Creative Writing For Beginners Short Course
Course description
Course overview
Through in-class exercises, take-home assignments, readings, workshopping and plenty of constructive feedback, this course explores the basic elements that will encourage you to dust off those unfinished short stories or dive into something completely new.
By the end of these ten weeks students will not only have some wonderful pieces of writing under their belts but also lots of practical advice and notes on how to get their work out into the world. The focus will be firmly on fiction (short stories and longer prose) andnarrative non-fiction (memoir and essays).
This course will enable students to flex their writing muscles and find their writing voices in a fun, focused and supportive environment. This is the perfect class in which to dip your toe and test the writing waters.
Who this course is for
This course is suitable for anyone interested in developing creative writing skills and a very good command of the English language.
Key information
Topics covered
- Discussions on technique, with emphasis on point of view, characterisation, dialogue, structure, and the process of editing
- Workshops to enable students in becoming comfortable with reading and sharing work
- Feedback from both the tutor and colleagues
Learning outcomes
- Understand key technical aspects of Creative Writing such as the use of point of view, writing dialogue and crafting beautiful prose
- Leave the course with one well-written piece of writing
- Develop a practice to help with keeping the momentum of writing that will have begun in the class
- Find ways of bringing writing into their life
- Feel more able to critique their own work and the work of others
- Become more comfortable sharing and reading their work out loud
- Digital badge and certificate of attendance
Materials
- Your favourite book
- Pen or pencil
- Paper
Tutor
Joanna Pocock
Joanna Pocock is the 2018 winner of the Fitzcarraldo Editions Essay Prize for 'Surrender', her book-length memoir and meditation on the American West, its land and its people. 'Surrender' has been compared to the writings of Rebecca Solnit, Lauren Elkin, Garnette Cadogan and Iain Sinclair and described as a 'necessary read for our times'. The book has been published in the UK, US and Canada, and been translated into French and Spanish. Joanna is an Arts Foundation Fellow, a 2021 winner of the Arts Foundation Prize in Environmental Writing and has been recently shortlisted for the Nature Chronicles Prize in Nature Writing. Her writing and photo essays have been published in a variety of outlets in the UK and US, most notably The Los Angeles Times, The Nation, Orion, The New Statesman, The Spectator, The Times Literary Supplement, Granta, Dazed & Confused and Tank Magazine. She has been teaching creative writing, both fiction and non-fiction, for two decades and brings a wealth of writing, editing and publishing experience to her classes. When she isn't writing and teaching, Joanna works as an editor at the Dark Mountain Project and for Verso Books. Her next book, 'Greyhound', is being published by Fitzcarraldo Editions (UK) and Soft Skull (US) in Summer 2025.
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