete the visa application process (see current visa processing times ).

The Programme Administrator will provide all non-UK/Irish nationals enrolled on the summer school with a standard format pdf letter by email confirming enrolment and course details once their fees have been paid in full.

For legal reasons the Programme Administrator is not permitted to provide any visa advice to applicants; any queries should be addressed to [email protected] .

The University takes no responsibility for a visa being denied at any point before or during a course.

Please note that the standard cancellation policy applies in all cases. (See "Cancellations", above.

Support for students with disabilities

OUDCE welcomes applications from students with disabilities or learning difficulties. Individual student needs are taken into account, and adaptations and assistance provided within the resources available. We ask that students advise us in advance where any special provision might be needed. Further information is available at www.conted.ox.ac.uk/about/students-with-disabilities .

Selection criteria

This is an intensive programme of study taught to an informed international audience. Applicants should be confident that they are academically and linguistically prepared for such a programme.

Academic requirements for the intermediate strand

We welcome applications from all aspiring writers aged 18 and over.

You should be a keen reader who brings an open-minded, questioning approach to both reading and writing; you should also have written regularly and read widely over a sustained period.

Academic requirements for the advanced strand

Applications are welcomed from those who have completed or nearly completed a single honours university degree programme in creative writing or English literature, or a combined honours university degree programme in creative writing and English literature.

If your degree is in a different, but related, subject, the admissions panel will look for evidence that you have taken a significant number of courses in creative writing or English literature, namely the equivalent of two years’ worth of credits.

The summer school is not appropriate for those who have already achieved commercial publication.

English language requirements

As students are expected to participate fully in seminar discussions and are required to produce written work, it is important that applicants can demonstrate an appropriate level of proficiency in the four language skills - listening, reading, writing and speaking.

If English is not your first language, you must provide evidence of your proficiency in the form of an original certificate or a certified copy that is not more than two years old on the date the summer school starts. You must satisfy one of the following requirements:

IELTS Academic - minimum overall score of 7.5, with not less than 7.0 in each of the four components

TOEFL iBT - minimum overall score of 110, with not less than 22 for listening, 24 for reading, 25 for speaking and 24 for writing

C1 Advanced (formerly known as Cambridge English: Advanced or CAE) - minimum overall score of 191, with not less 185 in each of the four components.

For further information on English language qualifications:

Click here for IELTS

Click here for TOEFL

• Click here for Cambridge English

The requirement to provide English language test scores may be waived in either of the following circumstances:

• If you have completed a full-time degree-level programme at a recognised institution where teaching and assessment throughout the course was undertaken entirely in English, and the programme was completed with a gap of no more than two academic years to the course to which you are applying. If you studied this course in a country that is not majority English speaking, you will need to provide evidence that the course was taught in English. This can either take the form of a link to the appropriate page of the institution’s website or a statement from the institution confirming this.
• If you have worked for a minimum of two years in a majority English speaking country where the main language for the role was English, and your role involved daily professional use of each of the four language components (reading, writing, listening and speaking).

Accommodation

Founded in 1314, Exeter College is one of Oxford University`s oldest colleges and is situated in a prime city centre location.

Bedrooms and meals

Students who choose to attend the summer school on a residential basis will have a single study bedroom.

Bedrooms are located up the four to nine floors of a staircase; bath and/or shower and toilet facilities on each staircase are shared. A limited number of rooms have private bathroom facilities (shower and toilet) and these are available for a higher fee. Early application for these rooms is essential.

Students cannot be accommodated at Exeter College either prior to or beyond their programme dates. Family members and/or friends who are not enrolled on this summer school cannot be accommodated in college.

Residential students will take meals in the college's dining hall. All meals are self-service with a range of options available. The only exceptions are the summer school's opening and closing dinners, which are formal served set menu meals. Should applicants have any dietary requirements (eg vegetarian, gluten-free) they are required to complete the relevant section on the application form.

Please be aware that accommodation at Exeter College is limited and may not be available for those who submit their applications towards the end of the admissions period.

Non-residential students

Students who choose to attend the summer school on a non-residential basis are responsible for finding their own accommodation. Information on accommodation in Oxford is available at:

• Conference Oxford
• Experience Oxfordshire
• University Rooms Oxford

Lunch is provided for non-residential students Monday-Friday, and the summer school's opening and closing dinners are also included in the non-residential programme fee.

IT requirements

Although it is not required, most students bring a laptop to Oxford to assist them with their studies.

For residential students, wireless internet access is available in all bedrooms; for all students, wireless access is available in communal spaces of the college.

All students will be eligible to use the computers and printer in Exeter College's computer room.

Terms & conditions for applicants and students

Information on financial support

No products in the cart.

Friendly Expert Writing Retreats & Workshops

Inkwell creative writing courses –, beyond words.

Discover your inner writer in a beautiful setting with experienced, published tutors. Our residential and day courses offer a chance to explore your voice and build on a range of writing techniques with like-minded people.

FRIENDLY EXPERT WRITING RETREATS & WORKSHOPS

Inkwell creative writing courses – beyond words, explore your creativity and improve your writing.

Whether you are a new writer or wrestling with your work-in-progress, Inkwell courses will allow you to hone and practise your skills in drama, poetry and prose.

All tutors are successful, published writers. Residential courses are joined by another critically acclaimed guest writer. Workshops focus on developing craft and style through a variety of prompts, and are designed to appeal to writers in any genre. Emphasis is placed on the importance of critique and feedback in a supportive and safe environment.

Meals and accommodation are included on residential courses, with a complimentary glass of fizz on the first night. At whatever writing stage you happen to be, whether that is on the point of publication or at the beginning of your writing journey, allow yourself peace and space to release your creative energy. In a world that never stops strutting and fretting, take time out to find your own words.

Residential retreats, writing courses And Workshops

Writing courses and workshops.

Explore the upcoming creative writing courses and workshops. Book a place and pay online.

Chemical Free

Give your skin a healing feeling.

Quam viverra orci sagittis eu volutpat. Convallis a cras semper auctor. Rhoncus urna neque viverra justo nec ultrices dui sapien eget. Facilisis neque a cras.

Best Ingredients

Our products made with nature’s best ingredients, 100% organic.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing.

High Quality

Start your skincare today, the natural dermatologist your skin needs, christmas men’s gift box, quality assured.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis.

Golden Glow

Skin paradise, green touch.

Become a better writer and meet beta readers in our online writing group

Scribophile is one of the largest and most award-winning online writing communities.

Make your writing shine with feedback from other writers

You’ve spent a lot of time writing your story. But how can you make it perfect before you start thinking about publishing?

Scribophile is a writing group focused on getting you feedback on your manuscript. — in fact, we’re one of the largest online writing groups out there. Our points-based peer critique system guarantees you’ll get feedback from writers from all walks of life. You can then use that feedback to polish your writing before you take the next step in your publishing journey.

How Scribophile works

1 earn points by giving feedback.

Earn karma points by critiquing writing. Giving feedback to group members is fast, easy, fun, and helps improve your own writing, too!

2 Get feedback on your own writing

Spend karma points to post your own writing for critique from our writing community — anything from flash fiction to novels. Our writer’s group will give you detailed feedback on how to improve it, regardless of your specific genre, and all in a supportive environment.

3 Make friends and meet beta readers

As you participate in our writing group, you’ll meet and form relationships with many different kinds writers. They’ll become your inspiration, your encouragement, and even your beta readers, ready to help with your current manuscript, and your next ones too!

Scribophile was the first place I stopped when I went from being an I-wanna-be-a-writer to I-am-an-author. Now I have four international bestselling novels with major publishers, and when authors come to me I always send them to Scribophile. Genevieve Graham Tides of Honour and others published with Simon & Schuster

Join writing workshops and level up your writing

Our writing workshops are taught by bestselling authors, expert teachers, and industry insiders. We have workshops for writers of any skill level, where we cover everything from beginning topics to advanced techniques.

Our writing workshops are designed to be both comprehensive and transformational — they’re your fast track to leveling up your writing.

Some of our upcoming writing workshops

How to Build an Author Brand with Lacy Phillips

May 18, 2024 • 2 hour webinar

Join author and expert brand strategist Lacy Phillips as she teaches you the fundamentals of building an author brand that will pump your book sales.

