Every year we hold several one-day masterclasses to support our students’ writing practice. These are held in the Easter holidays and in June.

Each student on the two-year programme has two masterclasses included in their course fee every year and can purchase additional masterclasses at a discount. The discount codes are on your course page and you can book through our Eventbrite page. The workshops are also available to writers outside the programme for a fee.

Summer Masterclasses

Friday 12th June at the Jubilee Library, Brighton – Plotting with Julia Crouch. Learn how to shape a story, looking at the thinking behind constructing a plot and taking it forward into practical techniques and processes.

Saturday 13th June at the Jubilee Library, Brighton - Therapeutic Writing for the Self with Kate Gillhespie. A creative and experiential session to bring you back to yourself, what you need to be effective as a writer and how you can take your focus back to the process and not the product.

Saturday 13th June at the Jubilee Library, Brighton – Managing Pace with Beth Miller. This practical workshop will break pace down and explore techniques for using it more effectively in your writing: from sentence to paragraph to scene, and beyond.

Sunday 14th June, at the Jubilee Library, Brighton – Illuminating the Everyday with Lulah Ellender. Using lists, photographs, objects and fragments to explore the stories that lie hidden within the everyday and learn how they can hold narratives and themes that lift your life writing off the page.

Sunday 14th June, online – Conjuring Magic in your Writing with Sally O’Reilly. Explore portals to magic worlds and stories that are set entirely in invented places as well as  how to weave magic into the everyday.

Friday 26th June, online – Writing Otherness with Sharlene Teo. Explore ways of navigating and presenting characters in fiction by confronting our biases, privileges and stereotyped perceptions and writing different perspectives from our own.

Sunday 28th June, online - Dramatic Tension with Tammye Huf. How to hold your readers’ attention and keep them on the edge of their seats.

To book your place, visit our Eventbrite page and, if you’re an existing student, use the discount code on your course page to secure your free places.

Publishing Day: how to get your work published

Our day-long walk through the maze that is the publishing process will take place online on Saturday 6th June from 10-4pm. It will give you a solid overview of traditional publishing as well as self-publishing together with some case studies of students who’ve gone through the process. It’s free to attend if you’re a student on any of our courses and costs £60 for writers outside of the programme. Book your place here.

Manuscript consultations

On Saturday 27 June, students and alumni with a completed first draft of their work can have a one-to-one meeting with a literary agent to get market feedback on their work. These are aimed at students in their second year, those on the Advanced Writers Workshops and alumni of the programme. Please book your place via the link sent in the April newsletter. You will need to prepare:

• A one-page synopsis of your work including whether it is a work of fiction or non-fiction (biography, autobiography, memoir, travel writing etc). If fiction, include the genre.

• A short biography that includes relevant experience (no more than 150 words)

• An extract (preferably from the first chapter/lead story) of between 2,500 – 3,000 words.

Submissions should be sent to cathy@creativewritingprogramme.org.uk by Friday 12th June. The manuscript consultation is not available to writers outside of the Creative Writing Programme.