Tag Archives: writing course

Residential Writing Weekend with Claire Keegan

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Teach Bhride Holistic Centre, Tullow, Co. Carlow, Ireland 3 to 5 January 2020

This residential weekend will see all participants arriving at Teach Bhride on Friday afternoon before dinner. The next two mornings will be spent writing in any genre in well lighted, quiet spaces without mobile phones.

Lectures and discussions will be held in the afternoons and evenings on the following:

  • Letters by Anton Chekhov & others

  • Paris Review/Writers at Work Interviews

  • Essays by Eudora Welty, Frank O’Connor and Flannery O’Connor

  • Hemingway’s advice on writing

  • Some poems on writing and creativity

  • Viewing of A Private World, a documentary on John McGahern

Tuition includes all meals and two nights’ accommodation, with everyone arriving before dinner on Friday, helping themselves to breakfast both mornings, and leaving before dinner on Sunday evening. This course will suit anyone interested in a quiet weekend of writing. None of what is written will be read aloud. It’s a chance to engage with the intricacies of the creative process and use your imagination.

To book your place, contact ckfictionclinic@yahoo.com Tuition is 400 Euro. A 50% deposit secures. See CKFictionClinic for more information.

KEEGAN ClaireClaire Keegan’s portrait taken in the offices of Sabine Wespieser, Publisher, Paris

Claire Keegan’s story collections include Antarctica, Walk the Blue Fields and Foster (Faber & Faber). These stories, translated into 17 languages, have won numerous awards. Her debut, Antarctica, was a Los Angeles Times Book of the Year. “These stories are among the finest stories recently written in English,” wrote the Observer. Walk the Blue Fields, her second collection, was Richard Ford’s Book of the Year in 2010, and won the Edge Hill Prize, awarded to the strongest collection published in the British Isles. Foster won the Davy Byrne’s Award, the then world’s richest prize for a single story. New Yorker readers chose Foster as their story of the year. It was also published in Best American Stories and is now on the school syllabus in Ireland. Keegan has earned an international reputation as a teacher of fiction, having taught workshops on four continents.

“Every line seems to be a lesson in the perfect deployment of both style and emotion.” – Hilary Mantel

“The best stories are so textured and so moving, so universal but utterly distinctive, that it’s easy to imagine readers savoring them many years from now and to imagine critics, far in the future, deploying new lofty terms to explain what it is that makes Keegan’s fiction work.” – The New York Times

“Every single word in the right place and pregnant with double meaning.” – Jeffrey Eugenides, The New York Times

“Keegan is a rarity, someone I will always want to read.” – Richard Ford

30 Days of Writing, An Online Course

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30 days course30 Days of Writing is an interactive online course that encourages and supports writers in the process of writing a book in a month. For the thirty days of the course, the focus will be on your writing, on finding the right voice to tell your stories in, and on exploring ways to expand and layer a collection of short stories.

The course is led by the writer and tutor, Shaun Levin, editor of The A3 Review and author of Seven Sweet Things, A Year of Two Summers, and the writing guides, The Writing Notebooks.

30 Days of Writing is right for you if:

  • you want to create a substantial amount of writing in a short period of time
  • you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed by the collection you want to write and would appreciate some guidance and detailed feedback
  • you have an idea for a book but are not sure how to go about writing it
  • you like working in the company of others, but also enjoy the comfort of writing in your own space and at a time that suits you
  • you have notes and fragments towards a book, and would like some input on how to organise everything and keep going
  • you’d like to experiment with different ways of putting together a book, whether using text on its own, or combining text with photographs and illustrations

Tutor: Shaun Levin
Dates: 1-30 November 2019
Fee: £380

For just over £12 a day, you’ll receive:

  • detailed feedback
  • daily writing prompts
  • customised prompts and suggestions
  • 2 x one-to-one consultations
  • the company of other writers from around the world
  • 2 x the 12 Doable Writing Projects Writing Map
  • and the support to figure out what it takes to write your next book.

