Finish a first draft of your novel or short story collection in two years.

Have you always dreamed of writing a novel or a collection of short stories but not been confident where to start? Or perhaps you’ve started writing but got stuck along the way. Our two-year course will teach you everything you need to know about the craft of writing and provide you with the support and structure you need to get your words on the page.

The Creative Writing Programme will take you from having little or no creative writing experience to finishing a first draft of a novel or short story collection.

Our two-year structure is based on a helical model – think of the shape of a tornado. You start at the bottom, on first principles: creating an interesting character and strong setting and you build upwards learning about character interaction and dialogue and accumulating more understanding of the writing process as you go, before you tackle the complexity of longer narratives: character development, theme, structure, dramatic tension and, of course, finding an ending.

Our creative-based approach focuses on ‘doing’, like an art school or music academy. This is different from the academic approach of university creative writing courses which we feel put too much emphasis on the cerebral and intellectual, forgetting that writing is also a physical and emotional process.

Year 1

First term

• How to establish a writing practice that works for you

• How to develop your own writer’s voice (and what that means)

• How to create engaging, three-dimensional characters

• How to use dialogue in fiction

• How to create a good setting

• Point of view: who should tell your story?

• The basics of plot

• How to give and receive feedback

Second term

• Narrative voices including first person; first person complicated; the unreliable narrator; second person; third person omniscient; third person limited; and using dialogue as a narrator

• Past and present tense narratives

• The essential components of a scene

Year 2

Third term: the importance of structure to a story

• Classic plots

• The importance of beginnings

• Narrative drive and tension

• The tricky middle

• The importance of theme

• Key scenes: turning points, crises, epiphanies and the climax

• Short story structure

Final term: how to finish your work

• Editing your work

• Giving and receiving feedback

• The elevator pitch

• 50 weeks of taught classes – 2.5 hours per week

• Four one-day workshops on a specific area of writing craft

• Four one-to-one tutorials with your tutor

• Feedback on at least 25,000 words of your work in progress from your tutor

• Publishing Day – everything you need to know about getting your work published or self-publishing

• Meeting with a literary agent for market-level feedback

• Student reading evenings – the opportunity to share your work in a supportive environment

• There are no specific entry requirements. All you need to bring to the programme is your imagination, a love of reading, a passion to write, a commitment to your writing group and the determination to succeed.

• You need to dedicate up to 12 hours per week in term time for classes and additional reading and writing. Many of our students combine the course with a full-time job and/or caring responsibilities.

• You will need a computer with a good internet connection as the programme uses an online learning platform (the Moodle) to allow students to keep in touch outside of the taught sessions.

• For the online programme, your computer must have a built-in camera as the classes are held on Zoom.

If you’re interested in trying out the Creative Writing Programme, why not come along to one of our taster sessions and see if it’s for you? Over the course of 2.5 hours, you’ll get a sense of what the programme involves, try out some creative writing exercises, meet one of your tutors and experience the venue the course is held in. Taster sessions take place from March through to September every year.

Term dates 2027–8

Autumn term: Monday 27th September 2027 – Sunday 12th December (half term break 25–31 October)

Spring term: Monday 10th January 2028 – Sunday 26th March (half term break 14th–20th February)

Summer term: Monday 24th April – Sunday 28th May

The essentials

• Two-year course starting September 2027

• One morning or evening a week for 25 weeks a year

• Locations: choose from bookish venues in Brighton, Eastbourne, East Grinstead, Hastings or Worthing.

• Or study online

• Cost: £1,599 per year. Flexible payment plans available

• Group size: 9–15 writers

“This is an excellent course with a robust content that takes you through the whole book writing process over two years. I had no idea if I could write a novel when I started but by the end I had a tangible draft – now I’m a published author! I would recommend this course to anyone.”

Jane Crittenden, author of Worlds Apart and Summer Ever After