Online Writing Course

Between the Lines Masterclass: Paying Attention with Julia Bell

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Please read our booking terms and conditions

Online // 

23rd May 2026
11am-1pm BST

Many of us have forgotten how to properly look, and to properly see, and slowing down and paying attention is essential for good writing. One of our best creative writing teachers, Julia Bell, will help you see better, and translate it into writing.

What does it mean to really look at the world and at the people around us? This is the first of three masterclasses with author and creative writing professor Julia Bell, who will explore attention as the foundational creative skill: how to slow down, observe more precisely, and move from the habitual to the surprising.

Drawing on Simone Weil’s philosophy of attention and exercises in close reading and observational writing, Julia will guide you towards the quality of noticing that underpins all good writing.

There will be shared texts in this masterclass and writing exercises in response to the texts. The texts are –

Simone Weil – ‘Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies’
Virginia Woolf – ‘Street Haunting’
Annie Dillard – ‘Seeing’
 
They will be shared in the confirmation email when you book your ticket. 
 
To take part in this live Zoom masterclass, you will need access to the internet at the time and date shown, and be able to receive a joining link by email. This will be sent in your confirmation email alongside the reading materials. Please check your spam if you don’t receive this.
 

Tickets

This workshop will be recorded for the purpose of sending to ticket holders who can’t make the event, or who miss a portion of the event, or who need the recording as part of their access needs.

You can purchase an individual £30 ticket for this event, or a combination ticket £75 which includes Julia’s other sessions in this series:

 
If you do not receive an invitation link, or if you have any other questions, please contact us at info@londonlitlab.co.uk

Please read our booking terms and conditions

Course dates

23rd May 2026
11am-1pm BST

Course location

This is an online course

Cost

£30

Further Info

The workshop will run with a minimum of 15 participants and a maximum of 100.  Any questions at all, please drop us a line at info@londonlitlab.co.uk and we’ll be happy to help!

Please read our booking terms and conditions

Online Writing Course

About the tutor

Julia Bell is Professor of New Writing at Birkbeck, University of London, and one of the UK’s leading creative writing teachers. A novelist, essayist, and poet, she has guided hundreds of writers from first draft to publication over more than twenty-five years. Her new book, Between the Lines (Simon & Schuster, 2026) is a live-action exploration of the psychological, political, and philosophical lessons of the workshop. Her previous book Radical Attention, drew on the philosophy of Simone Weil to make the case for attention as a creative practice in a distracted world. Her memoir in verse, Hymnal, was published by Parthian in 2024. Her work has appeared in The Paris Review, The New Statesman, and The White Review, and has been broadcast on the BBC.Find her on Substack at professorbell.substack.com.
Between the Lines Masterclass: Paying Attention with Julia Bell