Getting through the final stretch on your manuscript can be tough on your own, whether you’ve had support during a previous course or not. This is a common difficulty for creative writers coming out of MA courses, but it affects all lone writers. These sessions will help you keep up your writing momentum, with the aim of finishing your book and being ready to find it a home.
For the last six years, we have hosted these monthly workshops, bringing together writers who are all at the stage where constructive feedback is just what’s needed. We used to call these the Post-MA Sessions, but over that time we have met so many writers at exactly the same stage as those graduating from creative writing programmes, ready to both give and receive feedback, that we changed the name to Writers’ Workshops. You are very welcome on this course whether or not you have any formal creative writing qualification.
This year, London Lit Lab’s Writers’ Workshops are available online via Zoom. If you want regular feedback, support, and a group of writers with whom to discuss good writing every month, these sessions are for you. You will learn as much from critiquing the work of others as you will from receiving supportive feedback on your own work in progress. Whether you are writing short stories, memoir or a novel, including genre or YA fiction, you are welcome to join one of these groups.
These details are for the Writers’ Workshops with Zoe Gilbert, on Monday evenings. You can find details of the parallel group with Lily Dunn on Thursday evenings here.
Course outline
- Eight monthly workshop sessions to discuss work-in-progress
- Three opportunities to receive feedback on your work (up to 5,000 words per submission)
- Optional one-to-one support or critical feedback, at an extra cost
- An online writing community, lasting beyond the end of the course
The workshop group of up to ten writers meets for monthly sessions on Zoom over eight months. Members take turns to share work-in-progress ahead of each session, which is then critiqued as a group, with constructive feedback and discussion on any problems or issues raised. Zoom sessions can be recorded if all members agree. Each member will submit their work for workshopping at least three times over the course, up to 5,000 words per submission. Providing feedback to others on their work is a great way of honing your critical and editing skills, which you can apply to your own writing.
Group members will also have the option of receiving one-to-one support or critical feedback, at an extra cost.
Course dates
The Monday evening sessions will take place via Zoom, 7-9pm on the 3rd Monday of the month, November 2023 – June 2024:
November 20th
December 18th
January 15th
February 19th
March 18th
April 15th
May 20th
June 17th
Learning Online
Monthly meetings take place on Zoom, 7-9pm GMT, so you will need to have access to the internet at those times. Work in progress will be circulated by email.