For more details about 30 Days of Writing, click here. Please email maps@writingmaps.com for any questions about the course.

How Fiction Works: A Study of Narrative Using Works by John McGahern

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Linenhall Library, Belfast. May 13 & 14, 2019. 10am–5pm, both days.
Claire Keegan will direct this fiction writing course using works by John McGahern to explore and demonstrate the mechanics of writing and narrative structure.

1. The Leavetaking

2. “Christmas”

3. “Parachutes”

4. “The Conversion of William Kirkwood”

How do stories begin? How and why does an author make an incision in time and build tension? How is a reader drawn into a narrative? Why is a reader sometimes not drawn in at all? Keegan will discuss the structure of a narrative and go into what she calls the much-neglected middle, the trunk of the story. Are endings natural? Why do stories need to end, to find a place of rest? The discussion around endings will focus on falling action, emotional consequences and inevitability. Participants will also examine the differences between the short story and the novel. This course will be of particular interest to those who write, teach, read or edit fiction — but anyone with an interest in how fiction or reading works is welcome to attend. To book your place, contact ckfictionclinic@yahoo.com  Tuition is £300. A 50% deposit secures.

 

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Claire Keegan’s story collections include Antarctica, Walk the Blue Fields and Foster (Faber & Faber). These stories, translated into 17 languages, have won numerous awards. Her debut, Antarctica, was a Los Angeles Times Book of the Year. “These stories are among the finest stories recently written in English,” wrote the Observer. Walk the Blue Fields, her second collection, was Richard Ford’s Book of the Year in 2010, and won the Edge Hill Prize, awarded to the strongest collection published in the British Isles. Foster won the Davy Byrne’s Award, then the world’s richest prize for a single story. New Yorker readers chose Foster as their story of the year. It was also published in Best American Stories is now on the school syllabus in Ireland. Keegan has earned an international reputation as a teacher of fiction, having taught workshops on four continents.

Write a Book in June. It’s doable!

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30 days

30 Days of Writing is a practical online course for writers who’d enjoy the challenge of putting together a book in a month.

The course is especially suited to anyone who’d like to take on a short story project not necessarily linked to a book project you’re working on. It’s an opportunity to create that passion project you’ve been mulling over for years, and to explore different concepts of what consitutes a book.

The course is run by the writer Shaun Levin, who is also the editor of The A3 Press, a new chapbook press, and the creator of Writing Maps.

The online course is devised so that you can start a project from scratch and complete a first draft by the end of June. The course is a month-long commitment, and will benefit anyone who’d like the inspiration and support to write daily for 30 days alongside other writers from around the world.

To find out more about the course, please click here.

Whether you’re writing fiction, non-fiction, hybrid writing, creating comics or illustrations, we’ll look at how to create a layered and dynamic work. Some of the elements we’ll focus on will include: movement in time and place, conflict and tension, chronology and tone, as well as ways to enhance your text through research and the inspiration of genre companions.

The primary focus throughout the course will be your daily practice of writing and the creation of your book.

Dates: 1 June – 1 July 2019

Fee: £260 (£200 early-bird rate before 30 April)

limited to 15 participants

About the tutor: Shaun Levin is the author of Snapshots of The Boy, A Year of Two Summers and Seven Sweet Things, amongst other books. He has been teaching creative writing for over twenty years and has worked closely with writers at all stages of their journey towards publication.

 

The Short Story with Claire Keegan

Short story course held on 13 and 14 April at The River Mill’s Retreat, Co. Down. 10am to 5pm, both days.

This weekend course will explore the short story using works from the anthology You’ve Got to Read This (ed. by Ron Hansen and Jim Shepard). Participants will be asked to consider:

  • How fiction works — and why it sometimes doesn’t

  • Where and when stories begin and how and if this differs from the novel

  • The differences between a short story and the novel / a chapter

  • Beginnings, Middles, Endings: Narrative Structure

To book, contact ckfictionclinic@yahoo.com. Tuition is £300. Lunch and tea are provided for all. There are only two places left. Visit CKFictionClinic for full details.