Enhancing Your Writing By Engaging All the Senses with David D. Levine

May 25, 2024 • 2 hour webinar

Hugo- and Nebula-award-winning author David D. Levine shows you the methods and techniques master writers use to draw readers in by engaging all of their senses.

Our writing group welcomes writers of any skill level

Our writing group welcomes writers of all skill levels — from beginners to published authors, and every writer in between.

Each critique you receive on your manuscript is a fresh perspective for you to incorporate. Our bustling writing forums feature writers discussing the craft twenty-four hours a day — share inspiration, ignite your creativity, get support, and connect with others no matter your genre. Plus, our extensive Writing Academy is full of insightful articles on the art — and business — of writing.

Scribophile played a major part in helping me polish my novel for submission. I learnt a huge amount from critiquing other people’s work, as well as from reading critiques of mine. I now have a wonderful agent and have signed a three-book deal in the UK, a two-book deal in Germany, and a TV option. The book was also shortlisted for The Debut Dagger! Roz Watkins The Devil’s Dice and others published with HarperCollins

Giving and receiving critiques on Scribophile made a big difference to the quality of my writing. I learned how to write a query letter here and that led to an agent and a book deal. Ruth Lauren Prisoner of Ice and Snow and others published with Bloomsbury

No more writing alone — meet your new community

Sometimes, the hardest part of the writing process is how lonely it can get.

That’s why the most important part of Scribophile is our community of hundreds of thousands of writers from all over the world. No matter what genre you work in, or how far along you are in your manuscript, the friends you make at Scribophile will give encouragement, accountability, and will finally take the loneliness out of our solitary craft.

My years on Scribophile have given me a master’s level education in writing. The critiques are great, but I’ve learned as much from reading and analyzing other writers on Scribophile. I don’t think I could have polished my novel to a publishable level without this site. I’m an addict. Laura Creedle The Love Letters of Abelard and Lily published with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Ready to take the next step in your writing journey?

It’s easy and free.

Get the latest publishers and contests eager to read your writing

Our newsletter delivers a list of the latest publishers, writing markets, and writing contests directly to your inbox once per week, totally free. Unsubscribe at any time.

Our Retreats

2024 schedule is open for booking .

Day courses & workshops

Academic retreats

Our all-inclusive Writers’ Retreat UK retreats take part in our lovely, quiet North Yorkshire venue. Our retreats are very different to others. We look after your every need during your stay with us, support you on group retreats with industry-specialists and offer the perfect environment to help you relax and create. Drop us an email and we’ll keep you informed with what’s going on and our specials offers.

Drop us an email  and we'll keep you up-to-date with what's going and our special offers. If you prefer the human touch, please call 0845 519 8115 for a chat about any of our retreats.

Join us for a retreat and benefit from amazing ongoing discounts! Our retreats fill quickly so don't miss out. You can check out our reviews from previous guests  here .

What's included in your Writers' Retreat UK retreat:

• For our untutored retreats, we offer mentoring with an industry professional to support you through your writing time with us.
• All meals are included (and some wine).
• Breakfast and lunch are served as a buffet. Breakfast is between 8am and 9.00am, with lunch usually around 12.30pm.
• Dinner is served as a sit-down, 2 course supper in the dining room.  Writing can be a lonely process so evening dinner is a great opportunity for all of our writers to get together and socialise.
• Tea and coffee are on the go all day, along with cake, biscuits and snacks to keep the creative juices flowing
• We also offer a home-baked cream tea around 4pm to fuel your writing until evening dinner
• Transfers included from local public transport links.
• Writing pads and pens will be available, although we understand that most writers prefer to use their own.
• We have spare laptops - just in case! If you use one of our laptops, we'll give you a memory stick to take your work home with you.
• Space to write in your room, in privacy.
• Comfortable writing room, where you can work in the company of other writers.
• Access to a number of writing resources, including a library of writing books.

Bring a writer friend to share your room (most rooms can be made into twins) for just 50% extra. Bring a non-writing partner or friend for just 30% of the room price extra.

Take in your surroundings

Sometimes our writers like to take a walk to see the local area. This is a great way to clear your mind ready for the next writing session.

After supper, if you're ready to relax, we offer optional evening activities to share with your fellow writers. Alternatively, chill and watch a bit of TV or chat with others on the retreat in one of our comfortable lounges, in front of a roaring log burner.  We host evening readings, too, for those that would like to share some of their work for discussion and feedback.

If you're taking part in one of our specialist retreats, your workshop instruction and feedback sessions are all also included in the price.

Don't worry about the little things, either. We provide an abundance of bubbles, shower gel, shampoo, conditioner, toothpaste, in fact, all the essentials you will need. We also carry plenty of spares in case you forget something, like, toothbrushes, razors, deodorant, and many more, so you only need to bring any special toiletries that you just can't live without!

This is a complete package that gives you dedicated time to write, lets you relax in idyllic rural or seaside surroundings, come together with other like-minded writers and have a truly invigorating quiet time away from home.

What are you waiting for?  Reserve your place  today, with a deposit of only £100pp , for our next writer's retreat.

Corporate and Academic retreats

Think writers' retreats are just for the creatives? Think again. Do you have corporate or academic documents to produce? We can provide the perfect environment with mentoring support, if needed. Click  here  for further information.

Great British Bake Off contestant Karen Wright hosting two events at local writers retreat

Stuck for ideas, finding story ideas, the retreat – opening night, our own venue – the retreat at the kings arms, another competition success, what’s coming up with writers’ retreat uk, july retreat – an unexpected visitor, our stunning new venue, different dietary needs and our retreats.

NEW VIDEO COURSE

Learn How to Write a Novel, Join Tom Bromley for a writing master class.

Learn How to Write a Novel

Join Tom Bromley for a writing master class and finish your first draft in 3 months.

17 Best Creative Writing Classes in London

Showing 17 courses that match your search.

One-day Travel Writing Workshop

Travel Writing Workshop

Led by Peter Carty, this one-day workshop in central London, also available online, caters to beginners and journalists alike, aiming to equip them with practical skills for travel writing. The workshop, which includes sessions from 10:00 am to 5:30 pm, covers topics like selecting travel subjects, research skills, prose improvement, and getting published, with a fee of £155 including post-workshop support​​​​​​​​.

Website: https://www.travelwritingworkshop.co.uk/about-the-travel-...

Categories: Travel

Start date:

Open all year round

Prerequisites: No prerequisites

Copywriting Masterclass

The Chartered Institue of Marketing

This interactive course unveils the art of copywriting, offering a methodical approach to idea generation, maintaining reader engagement, and enlivening your writing.

Website: https://www.cim.co.uk/training/list-courses/copywriting-m...

Categories: Copywriting

Getting Started: Beginners' Fiction

Faber Academy

Faber Academy offers a variety of fiction writing courses, suitable for aspiring writers, those seeking inspiration, and hobbyists ready to begin a professional writing career. These courses, available both online and in London, cater to different levels of writing experience, from total beginners to advanced learners. Participants benefit from the expertise of tutors and insights from the UK's leading independent publisher, with flexibility to accommodate other commitments.

Website: https://faberacademy.com/product/getting-started-beginner...

Categories: Book

How to Write a Novel

Your story matters. Unlock your potential with daily video lessons from bestselling ghostwriter Tom Bromley, and finish your first draft in just 3 months. Learn more →

Essential Business Writing

Walkerstone

This one-day course, priced at £425 + VAT, is ideal for anyone in a business environment looking to improve their writing skills. It covers structuring content, clear sentence construction, and key message delivery, along with elements of marketing essential for effective business communication​.

Website: https://walkerstone.com/courses/essential-business-writing/

Categories: Business

Novel Writing

City Academy

Priced at $480, this six-week advanced course is designed to refine writers' travel prose. It focuses on developing a unique voice, perspective, and an eye for timely, engaging travel narratives.

Website: https://www.city-academy.com/novel-writing-course

Categories: Book and Fiction

Prerequisites: For the first session, you must have an idea or the start of a novel.

Creative Writing

This course is designed for beginners who want to develop their writing skills in a supportive environment. It covers techniques for developing ideas, descriptive prose, understanding plot, and regular writing practice. The course is suitable for those interested in both fiction and non-fiction writing and includes practical exercises, group work, and weekly assignments​​.

