Kate Gillhespy has been shortlisted and highly commended in the Novel category of the 2025 Yeovil Literary Prize.

Our courses start this week so it feels appropriate to share this quote from the inspirational Stephen King. Whether you’re a returning second year writer, or starting on a creative writing course, the life writing programme or poetry, welcome and welcome back. We’re so excited to be teaching again after the long summer break.

Philippa Groom, a graduate of the Life Writing Programme, is one of ten winners of this year's prestigious Fish Publishing Memoir Prize.  Her winning piece, an extract from her memoir, My Hummingbird Heart, is published in the Fish Anthology 2025. 

Elaine is a novelist, short story writer and English teacher. She is the author of a novel and a short story collection. She teaches on the two-year Creative Writing Programme. Here she talks about her writing life.

Congratulations to Advanced Poetry Workshop alumna Lucy Heuschen whose debut poetry collection came out recently. Daughter of Fire is a fierce retelling of the life and legacy of Margaret of Anjou.

Lisa Lintott completed the Life Writing Programme in 2016-2018 and has since written an award-winning play and screenplay. She is currently editing her first novel. Here she talks about her writing life.

Well done to Dorian Nightingale whose poetry pamphlet Songs from Last Imaginations has recently been published by Flight of the Dragonfly Press. Dorian is an alumni of the Creative Writing Programme where he studied short story writing under the tutelage of Rosie Chard and poetry with John McCullough. 

Laura Wilkinson is a tutor on the two-year Creative Writing Programme in Brighton and runs the Advanced Writing Workshops. She has published seven novels for adults (two under a pseudonym) and numerous short stories. Here she offers her top writing tips.

Ieuan Goodwin, who has just finished the two-year Creative Writing Programme, has been shortlisted for The Nature Writing Prize for Working Class Writers with his short story Lily.

Congratulations to Dr Beth Miller whose seventh novel The Friendship List is published today by Bookouture. The Friendship List is an utterly emotional and unforgettable page-turner about love and friendship.

A short story by CWP alumna Lisa Fransson has been included in an anthology of stories to bring hope in dark times. Inspired by Emily Dickinson’s famous poem, the stories included in HOPE: The Thing With Feathers each have a feather motif and a hopeful positive ending.

The short answer is no. There are many successful authors who never went to university. Having letters after your name, or spending years in a university’s hallowed halls, does not necessarily make you a writer. Becoming a writer is all about learning the craft of writing and actually sitting down and writing.

Congratulations to Katy Massey for winning the ILP John Creasey First Novel Dagger for her novel All Us Sinners. Published in 2024, All Us Sinners is set in Leeds in 1977, at a time when sex workers are being murdered by a serial killer they are calling the 'Ripper'.

Our Tuesday morning programme in Kemptown Bookshop, Brighton is now full so we’ve introduced a new day-time course on Wednesday mornings at the Jubilee Library in Brighton starting in October.

Life Writing Programme alumna Carole Aubree-Dumont won the Emerging Authors prize at this year’s Brighton Book Festival with a reading from her memoir Dumb. Here she talks about her writing journey.

Mick Jackson’s first novel, The Underground Man, was shortlisted for The Booker Prize. He has since published a further three novels and three collections of stories, all with Faber and Faber. He teaches on the Brighton-based Creative Writing Programme. Here are his top writing tips.

Last week we turned the tables on our tutors at our final reading for the academic year - they shared their works in progress with our students. Thanks to Laura Wilkinson, Ruth Figgest, Rosie Chard, Hannah Vincent, Sophie Anderson and Roy Mcfarlane for being brave and reading such different and brilliant work. An inspiring and emotional evening.

It’s a difficult, if unanswerable, question. A strong visual imagination and an ability to observe and recall are important skills, as is curiosity. Some writers have a natural ear for dialogue. Others have the ability to put the subtlest of thoughts into words. Others can paint a scene in a few strokes of the keyboard. But writing is just not about the practical skills you can learn.

Congratulations to Carole Aubree-Dumont, alumni of the Creative Writing Programme, who won the Emerging Authors prize at this year’s Brighton Book Festival today with a reading from her memoir Dumb.

Julia Crouch is the author of ten internationally published novels. She coined the term Domestic Noir to describe her own particular sub-genre of psychological thriller. She’s joining the Creative Writing Programme tutor group from October, teaching on the Tuesday evening course in Kemptown Bookshop. Here she talks about her writing journey.