Claire Keegan has written Antarctica, Walk the Blue Fields and Foster (Faber & Faber). These stories, translated into 17 languages, have won numerous awards, and have been published in The New Yorker, Best American Stories, The Paris Review. Keegan has earned an international reputation as a teacher of fiction, having taught workshops on four continents.

*NEW* Writers’ HQ Flash Quarterly Competition

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writers' hq flash quarterly competition

Writers’ HQ wants your words! So send 500 of your best to their new flash fiction competition, running quarterly throughout 2019.

It’s free to enter, open-themed, with no restrictions on genre or style. PLUS win yourself up to 12 months Writers’ HQ membership and get access to over £1000’s worth of online creative writing courses as well as UK one-day writing retreats.

ENTER THE COMPETITION HERE

Deadline: 31st March
Word limit: 500 words
Entry fee: FREE! (But optional donations to our bursary fund are welcomed)
Prizes: 

  • 1st place: 12 months Writers’ HQ membership + 3 one-day writing retreats
  • 2nd place: 6 months Writers’ HQ membership + 3 one-day writing retreats
  • 3rd place: 3 months Writers’ HQ membership + 3 one-day writing retreats

Find the full guidelines (for the love of all that’s shiny, please read the guidelines) and entry form HERE

Writers’ HQ Online Writing Short Fiction Course (plus membership discount!)

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Short stories aren’t just easier versions of the novel. They’re a broad, complex and rewarding art form in their own right. Writers’ HQ’s new online short story course will help you see the bigger picture and compress it into short stories with real punch.

Short stories have been here since the dawn of time. Based in the oral tradition (stop sniggering at the back), they’re the apocryphal family legends our grandmas/weird uncle used to tell us over Christmas dinner; they’re the school-yard urban myths; the sleepover ghost stories; the soliloquies in our diaries; the wine-soaked rants to that random person you cornered in the kitchen at that party after so-and-so dumped you. Short stories are all around us.

But super short stories are not super easy for writers, natch. In fact, the shorter your story becomes, the harder it is to distil what really matters onto the page. I would have written a shorter letter, so the famous quote goes, but I didn’t have the time.

So what makes truly great short fiction? The kind that leaves you dribbling, slack-jawed, and slap-faced when you finish it. The kind you remember forever, like some weird dream-memory. Well. We can’t write it for you, but we can give you a nudge, a shove, and a poke with a sharp stick (whatever floats your boat) to help you on your way. With the help of writing prompts, advice from award-winning short fiction writers, inspiring exercises, and the awesome little Writers’ HQ online community, you’ll come out the other side with at least one fully formed short story to call your very own – and maybe even send out into the world of literary magazines and competitions…

BOOK YOUR PLACE NOW or sign up for the full WHQ MEMBERSHIP for access to all seven of our online courses and exclusive discounts and freebies!

Sign up for monthly membership before 31st December and get 25% off your sign up fee with promo code WHQERSRULE25

short fiction online writing course

 

FREE short story critique with the Writers’ HQ Writing Short Fiction course

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short fiction course

Get a FREE 3,000 word story critique when you book onto the next Writers’ HQ Writing Short Fiction online course (starting 18 Sept) using promo code CRITMEBABY

Spend six weeks immersed in the art of the short story with Writers’ HQ 5-star online course AND get feedback on the story of your choice (up to 3,000 words) with a special one-off promo code: CRITMEBABY.

The WHQ course is designed to fit in around busy lives, working hours, kids, attention-seeking partners, household chores and inevitable procrastination. Inspiring exercises, writing prompts, advice from award-winning short fiction writers, and a supportive online writing community will help you come up with some brand new ideas and explore a range of approaches and techniques to get the very best out of your short fiction.

