UPCOMING CREATIVE WRITING COURSES – 2025

(Creative fiction writing courses will be announced as they become scheduled – keep checking back)

Writing Memoir/Life Stories course 

Tuesday 29th April – 3rd June 2025 (six weekly evenings 7.30pm-9.30pm)

For more information read below. To enrol, register interest, or ask a question, email: sc************@ho*****.com 

Writing Memoir/Life Stories – Course Information 

Do you want to write a memoir and don’t know where or how to start? Or perhaps you’re already writing and need ideas on how to continue or shape your work? Or do you simply wish to explore your life through writing a story with no definite outcome? Whether you are beginning, or already writing, then this course is for you.

There are so many rich possibilities for compelling narratives based on our true stories – including lives and experiences that might seem very ordinary until they’re held up to the light.

Over the six evenings of the course, prize-winning writer and memoirist, Karen McLeod, will take you on an
in-depth exploration of your memories. She will aid your gathering of material and introduce you to the techniques and craft you’ll need to sharpen your prose style and bring your stories to life. This will enable you to start shaping your lived experience into a readable and lively story.

As a gay working-class writer, Karen welcomes everyone from all backgrounds to apply, especially those in need of encouragement who don’t feel ‘seen’ in the contemporary literary or UK landscape.

The price of the course is £199 and the maximum class size is thirteen writers.

WEEK 1
What is memoir? – Digging into the past – maps and photos

WEEK 2
Memory & truth – My story not The Story

WEEK 3
Planning & structure – strong beginnings in memoirs. Reading other texts for inspiration.

WEEK 4
Tools for storytelling – how do stories work and finding your authentic voice

WEEK 5
Building your writing
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WEEK 6
Reading party – and looking to the future

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Participant feedback

“The main thing I wanted to say was ‘thank you’. When I took your course, I had a real case of lost mojo. I found you properly inspiring and your approach to life writing really helped me reconnect with myself. The book I’m working on had its genesis in your class so you had a very real impact.”

“I got exactly what I wanted and needed on your course! I was looking for ways to access writing that felt all locked up inside of me and I didn’t want to ‘learn to write like everyone else’… Thank you for an absolutely fantastic course.”

“I loved the course – it knocked me off my normal pattern of thinking and got me to try new things! Also I got some really useful feedback.”

Your tutor Karen McLeod
Karen McLeod is a prize-winning author In Search Of The Missing Eyelash and performer of comic poet Barbara Brownskirt. She holds an MA in Creative Life Writing from Goldsmiths University and is Bookseller Crow’s writer-in-residence and literary events co-ordinator. Her memoir on flying as cabin crew, Lifting Off, was published in 2024. For twelve years Karen worked for British Airways as cabin crew and it was this experience which sent her into freefall, and years later became the subject and ‘container’ for Lifting Off.

For the last twelve years she has run Creative Writing courses within the bookshop. These workshops have proved hugely popular and are often fully booked. The formats works both creatively and for the community, linking together creatives from Crystal Palace, South-East London and beyond.

Those attending have gone on to write successful TV dramas, radio plays, poetry, novels and performance. In 2019 Kate Davies had her debut novel published, In At The Deep End by Borough Press and in 2020 it won the Polari prize. Fiona Keating’s novel Smoke and Silk will be published by Headline Books in 2025. Many writers attending the classes form strong friendships and continue to meet up in their own writing groups. Karen also runs workshops for other organisations and recently has worked with The Shakespeare Archive Trust, Positive East, National Centre for Writing, Norwich, Arvon Foundation and tours with the LGBTQI+ literary salon POLARI.

See Karen’s website www.karenmcleod.co.uk