Website: https://www.city-academy.com/creative-writing-beginners

Categories: Fiction, Essay, Poetry, Nonfiction, Short Story, and Book

Prerequisites: Fluency in English is essential for this course.

Professional Copywriting

Discover how to effectively communicate your business, product, or service to potential customers with this one-day course. It teaches the persuasive techniques used by professional marketing and advertising writers, applicable to both web and traditional media, to influence and convince your audience.

Website: https://www.transmedia.co.uk/course-details.php?CourseID=...

Categories: Copywriting and Freelance

Writing for Children

This course invites you to delve into the world of children's literature, analyzing successful children's books and guiding you in creating your own story. The course includes writing exercises, group discussions, and practical tasks to build confidence and foster creativity, ultimately helping you outline and develop your own unique children's story​​.

Website: https://www.city-academy.com/writing-for-children

Categories: Kids

Business Writing

This course focuses on enhancing business writing skills, covering various forms of professional writing from emails to press releases. It helps in organizing thoughts, choosing appropriate language, and creating trust through writing. The hands-on course, suitable for professionals in multiple careers, emphasizes the importance of grammar, punctuation, and avoiding jargon​​.

Website: https://www.city-academy.com/business-writing-course

Poetry Writing

Our Poetry courses invite you to explore and respond to various writing themes, delving into the myriad forms of poetry. You'll study works from professional poets, refine your voice through practical exercises focusing on tone, rhythm, meter, form, metaphor, lyricism, and descriptive imagery, all aimed at enhancing your poetic writing.

Website: https://www.city-academy.com/poetry-writing

Categories: Poetry

The Ink Academy Creative Writing Course

Ink Academy

This bespoke course offers a tailored learning experience over six months, featuring nine one-to-one sessions with a personal tutor. It includes detailed written reports, edits of up to 43,000 words, personalized advice on pitching and finding an agent, and customized writing exercises. The course is suitable for writers seeking in-depth feedback and guidance on their writing journey.

Website: https://www.inkacademy.co.uk/creative-writing-course/

Freelance and Travel Writing

The London School of Journalism

This course, spanning 15 lessons and 35 exercises over 12-15 months, is perfect for those looking to combine their love for travel with a writing career. It offers flexibility to focus on individual writing interests, including specialized tuition in travel writing, and equips students with fundamental freelance writing skills​​​​.

Website: https://www.lsj.org/courses/distance-learning/freelance-a...

Categories: Travel and Freelance

So you’re looking for creative writing classes in London

Virginia Woolf, Zadie Smith, Will Self—London is the birthplace of some of the greatest authors in the past few centuries. And that’s not even to count the way it’s transcended immortality in the literary landscape, inspiring classics from Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist to Helen Fieldings’ Bridget Jones Diary. So what better city than London to take creative writing classes?

This directory of the best writing courses in London is meant to help you locate the right one for yourself.  We’ve included filters for price and genre so that you can quickly sort through the writing classes. And before you commit to any one writing class, consider the following questions:

• Who is the instructor?
• What is the price of the writing course?
• How far away is the writing course in London? Is there a remote alternative?
• How long could the course last?

Got any questions about finding the right writing class in London for you? Feel free to reach out to us at [email protected] . Good luck!

Join a community of over 1 million authors

Reedsy is more than just a blog. Become a member today to discover how we can help you publish a beautiful book.

Save your shortlist

Enter your email address to save your shortlist so that you don't lose it!

By continuing, you will also receive Reedsy's weekly publishing tips and access to our free webinars.

We sent over your shortlist. Thank you for using Reedsy's Writing Courses Directory, happy publishing! 🙌

NEW REEDSY COURSE

Finish your book in three months

1 million authors trust the professionals on Reedsy. Come meet them.

Enter your email or get started with a social account:

Manuscript Assessment

• Success Stories
• Reading Room
• Novel Writing
• Fiction Development
• Non-Fiction
• Writing for Children
• Short Story

Starting Out

• How’s My Driving
• An honest assessment of your work-in-progress, with advice to help you with the rest of the draft.
• Full Report
• Our most comprehensive report – a full MOT on your manuscript.
• Submission Review
• Ready to send your novel out into the world? Have your submission documents reviewed to make sure everything's in the best possible shape to impress an agent.
• Magazine Submission Review
• Ready to submit your poems to magazines, journals or websites? Get feedback on a selection of four to six of them to check you're on the right track.
• Pamphlet Review
• Designed for poets preparing a pamphlet for possible publication, this report will offer constructive feedback on a group of up to twenty poems.
• Collection Review
• Put your poems through their paces with an in-depth evaluation of your entire collection.
• Creative Writing Exercises
• Writing Competitions

The last page you viewed...

• by location
• Can't find the right course? Book a professional reader's report on your manuscript.

• Writing a Novel
• Our flagship course is available in London, Newcastle and online – spend six months working on your novel with help from experienced tutors and industry experts.
• Prose Assessment
• Poetry Assessment

• Q&As with our tutors and alumni, reading lists and deep dives into all aspects of creative writing – and lots more.

• Whether you're stuck on dialogue, plot, character or something else, we've got a whole range of exercises to help and inspire you.

• Here you'll find all of our past, ongoing and upcoming writing competitions, plus details of any others we think you should know about.

• How to Write for Children
• Chloe Daykin, critically acclaimed and award-winning children’s author and tutor on Faber Academy's Writing for Children course, shares her tips on writing for a younger audience.

• Starting out

Beginners' Writing Courses

Whether you've always wanted to write fiction or are looking for an introduction to poetry, we offer a range of creative writing classes for beginners – from one-day workshops to longer twelve-week courses, online and in our London offices.

Our beginners' writing courses: an overview

Many of our beginners’ classes require no experience at all – if you’ve always wanted to write but never known where to start, you’ll find a supportive, welcoming environment with an experienced tutor and a group of fellow aspiring authors.

Our online courses are accessible wherever you are in the world, and many of our online beginners’ courses are self-paced, meaning you don’t need to be online at a set time and can work through the course materials at a time that suits you.

You’ll leave with a clear idea of the requirements of your chosen genre and the technical tools you’ll need to carry on writing.

Who are these courses for?

Complete beginners.

Avid reader ready to start creating fictional worlds of your own? Looking for a new hobby or taking the very first step on a new creative path? These courses are designed to show you how to start writing – and how to carry on after the final session.

Writers looking to refresh their skills

If you've written before but feel you're lacking in confidence after a break, a short course can be a great way to brush up your knowledge and get those ideas flowing again, with a supportive group to cheer you on.

Writers exploring a new genre

An experienced non-fiction writer looking to try your hand at poetry? Or a poet who'd like to experiment with fiction? Our beginners' courses are a great place to test out a new discipline

• Popular Categories Writing for Children Short Story Novel Writing Fiction Development Non-fiction Poetry Crime
• Location Online London Newcastle
• Length 1-5 days 12 weeks 6 month +
• Featured Featured Upcoming Lowest Price A-Z Z-A

Popular Categories

Our advanced courses in fiction and poetry offer the next step for the committed writer – serious writing time, industry advice and expert guidance, along with a close-knit group of fellow writers to keep you on track.

Beginners' Writing Courses ( 33 )

Start to Write

What do these levels mean?

Richard Skinner, Sarah May

Saturday 25 May 2024

Last few places available

Marcel Theroux

Start to Write Poetry

Richard scott.

Memoir and Life Writing

Lucie brownlee.

Wednesday 26 Jun 2024

Places available

Saturday 29 Jun 2024

Victoria Adukwei Bulley

Getting Started: Beginners' Fiction

Ashley hickson-lovence.

Monday 01 Jul 2024

Beginners' Course Tutors

The tutors on our beginners' writing courses are all experienced teachers and published writers themselves, with a wealth of experience in introducing new writers to the craft.

Richard Skinner

Richard Skinner is a novelist, poet and critic. His most recent book, The Mirror , was described as ‘beautifully written...

Sarah May is the highly acclaimed author of seven novels, including The Nudist Colony , (shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award...

Marcel Theroux is the award winning author of six novels: A Blow to the Heart , A Stranger in the Earth , The Paperchase (winner...

Richard Scott was born in London in 1981. His pamphlet Wound (Rialto) won the Michael Marks Poetry Award 2016 and his poem...

Lucie is a multi-award-winning writer based in County Durham. Her memoir Life After You was published in 2014 by Penguin Random House. Based on her award-winning...