And at the end of the course, submit a story to the Writers’ HQ tutors for detailed, one-to-one feedback and critique!

 

The next Writing Short Fiction course starts on 18 September

 CLICK HERE TO BOOK YOUR PLACE

(and don’t forget to use promo code CRITMEBABY at the checkout to get your free critique!)

 

Still not sure? Here’s what a few past students have said about the course (more reviews here):

writers hq short fiction course writers hq short fiction course writers hq short fiction course writers hq short fiction course

Silver, Gold, and Some Hard Cash

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gold thingsWe’ve got a silver-themed contest with a looming deadline; six new themes for Issue 8: The Gold Issue; and an increase in our cash prizes.

There’s still one last chance to be part of The A3 Review‘s Issue 7, The Silver Issue. This month’s theme is SILVER THINGS, so make sure to get your sparkly work in by Saturday the 26th August. Click here for glittery inspiration and to submit. The issue will also include a story by guest flash-fiction writer Kathy Fish alongside the winners of the last 5 months of contests, and this month’s winners, too.

In other news… The A3 Review‘s founding editor, Shaun Levin, is launching a new online writing course, How to Map Your Book. The course is suitable for writers at all stages of a book project, so if you’re putting together a collection of short stories, you might want to check out the details here.  There’s an early-bird rate for bookings up until the 20th August.

Do please spread the word about our new themes for Issue 8: The Gold Issue. Naked and Nude, Windows, and Betrayal are just some of the dramatic themes coming up! And, because our submission numbers are up, we’re able to increase the prize money from this issue. Click here for inspiration and more details.

How to turn a short story into a novel

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Have you ever had a short story get a little… out of hand? Perhaps it starts out as a mere spark of an idea, maybe just a little piece of flash fiction, and then it grows, and grows, and evolves and morphs and mutates into this enormous monster that’s too huge to possibly be contained in a few thousand words.

So what then? How do you move from writing short stories into the great big daunting world of novel writing?

The short story and the novel are two very different beasts, but the writer’s brain is a wonderful thing, and if the thought of churning out 80,000 odd words leaves you in a cold sweat, what you need is some serious PLOTSTORMING.

novel writing course

Writers’ HQ’s online novel outlining course will teach you the fundamentals of plotting your story from start to finish. Designed to fit around everyday life and a busy schedule, all you need to get started is an idea, and after six weeks’ furious plotstorming, you’ll finish with a comprehensive outline of your novel, so that you’re rip-roaring ready to get that first draft out.

This in-depth online plotting course contains everything you need to expand your short story into a novel. You’ll learn the fundamental elements that make up every good plot and the basics of story structure:

  • Explore who’s in your story, what their roles are, and how to make compelling characters
  • Learn how to add tension and conflict so that your novel is unputdownable
  • Break your story down into chapters and scenes so that it feels more manageable
  • And find out what to do with your outline once you have it (hint: a whole lot of writing lies in your future…)

Exercises, examples, group discussion, tutor feedback, swearing and productive procrastination (eg: research, day-dreaming, tea-drinking) will enable you to grow your fictional world and build your story plan into a detailed outline, taking it from ‘random idea in your head’ to ‘actual real story that’s ready to be properly written’!

The next Plotstormers course starts on the 7th of August. Get ready to help that epic short story reach its full potential and take the leap into novel writing!

If you’re still not sure, try a FREE one-week primer course here, or get in touch with the procrastination-busting whip-crackers at Writers’ HQ who will soothe your fevered brow and bribe you with gold stars. BOOK YOUR PLACE NOW!

And if you’re absolutely, positively sure novel writing isn’t for you, check out the WHQ Writing Short Fiction course instead. It might help you find a way to contain that behemoth of an idea into a self-contained piece of short fiction, and help you make the most of each idea that springs into your head, covering everything from characterisation to structure to narrative voice to getting your stories published.

