I wrote this a few years ago, for the Guardian, shortly after Hanif Kureishi had dismissed Creative Writing courses as ‘a waste of time’. This, in my mind, is why they might not be: Although we give classes on the technical aspects of writing, one of the most basic things we give is more basic. […]
Category Archives: Storytellings
Normally, when people come along to a creative writing class, they are hoping to learn how to write better, not how to save the planet. A couple of years ago, I was teaching a Guardian Masterclass on ‘Storytelling Secrets’. Among those attending were three representatives of an international environmental activist network. They were young, casually stylish, energetic […]
I hope, if you followed them through, you got something out of the last 10 Lessons. I tried to make them as accessible and useful as possible. I’ve collected below some resources for you to use to take your writing, reading and re-reading further. I am the Fiction Editor of MIR Online, Birkbeck College’s online […]
Welcome back. We started, 10 Lessons ago, with what you needed to be able to write. It turned out to be not that much. But what do you need in order to be a writer? This is how I usually put it: You need the intelligence to begin a story and the stupidity to finish […]
Welcome back. It’s Lesson 9, and we’re approaching the end of the Starting to Write Course. So, let’s think a bit about how to end a short story. To be honest, this is – like How to Be Funny in Prose – one of the hardest things to teach. I’d quite like some lessons myself. […]
Audio and video, good lord.
The Question In the final workshop of last term I was asked The Question. It was one of the Birkbeck Creative Writing MA students, Alex Petropoulos, who asked it. Come on, tell us what we really want to know – tell us The Secret. I was really on the spot. Did I know The Secret? […]
My mother had a stroke. Luckily, it was quite minor. She was still able to read, though more slowly. There was a gap in her vision – an absence where sight simply didn’t take place. Because of this, she wasn’t able to drive. My mother’s stroke changed our family. None of her children had started […]
I don’t think you’re going to like this. It’s probably going to hurt. If it doesn’t hurt, there’s a problem. As part of your coursework, you’ll have read Flannery O’Connor’s essay ‘Writing Short Stories’. She begins by saying this: ‘I have heard people say that the short story was one of the most difficult […]
Today, Galley Beggar announced they will be publishing my novel Patience in August 2019. I feel differently about this book to others I’ve written. It seems, to me, the best thing I’ve done. Not just written, done. This is largely because I was visited by Elliott, a once-in-a-lifetime narrator who is nicer, wiser and generally […]
