Lumb Bank

‘It is not down on any map; true places never are’ (Melville). An experiential week including idiosyncratic map-making, literary walks and personal songlines. Each morning will be spent on guided walks exploring local landscapes of woods, moors and rivers, with a focus on mapping from different perspectives. The rest of the day will be for the creation, through your own [read more...]

Memoir, travel, self-help . . . Whatever you’re writing, whatever your genre, there’s usually a point where you feel stuck, uncertain or unfocused. Join us for this week to reboot. Together, we’ll explore what you’re really writing about and how best to shape your material. And if your project is at the early concept stage, the same applies! As you [read more...]

It’s easy enough to start something, but not always so easy to get to the end of that daunting first draft. It seems to be a common problem for writers, from those starting out to those who are more experienced. How do you keep motivated and keep your ideas on track – especially when the demons of doubt and distraction [read more...]

Aimed at both the first-timer and the experienced screenwriter, this workshop-intensive course focuses on the changing nature of the screen industry and how this is impacting on the journey from script to screen, for stories and their creators. Beginning with rigorous story surgery, writers will gain greater understanding of the need for distinctiveness and innovation in the age of digital [read more...]

Do you teach writing in the classroom but never get the time for your own creative writing? This writing week, exclusively for teachers and during the school holidays, will help you discover your inner writer, and transform the way you teach creative writing back in the classroom. You’ll experience an inspirational mixture of workshops and individual tutorials with highly regarded [read more...]

Whether you’ve always dreamt of writing fiction but are yet to get started, or you’re wading through that tricky first draft, this course is for you. We’ll look at where ideas come from and how to recognise a good one when it comes along. We’ll examine the fundamentals of fiction writing – structure, setting, dialogue, character – and how to [read more...]

A course for experienced poets who wish to advance their writing through the careful reading of other poets’ work. Over the week you will be exposed to a wide range of international and British work and we’ll look together at how you can use this work to develop your own poetics, themes and concerns. There will also be opportunities to [read more...]

This course is for spoken word artists and poets interested in mining their memories and family histories in order to make sense of the present. Participants will be encouraged to explore those intangible parts of our lives that live on in us through the use of objects, photographs and other triggers, to then celebrate and explore the tangential, messy routes [read more...]

An inspiring week to focus on a work-in-progress and how to bring it to completion, with practical guidance and workshops to help navigate the challenging and exciting process of developing your narrative. We will explore the bare bones of writing fiction – sourcing ideas, plot, character, setting, dialogue and point of view. This structured, focused course will send you away [read more...]

This course will help turn your will-to-write into compelling fiction. We’ll explore all aspects of story writing – from sources of inspiration, starting well, plotting and characterisation, to the discipline of selfediting – through practical workshops packed with examples and exercises. And we’ll help apply the theory to your own writing through one-to-one tutorials. Whether you have a full draft [read more...]