Find out more about Writers’ HQ online courses and regional writing retreats at www.writershq.co.uk or chat with the WHQ crew on Facebook or Twitter.

 

Seven Days of Story Inspiration from Writers’ HQ

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writers' hq seven ideas in seven days online writing course

SEVEN IDEAS IN SEVEN DAYS – 1 WEEK ONLINE WRITING COURSE – STARTS 5th JUNE (£20)

Learn how to see, hear and think like a writer with Writers’ HQ’s 5-star online creative writing course, Seven Ideas in Seven Days.  Designed to fit around every day life and a busy schedule wherever you are in the world, we’ll give you techniques and exercises for generating ideas and turning them into usable outlines for brilliant stories.

If you’ve ever sat down with good intentions to write a short story but find your brain (and the page) utterly blank, then this is the writing course for you. Ideas are the bedrock of story writing. Sometimes they come thick and fast, and sometimes they seem to languish in the dank cellar of your subconscious and refuse to come out to play. Seven Ideas in Seven Days will help you to turn into an idea-generating machine using inspiring exercises, forum discussions, writing prompts, feedback and support.

Over the course of the week, we’ll teach your brain to germinate those idea-seeds. (Seedy ideas? Something like that.) We’ll give you techniques to spot ideas in both the fantastic and the mundane, exercises to encourage them to grow and bloom, ways to record them for when you need them, and generally help you get into the habit of THINKING.

By the end you will have: seven ideas that can be grown into fully fledged stories, or inserted into existing stories to make them even better. Book your place HERE!

WHAT YOU GET

  • Seven ideas that you can use, grow, nurture, or throw on the floor in frustration (then pick up again and hope no one saw)
  • Daily inspiration, whip-cracking, writing exercises and prompts
  • Top tips from tip-top authors
  • A private student forum to discuss ideas, techniques and get advice from your tutors and fellow writers
  • Dedicated support by email from your fantastic tutors
  • Feedback and writerly conversation from the LOVELY social media community of Writers HQers

STARTS MONDAY 5th JUNE (and costs just £20!) – BOOK YOUR PLACE NOW!

Still not convinced? Check out just a few of the 5-star reviews from previous students:

“More ideas than you can shake an inspiration stick at! Fab exercises for toning up your idea muscles. A fun, inspiring week.”

“Super splendid idea generating joy! I’d been feeling like I’d lost the ability to generate ideas but this course gave me my confidence back. You’ll get the chance to play around with some really fun exercises and just see what happens! I got at least seven really decent ideas to develop further. It’s great value for money and will really give you a great big creative kick. Five gold stars from me!”

“A mysterious benefactor gives you a task a day and – shazam! – by the end of the week you’re a-fizzing with ideas. Tis witchcraft. Do it.”

“Inspiring! A really varied crash course in ideas generation. It was great sharing the course with a small group of fellow students and Sarah is a wonderful course leader. I’ll definitely use the ideas I came up with and the techniques I learned in my writing. Five gold stars!”

” Just a fab way to work. Really enjoyed myself and discovered so many aspects of the writing process I didn’t know or ignored. They throw you in at the deep end but best way to question your process and the way you work. We are so easily stuck in a rut. And this course is a real encouragement to define a box and then think outside it.”

Writers’ HQ 6 Week Online Short Fiction Course Starts 10th October

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short-story-1

Short stories aren’t just easier versions of the novel. They’re a broad, complex and rewarding art form in their own right. Writers’ HQ’s new online writing short story course will help you see the bigger picture and compress it into short fiction with real punch.

Try a FREE week of the course here!

Running for 6 weeks from 10th October, this online course is structured to work around busy lives and work schedules, and to support writers of all experiences. With the help of inspiring exercises, writing prompts, advice from award-winning short fiction writers, fantastic published examples, thought-provoking literary analysis, and a great little online community, you’ll come out the other side with plenty of ideas and at least one fully formed short story to call your very own.

book-now-nonsweary

Writers’ HQ is an arse-kicking, procrastination-bust­ing writing organisation based in Sussex (with plans for global online domination). Their motto? Stop f**king about and start writing. With online courses, local writing retreats and workshops, Writers’ HQ is here to help writers get the words out of their heads and onto the page with as little angst as possible. 