Victoria Adukwei Bulley is a poet, writer, and artist. Her work has appeared widely in publications including The White Review ...

Ashley Hickson-Lovence is a novelist and Creative Writing lecturer based in Norwich. While working as a secondary school English teacher...

Inspiring surroundings, excellent tutor, supportive fellow participants. I learnt a great deal about character, plot, voice, narration and language.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do i start writing.

There’s no “right” way to start writing – it really is about taking that first step and writing that first line! It could be that you start straight away with a project of your own; a poem or a short story or a novel. Or you can use creative writing exercises and prompts to provide some structure (you can find ours [here]). In either case, the most important thing is: don’t be afraid of it not being perfect. No-one’s first draft of anything ever is. You hone your voice and prose over time, by continuing to put words on the page and experimenting with techniques and styles to find what works best for you. Beginners’ writing courses will offer a good introduction to those technical elements, as well as a constructive place to start getting feedback on your work.

What skills do you need to be a writer – do I need any particular experience to take these courses?

You don’t need any experience to take these courses – they’re designed as an introduction to your chosen discipline and are suitable for complete beginners. In terms of skills, being an enthusiastic and eclectic reader will always serve an aspiring writer well – when you read a book you enjoy, try and think about what in particular you liked about it, and whether there are qualities you might also like to see in your own work. And paying attention to the world around you is also a good habit to have. Listen out for interesting snippets of overheard conversation and watch out for images or scenes that catch your eye – you never know where inspiration may strike!

I've done some writing before, but I still feel like a beginner – are these courses right for me?

Absolutely. With all of our courses, we usually say that the level is something of a confidence thing rather than based entirely on experience. If you feel like you need to get a solid grounding in the foundations of your chosen genre before moving on to something more advanced, these courses will help you do that.

Can't find the right course?

Get comprehensive editorial feedback on your manuscript from our experienced readers – whether it’s still a work-in-progress or you’re preparing to submit to literary agents.

We offer a range of mentoring options if you’d prefer to work one-on-one with an established writer to help you shape your project and realise your writing ambitions.

Browse the Reading Room

From author interviews and writing tips to creative writing exercises and reading lists, we've got everything you need to get started – and to keep going.

Recommendations from Faber

Sally Rooney

Normal People

An exclusive edition of Sally Rooney's modern classic, designed for Faber Members.

Conversations with Friends

A Members' edition of Sally Rooney's celebrated debut and international bestseller.

Philip Larkin

The Whitsun Weddings

A centenary edition of Philip Larkin’s much-loved first collection.

Founded in 1929 in London, Faber is one of the world's great publishing houses. Our list of authors includes thirteen Nobel Laureates and six Booker Prize-winners.

We use cookies to personalise your experience. By continuing to visit this website you agree to our use of cookies.

Course Level Guide

There’s something for everyone at the Faber Academy, whether you’re a complete beginner or a seasoned writer or somewhere in between. To help you select the right course for you, this guide breaks down what the different levels mean.

These courses are ideal for those who are curious about writing and have little to no prior experience in the field. There are no pre-requisite for these courses – all we ask is that you come with an open mind and a keenness to learn. That’s not to say they aren’t suitable for someone with more experience, though – if you’re looking to refresh your skills or experiment with a new area of writing, you’re also welcome to enrol.

These courses are ideal for those who have some experience in writing – as a hobby, or perhaps through academic or professional work – and are looking for challenging courses to hone their skills further. These courses are also a good next step if you’ve already taken a beginners’ class but don’t feel ready to commit to an advanced course yet.

These courses are ideal for seasoned writers who are serious about getting published. Entry to most of these courses is on an application basis and writers will usually be asked to submit samples of their work-in-progress or a past project.

• Developing your idea
• Seeking inspiration
• Pace and plot
• Creating characters
• Writing dialogue
• Writing for children
• Writing non-fiction
• Dedicated Genre Advice
• Interviews with Authors
• Dealing with rejection
• How publishers work
• Literary agents
• Crowdfunding
• Beyond the book
• Ghostwriting
• Illustration
• Translation
• Self-Publishing Providers
• Writing and Editing
• Design, Formatting, and Production
• Distribution and Sales
• Publicity and Marketing
• Understanding Self-Publishing
• More From Writers & Artists
• Related editing services & events
• Related community content
• Interviews about Self-Publishing
• Exhibiting and Working on Commission
• Preparing your portfolio
• Finding inspiration
• Self-promotion
• Identifying your audience
• Interviews with Artists
• Agony Agent
• Bespoke Mentoring
• How Strong Is Your Book Idea?
• Opening Chapters
• Full Manuscript Review
• Final Polish
• Beat the Rejection Consultation
• Events & Courses Back How to Get Published How to Hook an Agent Masterclasses Writing Courses Children's & YA Fiction Festival Writing Calendar The Bloomsbury Institute
• Resources Back Literary agencies Publishers Glossary Just browsing How to use Listings Subscriptions Videos & Podcasts
• Find a group
• Search/Add Connections
• Competitions

Events & Courses

Find events.

W&A events range from  one-off masterclass evenings with authors and  How to Hook an Agent lunches through to  full-day How to Get Published conferences and multi-week evening writing courses. These events take place online, at our offices in Bloomsbury Publishing, or, when we can, at venues across the UK. Wherever possible, W&A events are held in association with literature development charities, universities, and other writing organisations. Our interactive  Writing Calendar is there to k eep you up-to-date with all that's going on in the world of writing, enabling you to browse upcoming festivals, events and competitions by keyword, date, genre or location. To  add a Writing Calendar entry , simply create/log in to your W&A  account and click here.  

Read testimonials from W&A event and course attendees

View our Terms & Conditions and Events Cancellation Policy

Illustrations have the power to tell a story, whether you are creating a graphic novel or illustrating children's books. 

Are you serious about taking your writing to the next level? Write Better Fiction is an introduction to the essentials of storytelling, and a perfect...

Do you want to write swoon-worthy romances? Are you drawn to writing stories that centre female characters and experience? Then this course is for...

Do you want to develop your book idea, taking it from a kernel in your mind to something fully-formed? 

Join writer ...

Writing Calendar

COACHING + PUBLISHING

FORMATTING + DESIGN

FREELANCE COMMUNITY

25+ Incredible Writers Retreats to Attend in 2024

by Farrah Daniel | Jan 10, 2024

Dream of getting away to write, but need some guidance on the next steps for your novel?

Want to meet and work with other writers, but in a more intimate setting than a writing conference ?

A writing retreat might be just the ticket.

And while some of these retreats might still be on hold due to the pandemic, many are getting back into hosting.

Discover writing retreats in:

• USA and Canada
• Mexico and Latin America
• Asia, Africa, and Middle East

Why you might want to attend a writer’s retreat

Whereas writing residencies are mostly about working in solitude, conferences focus on networking and lectures, writing retreats fall somewhere in between.

Most are in beautiful locations (where, presumably, your creative juices will flow more easily), and offer a combination of workshops, tours and interaction with a small group of writers.

They’re a great way to combine a vacation with inspiration, networking — and, of course, lots of writing.

They can be pricey, but some offer scholarships (so always ask!), or consider creating your own writing retreat with friends.

And remember: A writer’s retreat is an investment in your career, as well as an opportunity to get away. If they’re out of your price range, then perhaps a writing residency would be a better fit. Or, check out this list of grants for writers .

Looking for a women-only retreat? Some of the retreats on this list fit the bill, and you can also hop over to our post on women’s writing retreats .

Incredible writers’ retreats to attend in 2024

The writing retreats below take place in the remainder of 2024 and many have plans to continue in 2025 — and are organized by location, in order from least to most expensive.

(Hint: If there’s a particular country or month that works best for you, command-F to search the page for it.)

Unless otherwise noted, the prices include workshops, shared accommodation, activities, and most meals. None include airfare to and from the destination.

Though we have done our best to remove those retreats that are either completed, or dissolved, due to the pandemic, many of these retreats have moved online completely or offer both online and in-person options. 

Please keep in mind that The Write Life team has not attended these retreats. While we’ve gathered as much information as possible to share with you, consider this a starting point, and do your own research before committing. To ensure you’ll have an enjoyable experience, we recommend reading testimonials and reviews, or asking the host to connect you with past participants.

