Sign up a quarter at a time
The year is broken into quarterly teaching modules. Sign up for any quarter or join the quarters together to create a ½ year, ¾ year or even a full year of writing.
The 2021 first quarter begins Monday, 01 February.
What to expect in each quarter
Each quarter will focus thematically around a coherent set of lessons, so you can build your skills as a writer step by step.
Each quarter will consist of lessons week by week, starting with basic foundations and building layers of complexity.
Each quarter will include weekly assignments and feedback; discussion groups and peer review; recommended reading lists; edits and opportunities for re-drafts.
2021 quarterly programme
CHARACTER: First quarter, 01 February – 02 May, 2021
- examining specific attributes, voice, dialogue, motivations, development and more; making your characters (fictional or real) come to life on the page
SETTING AND MOOD: Second quarter, 03 May – 01 August 2021
- exploring the physicality of setting, atmosphere, sensual details and tone in poetic phrasing and storytelling; building tension, suspense and humour
DETAILS AND CONCEPTS: Third quarter, 02 August – 31 October 2021
- starting small and working towards the bigger picture to build the world(s) you create, step by step
EXPLORING FORMS: Fourth quarter, 01 November 2021 – 31 January 2022
- engaging new structures each week, whether in poetry, flash fiction, novel or nonfiction; transcending boundaries in content and form
Getting started
Once you sign up, you will receive a syllabus with further instructional materials, including a full set of weekly writing assignments, recommended reading, scheduled internet conferences and discussions with classmates.
If you have a project already underway, you may choose to bring excerpts of that to the discussions, and apply lessons learned here to your other work. Your memoir may become more poetic; your essays may become more lively; your short stories may be imbued with more suspense and layering. Or you may discover that by the end of the year you have a portfolio of 52 small fictions or poems!
Go to the Sign Up page and get in touch!