NEW Six Week Online Short Fiction Course from Writers’ HQ

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Writers’ HQ are launching a brand new six-week online short fiction course for writers who are tight on time and money (so… all of us then!) – starting 26th September, 2016.

Short stories have been here since the dawn of frickin’ time. Based in the oral tradition (stop sniggering at the back), they’re the apocryphal family legends our grandmas/weird uncle used to tell us over Christmas dinner; they’re the school-yard urban myths; the sleepover ghost stories; the soliloquies in our diaries; the wine-soaked rants to that random person you cornered in the kitchen at that party after so-and-so dumped you. Short stories are all around us. <cue X-Files theme>

But super short stories are not super easy for writers. In fact, the shorter your story becomes, the harder it is to distill what really matters onto the page. I would have written a shorter letter, so the famous quote goes, but I didn’t have the time…

The energetic, irreverent, slightly bonkers team at Writers’ HQ will help you come up with ideas, hone them into perfectly formed nuggets of fiction and build the confidence to send them out into the world. Spend six weeks developing your short fiction skills with the support of a thriving online community, top tips from award winning authors, inspiring writing exercises, and procrastination-busting tools and techniques.

And, due to funding from the fantastic Arts Council England, Writers’ HQ are able to offer this great course at the low price of £130. Or, if you’re feeling lucky, why not enter their competition to win a fully-subsidised place on all five of their new online courses? Click here for more info.

And if that wasn’t enough, the first 25 people to book will also receive free membership to 750 Words – a fantastic productivity app that will get you writing every day! What more could you ask for (aside from someone to write the darn thing for you)?

book-now-nonsweary

Oh wait, that’s not all.

If you’re based in Sussex and fancy spending a morning at the beautiful National Trust property Monk’s House (historic home of Virginia Woolf and haunt of the Bloomsbury Group) writing and reading flash fiction, come along to the Fiction in a Flash workshop on the 20th of August.

Fiction in a Flashat Monk's House (1)

If you fancy streamlining your writing down into bite-size chunks, or have always wanted to write a short story but didn’t know where to start, flash fiction is your answer! This two hour workshop covers everything you need to know to get you flashing like a – err, no never mind – to get you writing confident, impactful flash. At the beautiful, inspiring Monk’s House, home to Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group, we’ll cover the basics of form and structure, show you how to make characters come to life in just a handful of words, and experiment with prompts to get your flashy juices flowing.

In this workshop we’ll look at the fundamentals of flash fiction and experiment with different ways of approach writing fantastic minimalist fiction. Learn how to wring every last drop of goodness from your words and tell a story in fewer than 1000 words.

Explore the world of short fiction, write your own flash, and if you’re feeling brave, share your work with the group. We can direct you towards a stiff drink afterwards…

 

 

 

 

 

Win a year’s access to online writing courses with Writers’ HQ!

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Brighton Writers Retreat - General Logo - Web-01

To celebrate the launch of FIVE brand spanking new online writing, Writers’ HQ are offering FIVE deserving writers a year’s access to their creative writing programme, worth over £500.

The nitty gritty: 

Deadline: 14th August 2016

Prize: Access to our 5 short courses (7 ideas in 7 days, novel plotting, novel editing, manuscript submission & short fiction) for a whole year.

Submission requirements: Free entry! Just send us a sample of your writing (either the opening of a novel or short fiction piece – maximum 1,500 words) AND a brief statement about why you would benefit from our courses.

CLICK HERE FOR FULL COMPETITION DETAILS AND SUBMISSION FORM

More info:

As writers/parents/employees/freelancers, we know all too well how hard it is to hold down a job, wrangle a family, battle imposter syndrome and wrestle the evil guilt that comes with trying to carve out time to write. And in the last four years of running writing retreats we’ve met hundreds of time-starved, finance-poor writers who feel the same.