USA & Canada

1. Wake Up and Write Writers Retreat Workshop

For three decades, this retreat — in one form or another — has been providing an immersive learning experience for people writing novels.

After taking a hiatus due to the pandemic, the Wake Up and Write Writer’s Retreat is getting started again on a smaller scale. This year it will be held in Cedar Park, Texas a community of Greater Austin. Don’t let the summer heat get you down, there’s plenty of A/C in the Jason Stitzes’ back studio and shady places to write in the great outdoors. 

Cost: $250 with $50 deposit. Dates August 22 nd – 25 th

2. Get Away to Write 

Most of the retreats and courses available are now online, though some are in person and local to the United States currently – the Pines, Florida, and New England. To keep up to date with upcoming programs and places, it’s best to sign up for their newsletter.

Murphy Writing at Stockton University offers a variety of workshops and retreats both online and in-person. Learn about their new offerings by signing up for their newsletter or follow them on social media.

Cost: $350 – $450 on average for their online writing events.

3. Willow Writers’ Retreat

This is now an online only retreat and prices have been updated accordingly.

Willow Writers’ Retreat is facilitated by Susan Isaak Lolis, a published and award-winning writer. Attendees have access to workshops, including one with creative writing instructor Margaret Harrington, plus a reading on the last evening to celebrate your work.

Cost: TBD; 2022 rate was $350.

This event was already held from July 10-14, 2022. Keep an eye out for more detailed information about next year’s location, costs and more.

Disclosure: Willow Writers’ Retreat is a partner of The Write Life. We hold our advertisers to high standards and vetted this retreat just like the others on this list. 

4. Good Contrivance Farm Writer’s Retreat

Located 25 miles north of Baltimore on a six-acre property in historic Reisterstown, Maryland, this writer’s retreat is open to writers of all levels, plus it operates on a first-come, first-served, non-competitive basis. (Although, you still need to submit a resume and one writing sample for admission.)

Good Contrivance Farm is a non-profit dedicated to the preservation and restoration of small, historic farms in Maryland, and it offers the retreat as part of public outreach efforts. 

Directed by Pushcart Prize writer (plus a ton of others) Ron Tanner and his wife Jill Eicher, the retreat offers workshops and readings as well as plenty of alone time for you in the farm’s contemporary loft apartment. 

There aren’t any Facebook reviews, but Harlan Roberts wrote a Google Review , saying, “My wife and I just spent a week here and we both got a LOT of work done! She managed to edit half of her current novel and I finished editing a book of my short stories. Ron Tanner has put together the perfect writing retreat. It’s quiet, comforting and very accessible.” 

Cost : $570 for one person for a weeklong stay (meals and beverages not provided); $670 for two. Discounts are available for longer stays up to four weeks. 

5. Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Retreat

This retreat is now available online only, however, their 2022 Colorado Gold Conference is being held in person September 9 – 11, 2022 at the Hyatt Regency Aurora-Denver. 

This conference offers Round Table Critiques, Pitch-Prep Coaching, and One-on-One Mentor appointments. There will also be a Publishing Professionals Panel Luncheon and Reading Brunch.

Cost: Registration for the conference ranges from $439 member fee to $489 non-member fee until August 18 th ; $499 member to $549 non-member until August 31 st ; and $549 member to $599 non-member until September 5 th . 

Until August 31 st there are two self-paced courses with Pam Novak and cost is $40 for members and $45 for non-members. 

6. Find Your Story: A Therapeutic Life Writing Retreat for Older Women

Are you in the second half of your life? Are you a newbie writer who wants to tell your story? Then this women-only retreat in Dallas, Texas was designed for you. 

Over the weekend, psychotherapist and writing coach Jennifer Westrom will help you get started (or unstuck) when it comes to your memoir. 

After attending Westrom’s writing class in 2018, Cherri Julia Maker Ridingin wrote on Facebook : “Jennifer is a strong leader in a soft way, highly intuitive, and an outstanding teacher. Class three is next week, and already I feel that I have released some blocks that were preventing me from moving forward in my writing. Her lessons have touched me deeply.” 

This event happened in the Spring of 2022. Keep an eye out for next year’s event details.

Cost: TBD; 2022 rate was $799 per person. 

7. The White Mountain Book Writing Retreat

Editor’s note: Due to the coronavirus pandemic, this retreat now offers an online option.

This retreat in the mountains of New Hampshire focuses on two things: self-nurturing and nonfiction book writing. If you keep putting off your book because of, well, life then host Dorothy Holtermann might say this retreat is for you. 

From September 25 – 29, you’ll learn her “Birth a Book system” through group classes and private coaching, all while feeding your body with farm-to-table organic food and daily yoga classes. If you’re Zooming, you can still join the fun: receive “healthy food goodies” by mail, enjoy live meditation classes and book writing and performance classes that are sure to be interactive.

Cost: $995 per person to attend from home, $2,455 per person for a private room, or $1,495 per person for tuition only.

8. Women Reading Aloud  

In November, writer and poet Julie Maloney will bring her women’s retreat home to Lenox, MA at the Brook Farm Inn just one mile from The Mount, Edith Wharton’s house.

After a tour of Edith Wharton’s estate, attendees will have a writing workshop in the gilded drawing room and use it as inspiration to think about writing in a new place.

“Listening to women, watching women listen and hearing the stories of women who have clearly lived, this is bliss. This is Women Reading Aloud. I have been to several WRA events and I know why I am hooked. It is the listening. We simply do not make enough time to listen and to allow ourselves, our bodies to respond and travel.”

 –Joanne Edelmann,  New York City, New York

Cost: Inclusive: $1295 – includes deposit (non-refundable) – $300

9. Autumn Writing Retreat in the Berkshires

Let autumn in New England be your muse on this five-day retreat with Page Lambert, an instructor of creative writing at the University of Denver’s graduate school.

From October 9-13, you’ll stay at a historic inn, participating in group writing sessions and individual manuscript consultations — and drenching your creativity in the beautiful fall colors. Alternatively, check out Lambert’s 13-day women’s retreat in Peru in 2022 ($4,350).  

Lambert has a lengthy page of testimonials on her website. In one, Paula Hagar said Lambert was “the most awesome writing teacher I’ve ever studied with.” In another, Marsha Rosenzweig Pincus called the Peru trip “one of the most inspirational, spiritual and transcendent experiences of my life.”

Cost: $1,695 per person.

10. Writers Who Run, Retreat & Race  

Held in the mountains of northeastern Virginia, this exciting retreat came back in 2022, and registration is open for July 10 – 16, 2023.

After a two-mile run each morning, you’ll have a full schedule of workshops, critique groups, writing time and social events. The culminating event is a scenic 5K and 10K race on Saturday morning!

For testimonials, check out these YouTube videos from past participants. 

Cost: Basic Writer ($2,125), Advanced Writer ($2,525), Super Awesome Author ($3,125) Basic and Advanced Writer includes shared rooms. Super Awesome Author is a private room (limited supply). Every level offers a 5-month payment plan.

11. TLC Women’s Writing Retreats  

Want something a little different?

Schedule your own private retreat with Tammy L. Coia, a memoir-writing coach who lives in Bellingham, Washington. You’ll stay at her house, in a private bedroom with water views. Each day, you’ll have one-on-one coaching alongside home-cooked meals. She offers this at her home in Palm Springs, plus Dahlonega, Georgia as well.

Or, if you’d rather work in a group setting, Coia holds retreats in Greece in May ($3,900–$4,400) and Vermont in October ($2, 700–$3, 400). 

“Tammy gently leads you through what are often difficult memories to put on paper, but it can prove to be a very healing experience,” Joni Padduck wrote on Facebook . “I highly recommend Tammy! I guarantee it will be a wonderful experience.” 

This year’s Vermont retreat will be held from  October 7 – 12, 2022 at the heart of Vermont’s Fall Foliage season!

“The last Corfu, Greece retreat held in 2019 was a smashing success!” reads a note on the website. Though cancelled from 2020 to 2022, it is now back for 2023 and is being held May 14 – 21, 2023 and May 21 – 28, 2023.

Cost: $2,700 (2-person shared room) – $3,400 (private room) for three- to five-day retreats. 

12. Retreat & Create  

2022 is full. Follow on Instagram or sign up for newsletter for 2023 dates and fees.

