Student Access
Congratulations to Clare Finan for securing representation with Jennifer Thompson at Nordleyset Literary Agency for her book The Lobsterman. She started writing the novel on the Creative Writing Programme in 2018. Fingers crossed for Clare as she goes out on submission.
Erin Martin took the Life Writing Course in 2019-20 out of which emerged her memoir Trains, about her childhood growing up near a mental hospital where her mother was intermittently a patient. It received recognition with the Bridport Prize. Here she talks about her writing life.
Congratulations to alumnus Stuart Gillespie whose hybrid memoir Food Fight is published today. Here he talks about his experience on the Life Writing Programme and how he started his writing journey
Kristin Burniston is a British American writer with an MA in Screenwriting from the University of the Arts London and a BA in Communication Arts from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She took the Creative Writing Programme from 2018 to 2020.
Congratulations to alumna Sue Paterson whose debut novel The Department of Certainty has been published by indie publisher Stairwell Books. Here she talks about her writing life.
Congratulations to alumna Rosalind Eyben whose biography of her father has recently been published by Taylor & Francis.
Congratulations to alumnus Stuart Gillespie who has secured a publishing deal for his hybrid memoir Food Fight.
Sue Orton finished the Life Writing Programme in 2022 and has since self-published her memoir Gathering Threads, which she started during the course. Here she talks about her writing journey.
Congratulations to course alumna Jane Crittenden whose second novel SUMMER EVER AFTER is published by Lake Union today!
Sophie Anderson took the Creative Writing Programme from 2016 to 2018. She has since had two novels – The Butterfly Garden and The Sapphire Cove – published and is currently out on submission with her third.
Louise Kenward’s anthology Moving Mountains: Writing Nature Through Illness and Disability was published last autumn. Here she talks about how taking the Creative Writing Programme from 2015-17 helped to kickstart her writing dream and offers some advice on writing while living with pain and fatigue.
This month Lisa Fransson’s debut novel The Shape of Guilt is published, with a launch at Brighton’s Waterstones bookshop. Lisa took the Creative Writing Programme from 2014-2016. Here she talks about her writing life.
Sue Wallace-Shaddad took the Advanced Poetry Workshops in 2022 and earlier this year Clayhanger Press published her collection Sleeping with Clouds, a collaboration with artist Sula Rubens. Here she talks about her poetry journey.
An alumna of our creative-non-fiction course, here she talks about her writing life.
Kate Bradley’s third novel The Sisterhood was published by Simon & Schuster this spring. An alumna of the Creative Writing Programme, here she talks about how the course set her on course to publication.
Course alumnus Amy Lavelle’s second novel comes out this month. Here she talks about how the Creative Writing Programme set her on course to be a published author.
Jane Crittenden’s debut novel Worlds Apart comes out this month, published by Amazon. Here she talks about how taking the Creative Writing Programme helped to kickstart her dream of writing a novel.
Writing Advice
Ruth Figgest is a novelist and short story writer and teaches on the Creative Writing Programme at the Towner Eastbourne which starts in October. Here she offers her top tips for writing.
Beth Miller is the author of six novels, including the bestselling The Missing Letters of Mrs Bright. She teaches on the Creative Writing Programme based in Worthing on Friday mornings. Here she offers her top writing tips.
Good creative writing is about writing itself—not following rigid templates or academic constraints, but embracing the artistic process.
Are you interested in becoming a writer? Our brilliant tutors have put together a list of their go-to books about writing.
You want to be a writer – but should you take a creative writing course or learn ‘on the job’?
The start of the year is always a time for new year’s resolutions, and setting (or resetting) a regular writing habit is likely to be near the top of the list for many of us writers and poets.
Here poet and CWP tutor John McCullough offers his top writing tips to keep you maintaining your writing practice through the festive season. They’re relevant to both poets and prose writers.
Here novelist, short story writer, playwright and CWP tutor Hannah Vincent offers her top five writing tips.
If you’re an aspiring writer, should you do a degree, or an MA or MFA in creative writing? There are now hundreds of creative writing courses, undergraduate degrees, MFA’s and MA’s being offered by American and English universities. Are they worth the money? Is it worth getting qualified as a writer?
Tutor News
Beth is the author of six novels, including the bestselling The Missing Letters of Mrs Bright. Her most recent novel, The Woman Who Came Back to Life (2022), is published in seven languages and her seventh novel will be published in summer 2025. She teaches on the Creative Writing Programme in Worthing on Friday mornings. Here she talks about her writing life.
Ruth Figgest is a novelist and short story writer and teaches on the Creative Writing Programme at the Towner Eastbourne which starts in October. Here she offers her top tips for writing.
Beth Miller is the author of six novels, including the bestselling The Missing Letters of Mrs Bright. She teaches on the Creative Writing Programme based in Worthing on Friday mornings. Here she offers her top writing tips.
Jacq is an award-winning short story writer, performed playwright and freelanced for many years as an arts writer for magazines and newspapers. Working with Rosie Chard, she is now leading a new course – the 10-week Introduction to Creative Writing – starting in May.
Rosie Chard is a novelist, freelance editor, writing coach/mentor, landscape architect and English language teacher. She has published three novels and has been a tutor on the Creative Writing Programme for many years.
Roy Mcfarlane FRSL is a poet, playwright and former youth and community worker born in Birmingham of Jamaican parentage spending most of his years living in Wolverhampton and the Black Country, now residing in Brighton. He has published numerous poetry collections and teaches the Advanced Poetry course on Wednesday afternoons.
Bethan Roberts is the author of five novels including My Policeman and the story of a 1950s policeman. She has been a tutor on the Creative Writing Programme for four years. Here she talks about her writing life.
Katy Massey writes fiction, scripts and memoir and teaches on the two-year Life Writing Programme.
Sharlene Teo is running a two-day course in June on Writing Otherness – how to write different perspectives from our own. Here she talks about her debut novel, her work as a creative writing lecturer and the importance of confronting our biases, privileges and stereotyped perceptions when writing fiction.
Longstanding CWP tutor Hannah Vincent has had a short story broadcast on Radio 4. The story, entitled Stew Woman, is part of the broadcaster’s Short Works series.
NEWS
If you’re a writer and you’ve got a book and you want to get it published, then you need to come to Publishing Day on Saturday 31st May to find out how.
The Creative Writing Programme is coming to Eastbourne in the autumn.
CWP director Cathy Hayward will be chatting to Xiaolu Gho at the Brighton Festival next Friday 9th May about her latest book Call Me Ishmaelle.
The Creative Writing Programme is coming to Worthing in the autumn. If you’ve always dreamed of writing a novel, or collection of short stories, and live in or near Worthing then why not sign up for a taster session to see if it’s for you?
The Creative Writing Programme is coming to Tunbridge Wells in the autumn. If you’ve always dreamed of writing a novel, or collection of short stories, and live in or near Tunbridge Wells, then why not sign up for a taster session on Saturday 5th July or Saturday 6th September to see if it’s for you
A group of writers hear from best-selling author Laura Wilkinson about creating memorable characters
A huge congratulations to our six students and alumni who shared their work at our spring reading last night at Kemptown Bookshop, Brighton.
Congratulations to our seven students and alumni who read their work in progress at our autumn reading last night.
During the Easter 2025 holidays, we’re hosting five one-day creative writing masterclasses to support your writing practice.
Join us on Thursday 28th November at 7pm at Kemptown Bookshop, Brighton to hear work from our students and alumni and to socialise with other writers on the courses.