And so! We decided SOMETHING MUST BE DONE. We’ve put together five new affordable, arse-kicking, profanity-laden, online writing courses, covering everything from idea generation to short fiction to novel plotting to manuscript submission to first draft editing. These short courses, spanning between one to six weeks, will help you to develop your writing skills in small, manageable chunks, whenever you can fit them in. And there’s more! With the generous aid of a development grant from the amazing, wonderful and vitally important Arts Council England, we’re ecstatic to be able to offer five fully subsidised places on all our short courses, giving the winners access to the course material for a whole year.

All you have to do is send us a bit of your work and let us know why you’d benefit from access to our new courses. Do it! Details of how to enter can be found HERE.

Good luck!

 

London Lit Lab writing courses

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London Lit Lab Logo

London Lit Lab is offering two creative writing courses:

‘Beginning to Write: putting pen to paper‘ is a six-week course starting in June, on Thursday evenings at Leila’s Shop in Shoreditch. It’s designed for those who have just started writing fiction – either short stories or a novel – or those who want to develop their skills. In each session we’ll use writing exercises to explore one of the following aspects of fiction: plot, character, place, point of view, dialogue and description. The course is taught by writers, and we aim to provide a friendly, home-from-home experience, where you’ll feel comfortable putting pen to paper. You’ll leave the course with a toolbox of literary skills, a few new friends, and the confidence to keep on writing. Click here for more info.

‘Continuing to Write: developing your work’ is an eight-week course starting in September, also on Thursday evenings at Leila’s Shop in Shoreditch. This course is for writers with some experience (e.g. our Beginning to Write course) , or have a body of work, such as a short story collection or novel, that you would like to develop. The course is also ideal for students who have recently finished a BA or MA in creative writing, and want a bit of a refresher, or further support to complete work. Likewise, if you are considering applying for a Creative Writing MA, we can help you hone your portfolio. In each session we will discuss texts in relation to characterisation, place, plot and voice. We will be looking at openings, endings and everything in between. The second half of each session will be dedicated to critiquing work in progress. Click here for more info.

Feel free to get in touch at info@londonlitlab.co.uk or find us on Twitter @LondonLitLab!

short story masterclass

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Short Fiction‘s first 5-week online masterclass filled up quickly, so if you missed out, we go again on March 6th. The course has been written and designed by our editors, who are all published authors and creative writing lecturers, and mines their wealth of experience, knowledge and passion for this most demanding of literary forms. Our aim is to unravel some of the mysteries and complexities of the short story, guiding you through the art and craft of composing pieces.

This immersion into the short story will include weekly feedback on your submitted work, the goal to produce a publishable piece by the end of the course. Study at home in your own time. Topics covered include:

A brief history of the short story

What makes stories come to life, and how to build them

Character, voice, narrative tension and dialogue

Beginnings and endings. Or just middles?

Obliquity, subtext, structure and lacunae

Less is more: the art of editing

Follow the link from our page here to find out more, and get your writing year off to a fabulous start.

Short Stories and Arvon

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Before working for Arvon (a charity that runs residential creative writing courses and retreats), my knowledge of short stories was mainly informed by my love of the Gothic; particularly the work of Edgar Allan Poe, and of course Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper. I didn’t necessarily realise that brilliant people were still writing such exciting short stories today (silly me). This ignorance was disastrously tied to a general inability post-English degree to read or understand anything that was written after 1900.

Enter my saviours, Tania Hershman and Adam Marek, who Totleigh Barton were fortunate enough to have as tutors for a short story course in 2012 (Totleigh Barton is Arvon’s original centre – a 16th century manor house located near the village of Sheepwash, Devon…yes, that really is a place).