A new offering from The Write Life founder Alexis Grant , this retreat is held in the beautiful, historic mountain town of Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, about an hour from Washington, D.C.

This retreat is intimate, with about 10 attendees. It’s not just for writers; it’s open to anyone who’s career-focused and need space and quiet to focus on their work. Several of the events are women-only.

In addition to plenty of work time, the retreat includes an easy-to-moderate hike each morning and a group dinner each night at a local restaurant. Grant emphasizes on the website that all activities are optional, so you can choose to be energized by group conversations or dive deep into solo work time.  

Cost: TBD, but the cost includes four nights’ accommodation, three meals a day, hikes and a massage.

Mexico & Latin America

13. Creative Revolution Retreat

Leigh Shulman invites you to choose your own retreat dates — and join her anytime in Salta, Argentina. This retreat is meant for people at any stage of writing a book, or for those who want to start writing but need some guidance. 

Over eight days, you’ll enjoy intensive writing workshops tailored to your project, yoga, cultural activities, a massage and a private apartment in a bustling city center. Space is limited and the host prefers an intimate retreat, so grab a couple of friends and book a date.

“The retreat met and exceeded my expectations,” Kathleen Evans said in a testimonial on Shulman’s site. “Each day I could feel the progress during this retreat, and I feel that I’ve really grown. My writing has matured, and I have a solid plan and an idea of where I want to go with my writing project.” (She tweeted about it , too.)

Cost: $2,500 per person. Scholarships are available.

14. The Moth Retreat For Artists And Writers

“The Moth Retreat was exactly what I was looking for,” writes Susan Allot on the retreat’s website. “A converted barn all to myself, fresh veg[etables] from the garden and a daily delivery of eggs. Beautiful countryside on the doorstep. I managed about a month’s worth of writing condensed into one inspired week.”

For writers of any discipline looking to experience this along a beautiful country lane in Ireland, this retreat may be for you. You’ll be surrounded by the country’s famed lakes and joined by three dogs and a flock of hens. 

While you’re free to spend your time as your please, there’s Wi-Fi, a writing desk and an easel to use to work, plus a bike to explore the area. 

The Moth Magazine publishers Rebecca O’Connor and Will Govan will be available if you need any assistance. You won’t find guided writing workshops here, but you’ll certainly find the solitude and silence needed to finish that novel. 

Apply to find out when you can book this retreat in 2022! 

Cost : €400 a week ($476 USD), plus a €100 ($119 USD) fee to bring a partner or friend; a minimum stay of 1 week is required; self-catered.

15. Loire Writers Retreat

Writers, authors, poets, academics, screen and songwriters in search of a “creative haven to find their inner voice, develop their craft and begin or complete their story” will find solace in this retreat’s nurturing environment. 

Located in central France’s Loire Valley and close to the historic town of Saumur, this retreat for writers offers a tranquil space for you to focus on your writing. 

Whether you stay for one week or four in 2022, hosts Iris and Derrick Mathews ensure your only responsibility will be to unleash your creativity — and you know they mean it because they even handle the cooking and cleaning for you. When you need a writing break, enjoy one complimentary holistic therapy session plus access to bicycles to explore the French countryside. 

“Thank you for a wonderful Writing Retreat,” said author Tony Macaulay in a testimonial on the site. “You have created the perfect place for writers to get away from it all, to relax, focus and simply write.”

Cost : £784 (~$1,047 USD) per person per week. 

16. Retreats for You

Debbie Flint, the owner of a picturesque 17th-century thatched house in southwest England, runs a variety of retreats throughout the year. (Importantly, they all come with home-cooked meals and resident labradors you can walk through the countryside.)

Developing and Pitching a Commercial Novel is scheduled to begin September 19 th , Rare Weekend Just Write Retreat is scheduled to begin September 23 rd , Alison May’s Developing Your Novel – Tutored Retreat is October 17 th , and General Just Write Retreat begins November 21 st . 

The center, which welcomes groups, has a five-star rating on Facebook with more than 80 reviews. “The house is gorgeous and comfortable; the food is delicious, and there is always home-made cake,” Anita Chapman wrote . “Alison is a fantastic tutor who knows a great deal, delivering it beautifully; and she has a real interest in her students’ projects.”

Cost: £652 (~$792) per person £125 (~$152) deposit requested when booking for Developing and Pitching a Commercial Novel. Check out the other links for current pricing and book your place today as spaces are filling up quickly! 

17. Write Away Europe — Provence

Looking for a place where your “soul and creative spirit will soar”? Head to Provence, France with Lisa Howe, Scott Stavrou, and George Crane to be inspired by beautiful lilac fields and the culture and history of Provence September 11 – 17 th .

Your hosts will be Lisa Howe, a professional editor; Scott Stavrou, a novelist and writing instructor; and George Crane, a published author and writing instructor. You’ll participate in writing workshops, one-on-one mentoring sessions and nightly social hours, all while staying in the heart of a historic city.  

Cost: $2, 950 per person (does not include lunch).

18. Alpine Writers’ Retreat

Yearning for time and space for yourself and your writing? This retreat in idyllic surroundings is open to max. 10 participants at any level of experience, and offers expert guidance in a supportive environment. Gain focus, find inspiration and hone your craft through daily workshops, independent writing time and feedback sessions. Published novelist Valeria Vescina will help you conquer those blank pages and breathe new life into your work in progress. Her solid credentials include years of teaching creative writing to all age groups and levels: from secondary-school pupils and students on Creative Writing BA and MA degrees to Adult Education classes.

Valeria will be offering a retreat from 9 to 15 October 2022 in delightful Flüeli-Ranft, Switzerland. Participants will be staying (full board) in the charming 17 th -century Gasthaus of an iconic historic hotel, the Jugendstil-Hotel Paxmontana.

Cost: 1500 Swiss Francs (~$1540 USD / €1460 / GBP 1235) per person, inclusive of workshops, your own room, rich breakfast buffet, sandwich lunch and 3-course dinner. Click  here  for details of this and future retreats.

19. The Creative Writer’s Workshop: Fiction & Autobiographical Fiction

Inis Mór, Aran Islands, Galway, Ireland

Learn to tell your story while escaping to the mythical Irish island of Inis Mór from September 4-10. Hosted by Author & Fiction Coach Irene Graham

Inspire your writing spirit, invigorate your senses, and create the story that’s in your heart. A writing adventure to deepen your connection to story in the stunning landscape of Ireland’s western shores.

In addition to writing workshops with host Irene Graham, you’ll enjoy guided walks and tours of the remote island. Graham also hosts two memoir-specific retreats in June and September. 

Cost: €1,725 euro (~$1,755 USD) (does not include all meals).

20. Paris Writing Retreat  

The Ireland Writing Retreat isn’t always in Ireland. The Donegal, Ireland retreat in September 2022 is fully booked, but you can still head to Paris for a writing retreat! 

The Paris Writing Retreat is scheduled for October 17 – 23, 2022.

Adopting ‘Six Senses’ as the theme for this week, including the spectacular sights of the city, uplifting smells from both the city’s famous cuisine and its world renown perfumes and sound as in the soft musicality of the French language, we have decided to rebrand Paris as ‘Sensorial City.’   

Aside from daily writing workshops and critiques of retreat assignments in Paris, participants will also be given the opportunity to avail of focused one-on-one critique and discussion session on one of their works-in-progress.

Follow – literally – in the footsteps of such legends as James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sylvia Beach, Gertrude Stein, George Orwell, Oscar Wilde, even Dan Brown across the boulevards of Paris while learning the art of creative writing through practical workshops and author meetings.

Enjoy hands-on tutoring from published authors and lively literary discussions in the very same places that the 1920s ‘Lost Generation’ frequented for the very same reasons, some of whom ultimately emerged as Nobel Prize winners.

Due to ever-increasing popularity, acceptance on our retreats is not just on a first-come, first-served basis. Just as important is your response to a special application questionnaire we will send you. That’s why payments are ONLY accepted from participants AFTER selection has been confirmed.

Cost: 1777 EUR (~$1800 USD) – Accommodation is not included.

21. Melete Writing Retreats

Due to covid, all Melete Retreats are currently virtual. While there are a number yet to announce their dates, you can now take the Fiction Retreat with Bryan Delaney , the Virtual “Art of the Pitch” with Catherine Eaton , or both in this 7-day online writing retreat.