 

Totleigh Barton

 

Luckily for me, Tania and Adam are both ‘short-storyphiles’ and were more than willing to stay up late educating me about the exciting world of short stories. Lucky too (despite the number) for the thirteen course participants inhabiting Totleigh Barton for the week. The nervous group that had arrived on Monday afternoon and huddled self-consciously around their cream teas, were effervescent with confidence and joy by the time they left on Saturday morning. They had experienced an intense week away from all the distractions of their home life to focus on short stories and it was a week that buzzed with energy. You could almost feel the creativity and friendship building and filling the house and no-one wanted to leave on Saturday morning. Despite being on the peripheries, I felt enlightened and excited to have found a new genre of contemporary writing and a group of such lovely people.

I thought this ‘short story buzz’ must have been unique to that week; special because of that specific group of people and those wonderful tutors. However, Arvon ran a number of short story courses (besides courses in a number of other genres) at all four of their centres last year; all of which by many accounts possessed a similarly positive feel. Partly, this was because of the talented tutors that ran courses in 2013, including Claire Massey, Claire Keegan, Alexander MacLeod, Nicholas Royle, Alison MacLeod and Robert Shearman. However, I have come to realise that writers who write short stories are just generally excellent human beings.

Arvon is just as excited by short stories as its course participants. This year we will be hosting more short story courses than ever before, with the introduction of a Starting to Write Short Stories course for beginners. At Totleigh, we are very much looking forward to welcoming back Adam Marek to tutor a short story course in May with the wonderful Jane Feaver, lecturer in Creative Writing at Exeter University. There are still places available so if you are interested please visit http://www.arvon.org/course/short-story

Short stories and Arvon seem to go together beautifully. There is something about Arvon’s ethos for giving people the ‘time and space’ to write, paired with the enthusiasm and open mindedness of writers of short fiction that seems to go hand in hand, like the pit and the pendulum… without the gory bits.

Eliza Squire, Centre Assistant at Totleigh Barton

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For more information about Arvon and its work, please visit http://www.arvon.org or phone 020 7324 2554. Or to reach Totleigh Barton directly please ring 01409231338.

The Berko Writers’ Workshop

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Filed under Workshops

The Berko Writers’ Workshop is repeating their (sold out!) inaugural writing course, starting on April 29th.

Sign up for six weeks of professional tuition and supportive feedback – and build a network of local writing friends while you’re at it.

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The course fee includes 12 hours of tuition, Here Cafe‘s celebrated tea and cake in the break, and a wine discount post-workshop (to help with that networking!)

There’s also a literary agent Q&A in week six.

Your course tutor is Julie Mayhew, novelist, radio dramatist and director and host of Berkhamsted’s celebrated short story night The Berko Speakeasy.

For more info and to book, click here.

 

 

Marek on Radio 4 and Comma’s Short Story Writing Course

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Filed under blog, Workshops

If you haven’t been following it already, do be sure to tune into BBC Radio 4 Extra all this week at 11am to give your ears a ruddy good treat with Adam Marek’s delicious, bizarre and hysterical short stories, taken from his two collections Instruction Manual for Swallowing and The Stone Thrower, published by Comma Press. Today’s dose is ‘The 40-Litre Monkey’, a comic yet slightly unnerving tale of an odd pet shop owner and his even weirder collection of animals. You can catch up on Monday’s episode and see what stories are forthcoming here. Adam has been described by The Independent as ‘Early McEwan meets David Cronenberg’, and  author Alison MacLeod has praised him as ‘one of the best things to have happened to the short story this century’. You can find out more about Adam on his website www.adammarek.co.uk.

And if you missed the last one, bookings are now open for the next Comma Press Short Story Writing Course to be held at MadLab in April and tutored by Claire Dean.  Over the course of six weeks, participants will study the narrative structure of the short story, receive tailored feedback on their writing, and experience a chance to hone their craft to a publishable standard. And there will be biscuits. Lots of biscuits. For more information and to book your place, click here.