If you’re a fiction writer, TV or screenwriter, you need to be at this week-long, immersive retreat in Piedmont, Italy between the months of May and July. 

To get in, you’ll need to submit a cover letter or resume and writing sample. Although reviews or testimonials weren’t available, know that finetuning your craft in Piedmont puts you in great company: authors like Charles Dickens, Tolstoy, Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway and Natalia Ginzburg have all spent time writing in and about this region.

Cost:  7-Day Online Retreat $1,995 . Cost for both the Bryan Delaney and Catherine Eaton retreats in the same week is $3495. 

22. Pink Pangea’s Writer’s Retreat in Rhodes, Greece  

Dates: October 6 – 11, 2022

Pink Pangea is the community of women who love to travel. We’re smart women who love to explore and grow through our adventures.  

We believe that every woman has a story to tell. That includes you. Meet us at one of our retreats and experience the rejuvenation that comes from spending a week doing something good for the soul in a stunning destination.

Rhodes, Greece is a relaxing and beautiful destination filled with olive groves, gorgeous beaches and incredible views. Here, we will spend six days getting up close and personal with our writing and exploring the beautiful Island. Through transformative writing workshops, we’ll strengthen our creativity, express what we really want to say, and connect with a community of international women writers.

Want to explore Rhodes, Greece while sharing stories and making new friends? This women-only, Pink Pangea retreat might be for you.  

Cost: Single room $2,735 and double room $2,270

23. A Writer Within — Tuscany

Spend a week at a historic villa in Tuscany — complete with your own private chef — at this women-only retreat from October 9 – 15, 2022 or May 21 – 27, 2023.

In the mornings, author Kathryn Kay will lead group writing sessions that focus on craft and the creative process. Afternoons will be for writing, one-on-one sessions and group outings to nearby towns and sites. In the evenings, you’ll share your work and reflect on the day (over wine).

Kay has written and video testimonials on her site. A recent review from Marisa Brown said: “I said ‘yes’ to the dream of a writing retreat, and what better guide than Kathryn Kay to make that dream become a reality. As a workshop leader, Kathryn is gracious, grounded and focused. This was truly an all-encompassing experience of exploring myself and my writing.”

Cost: $3,000 (shared room) – $3,700 (single occupancy room)

Asia, Africa & Middle East

24. Writing Retreat in South Africa

You’ll stay at a guest lodge on Table Mountain, one of the 7 wonders of nature, at the base of the Victoria pass linking Hout Bay with Cape Town. Enjoy morning classes and afternoon free writes (and countryside walks).  

In the evening, writing coach and literary agent Sarah Bullen will lead sessions focusing on everything from genre to character development to approaching publishers. It all goes down March 23 – 27 and again, November 23 – 27. 

“I recently attended the writers retreat and residency at Skala Eressor [sic],” Mary-Joe Emde wrote in a Facebook review . “This has been the most profound retreat I have ever done. Kate and Sarah are masters at creating a space for creativity and writing skills. I loved every moment of it and would recommend this to every aspiring writer.”

Cost: Single Room 12,000 South African rand (~$715 USD). 

Deposit 4,000 South African rand (~$240 USD)

25. Indian Summer House Writers’ Retreat   

Dates: mid to late October 2022

“Our numbers are small and the opportunity to mix your own writing time with workshops, consultations and informal readings is flexible according to how participants would like to be involved,” says Caroline Van De Pol.

At this luscious boutique hotel in southern India, you can attend a writers retreat in October or set up your own dates upon request. 

In addition to morning yoga and meditation, “tantalising” meals and cultural activities, you’ll have daily writing workshops, evening reading sessions and abundant writing time. 

In a recent TripAdvisor review , user shonee2018 gave their experience an “excellent” rating. “Time has this lovely pace in India,” they wrote. “It seems to pass even more gently at Indian Summer House during our daily writer’s workshops with Caroline Van De Pol, readings and discussions to reflect and share our work with others or enjoying the outdoor showers, having a drink in the coconut lounge, jumping into the pool two, three times a day or relaxing at the spa.” 

Cost: TBD; 2020 costs ranged from $2,190–$2,990 AUD (~$1,494–$2,040 USD) per person. 

26. Himalayan Writers Retreat  

As we near the end of available retreats for 2022, here’s a retreat you can start planning for now, and choose from their spring or fall options in 2023. Dates available are March 21 to 31 and October 3 to 13. But don’t worry, if you can’t wait, you can still get started by taking one of their online master classes .

Each retreat has a guest leader, plus two resident facilitators: a psychologist and an author. They’ll guide you through everything from discussions to long walks, bonfires, yoga and pottery. Aside from airfare, everything is included in the price — airport transfers, food and even a trip to the Taj Mahal!

This retreat has more than 100 five-star Google reviews. In a recent one , Ramanjaneya Sharaph wrote: “The workshop covers all aspects, from the science and craft of writing, to getting published. This is a workshop in the true sense of the word. There are enough hands on [sic] writing exercises, with feedback from the course leader and other participants, that helps better understand the concepts.” 

Cost: $3,300 per person.

This is an updated version of a story that was previously published. We update our posts as often as possible to ensure they’re useful for our readers.

• Online Writing Clubs
• Online Book Clubs
• Face-to-Face Writing Clubs
• Face to Face Holiday Workshops
• Online Holiday Workshops
• 11-Plus Workshops – Weekly
• 11-plus (Saturdays)
• 11-Plus Sunday Course
• 11-Plus Holiday Workshops

Creative Writing Workshops

Inspirational workshops for children

Book clubs for children

Get your children reading...

11-plus courses

Workshops and courses

" Creative writing workshops for children "

Whether your child is a confident writer or struggles to get their ideas down on the page, The Story Room has something for everyone. Our relaxed workshop approach nurtures and inspires young writers, enabling them to think creatively and to develop their writing skills. Our tutors and workshop leaders are writers who passionately believe in the benefits of writing for all. We understand the difficulties that a writer faces in communicating their creative thoughts effectively and this enables us to work with children of all writing levels.

We love what we do and are forever on the hunt for new story-writing ideas for our writers!

Our broad range of activities are for children aged 5-16 years old. We run holiday workshops, term-time writing clubs, bespoke writing workshops, children’s birthday parties, author workshops and book clubs.

The Story Room is currently in Winchmore Hill N21 and online.

Poetic Voices Live

We are proud to have been asked to contribute to Poetic Voices Live.

Click here to listen to poetry written by our young writers in their Story Room workshops.

Latest from the Blog

My Amazing ADHD Brain – A Child’s Guide to Thriving with ADHD  is written by Emily Snape. In this brightly coloured and enticing book, Pip, a monster with ADHD,  explains what ADHD is and shares what ADHD means for them and how it affects their life. We learn about the things they can find tricky and things that they find  …

Dear Parents, This is the time of year that you might be thinking of mocks for your child. I work with a team of experts in this field and this week we launch our new-look Succeed website which now includes online mocks as well as the physical mocks that we have provided for  years now. Many of you have asked  …

Milo And His Magic Skateboard by Kristina Tanso Clap clap clap and off we go! Meet Milo, an adventurous bulldog who can travel anywhere in the world on his magic skateboard. All he has to do is think of the destination of his dreams and clap his paws, and Milo can visit all his favourite places in the blink of  …

Today saw the end of our workshops in Friends House and it was a very fitting end to a wonderful week. I can’t tell you how much Michelle and I have enjoyed working with the children this week. Today we learnt about bees and how important they are to our eco-system. We got lots of information from The Woodland Trust  …

When we have a little spare time at the end of a workshop we like to write class poems and we just had to share this one with you because it is sooooooo good! We had spent the class writing discussing Michael Rosen’s Sun Sounds poem and decided to have fun writing a poem about Moon senses, so an acrostic  …

What happens in one of our creative writing sessions? The format of our sessions is pretty much the same whether we are online or in person. We always start with some inspiration for the children – whether it be listening to some music, studying a piece of art, or reading poetry or short stories/extracts from books. For example if our  …

Let your imagination fly!

Join us on facebook, join us on twitter, sign up to our newsletter.

The Story Room

@ 2021 Story Room | www.lucyswebdesigns.co.uk

'Chronicles of Culture' Writing Workshop - Wakefield LitFest 2024

A Creative writing workshop to help aspiring writers build confidence in creating short story narratives.

Date and time

About this event.

We will be bringing people together through story making. Uniting young writers by commissioning them to create short stories and funding their dissemination to an audience in printed and audio form.

In a series of free, open workshops, run by professional writers and creatives, any and all young people will develop the skills to help them build the confidence and knowledge to apply for the commissions. The workshops will give insight into how to get inspired, develop ideas and take stories to final drafts.

The workshops will also connect young people to their local heritage by directly linking the workshops and subsequent stories with places of interest in the district as the inspiration for their stories working in partnership with Wakefield Museum. Suitable for ages 14-25

• Online Events
• Things To Do Online
• Online Classes
• Online Community Classes

Organized by

International Writing Workshops

[email protected]

The British Academy is inviting proposals for Writing Workshops in Brazil, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Kenya, Malaysia, Philippines, South Africa, Turkey, Thailand, Vietnam and/or Least Developed Countries . These workshops should aim to develop the skills of early career researchers, including supporting and promoting the uptake of their research in journals and publications.

Please see the scheme notes for the Writing Workshops for detailed guidance on how to apply. Please read these scheme notes carefully. Any incorrectly submitted applications will be ineligible for the award.

The intention of the Writing Workshops is to support early career researchers in developing countries, working to stimulate professional networks, develop research partnerships, encourage skills development, provide advice on career development, and promote the uptake of research emanating from developing countries.

Through the Writing Workshops programme, the British Academy aims to encourage and support early career researchers in developing countries to publish in high impact journals in the fields of the humanities and social sciences, and enable them to develop connections with academics and journal editors based nationally and internationally. The writing workshops are in affect making a career intervention, instilling and aiming to change long term academic culture, and engaging with the wider ecosystem researchers inhabit.

These workshops are required to take place in Brazil, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Kenya, Malaysia, Philippines, South Africa, Turkey, Thailand, Vietnam and/or Least Developed Countries .

Eligibility requirements

The lead applicant must be based at a UK university or eligible research institute and be of postdoctoral or above status (or have equivalent research experience). The lead applicant must either be in a permanent position at the institution or have a fixed-term position for the duration of the award. Each application must have at least one co-applicant based in Brazil, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Kenya, Malaysia, Philippines, South Africa, Turkey, Thailand, Vietnam and/or Least Developed Countries .

All proposals must be ODA-eligible : only projects that have a primary objective which is directly and primarily relevant to the problems of developing countries may be counted as ODA-eligible . ODA eligibility is an essential criterion – projects will only be deemed eligible for funding if they can demonstrate that they satisfy ODA eligibility criteria.

Value and duration

Awards are set at a maximum of £30,000. Funding must be used in the direct delivery of the workshops, and can cover travel and related expenses, subsistence costs, clerical assistance and consumables, childcare support (including for participants), networking, meeting and/or conference costs.

It will be considered an eligible cost to support the contribution of non-UK based Co-Applicants who are directly involved in helping to organise the workshop(s) in country.

The award length is two years. This is to enable and acknowledge the significant follow-on and follow-up activities that a successful writing workshop award will need to undertake.

Application process

Applications can only be submitted online using the British Academy’s online Flexi-Grant® Grant Management System (GMS) system.

Application deadline: Wednesday 6 December 2023, 17.00 UK time.

• Scheme guidance
• Past awards
• General guide to British Academy funding
• What sort of research do we fund?

Sign up to our email newsletters

Preferences.

Yes, I wish to receive regular emails from the British Academy about the work of the organisation which may include news, reports, publications, research, affiliate organisations, engagement, projects, funding, fundraising and events.

Accessibility links

• Skip to content
• Accessibility Help

KS3 English Literature: A fictional short story writing workshop

BBC Teach > Secondary Resources

CHARLES: We're going to concentrate on holidays, not necessarily the holiday you've just had, but a holiday that you have been on.

AUTHOR #1: It might be like the, holiday when you were three years old It might be a holiday when you were ten.

AUTHOR #1: Any kind of holiday, could have been a terrible holiday or a really great holiday. It doesn't matter.

AUTHOR #1: Well the idea was to just get the children writing some stories. It's as simple as that.

CHILD #1: Hey Daniel what are you doing?

CHILD #2: Belgium innit.

CHILD #1: What did you see in Belgium?

CHILD #2: What?

CHILD #2: Cheese!

CHILD #1: Is that it?

CHILD #2: Yeah. You see cheese and houses.

AUTHOR #1: We start by giving them quite structured tasks to do which would then lead in to an exercise where they actually literally had to sit down and write out a story.

CHILD #3: We went into the village and we were in this shop.

CHILD #3: And it was really strange because they had all these puppets and then randomly, one of them started going, "I love you" and then started laughing in an evil accent. It was so weird.

CHARLES: -It's fantastic yeah, yeah it looks great!

CHARLES: And often there's some real gems there

CHARLES: you wouldn’t necessarily get a story with a beginning middle and an end

CHARLES: but you get a wonderful phrase or an image or something funny or a great little character observation.

CHILD #4: I could feel the comfort softness of the ground below and taste the barbequed food through the hallway.

AUTHOR #1: -The idea of what they can see and feel and hear and taste.

CHILD #5: I remember smelling the fresh mountain tops so pure it reminded me of peace.

AUTHOR #1: And then we gave them a genre.

AUTHOR #1: So comedy or whatever you get given and your celebrity and your celebrity is your main character in your story.

AUTHOR #1: Simon Cowell was one and Beyoncé was another and they had to put those three elements together, their memories the genre and the famous person and turn it into a story. Simple!

CHILD #6: Right, what do we think?

STUDENTS PLAN STORY

CHILD #6: Tragic... Death.

CHILD #7: Are we going to do a best friendship love story?

CHILD #6: Like a tragic love story that’s what we're thinking about.

AUTHOR #1: You can write about anything there are no, no entry signs with writing. You can write about anything. it's not like this really, really complicated thing that only sort of famous people can do.

AUTHOR #2: Simon Cowell, sped down the gloomy menacing streets of San Juan, Ibiza. Looking for that pathetic greasy villain, Louie Walsh.

AUTHOR #2: Louie was happy dancing the Macarena with a teacher called Mrs Hughes. Who he had just met at Oceana.

EVERYONE LAUGHS

AUTHOR #2: I don’t know why that's funny!

AUTHOR #2: OK calm down. "Oh look!" exclaimed Mrs Hughes, there's Simon Cowell.

AUTHOR #2: Louie took one look, turned and ran to Simons roller outside. Swiftly he hot-wired it and raced off into the night and crashed the car.

AUTHOR #2: "Got you now!" Smiled Simon and quickly texted his mum the news that Louie was being done for drunk driving. Knowing that the news of the world would be reading the text within minutes.

AUTHOR #2: And he would get his popularity back for a start.

EVERYONE CLAPS

Video summary

Rebecca Abrams and Charles Cummins lead a fiction writing workshop that begins with a group of teenagers writing about personal memories of holidays.

What can they recall of sights, smells, noises and tastes?

The young writers then form themselves into groups and extend some of these memories into short stories.

To help and inspire the teams, Rebecca and Charles give each group a genre – for example, romance or comedy.

Then a celebrity is added to the mix – it could be Beyonce or Simon Cowell.

The results are team written stories that help reveal some of the fundamental techniques of fiction writing.

This clip is from the series How to Write.

Teacher Notes

This could be used to aid students in understanding and experimenting with genre conventions.

Students write down their memories of a past holiday they have been on, good or bad.

Students are then put into groups of three. Each group is given a specific fiction genre to work with.

Students can choose one of the holiday memoirs in their group to transform into a genre story corresponding to the genre they were assigned.

Students swap genres with another group and re-write the story (perhaps just focusing on openings) according to the rules and conventions of that genre.

Which genre suits their story most effectively? Can students now write their own genre specific story in full?

This clip is relevant for teaching English Literature at KS3 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and 3rd and 4th Level in Scotland.

More from this series

Poetry workshop - The 2 sides of me

Caroline Bird invites thirty teenagers to imagine the two sides of their personalities and write poems about the differences.

Philip Pullman on his novels

Author Philip Pullman gives fascinating insights into the workings of a novelist's mind.

Poetry workshop - Finding inspiration

Writer and teacher Kate Clanchy asks a group of teenagers to write down poetic images inspired by their surroundings.