Whether you’re taking a course with us this term or were a student in the past, we want to inspire your writing with the latest news from our short course alumni and tutors.

The Novel Studio 

Alan Gray (also alumnus of WW and SS) has been awarded the Sonny and Gita UK Scholarship to complete his MA in creative writing at UEA.

Kathrine Bancroft has had one of her poems longlisted for the 2024 Aurora Prize. She is also a London Independent Story Prize Poetry Finalist.

Katy Darby’s Writers’ Workshop and Short Story Writing alumna Isabel Blake has been accepted on the Creative Writing MA at UEA, while Erica Buist has just completed her Cambridge MSt in Creative Writing, has been longlisted for the BBC’s annual callout for scripts and is now teaching Creative Writing at City Lit.

Peter Forbes’ Narrative Non Fiction alumna Melissa Cornet has had her firstEnglish piece published in July in the London Review of Books, about her work in Afghanistan on Gender apartheid. She is also confirmed to publish a piece in the Guardian this month.

Tutor News

Anna Wilson has two books out this autumn: Be Back Soon is a picture book about swallow migration, illustrated by Jenny Bloomfield and published by Andersen Press and A Story of the Seasons, a large-format non-fiction picture book about seven habitats throughout the seasons, illustrated by Carolina Rabei and published by Nosy Crow and the National Trust. Both books have been translated into other European languages including French, German and Danish.

One-day Courses

There are plenty of options for anyone keen on one-day writing courses: our ever-popular Introduction to Copywriting with Maggie Richards is available monthly; while our Writing the Memoir course is now taught by the brilliant Anna Wilson (see above). And the dynamic duo of Anna Tsekouras and Pete Austin, aka Anon Agency, run our Intro to Branding course. This term we are also introducing a brand new course, Content Writing, taught by the fabulous Tamsin Mackay.

Opportunities

City Writes

City Writes is City, University of London’s termly writing event, showcasing the best of City Short Courses writing talent.

Hosted by longstanding short courses tutor, Rebekah Lattin-Rawstrone, and into its seventh year, City Writes provides an opportunity for the best new writers from the City Short Courses community to read an extract of their work, sharing the stage with one of our published alumni or tutors reading from their new or award-winning publication.

This term’s guest alumna will be debut cosy crime author and Novel Studio alumna, Jo Cunningham. Jo’s novel, Death by Numbers, was published by Constable in August this year. This delicious crime has had rave reviews and who could resist a novel about an actuary investigating a spate of deaths in Eastbourne? Hilarious and gripping, this is the perfect novel to see you through the cold winter nights. Buy your copy ahead of the event here.

To join Jo on the virtual stage, all you need to do is submit your best 1,000 words of creative fiction or non-fiction (we do accept young adult fiction but don’t currently accept children’s fiction) on any subject to rebekah.lattin-rawstrone.2@city.ac.uk with details of the City short course you are taking or have taken by midnight on Friday 15th November. Competition and submission guidelines can be found here. 

We can’t wait to read your submissions and if you are keen to secure your place for the night, you can register for the event here. Good luck!

Key Dates:

Our Writing for Social Impact course continues to offer a scholarship for one young student (18-25) from an underrepresented background and/or facing financial difficulty. Please contact the tutor, Ciaran Thapar, for more information on this opportunity.

All current students of Introduction to Copywriting, Writing for Business and Narrative Non-Fiction courses are eligible to submit an idea for a blog post for short courses. If the idea is accepted, and the written piece meets our standards, it will be professionally edited and published on our blog.

The annual Book Edit Writers’ Prize is open for submissions until 15 October 2024. Judged this year by Novel Studio alumna Lara Haworth and run in association with Legend Press, this is a fantastic (and free) opportunity for any unpublished novelist from a community currently underrepresented in UK publishing. What’s up for grabs? Chance to share your work with top agents. A mentoring session with a Legend Press Commissioning Editor. A supportive community of talented writers and tailored advice from industry experts. For more details please click HERE.

Open Evening

And finally, we are running an open evening with taster sessions on 11th December. Details will be available soon but watch this space or check the website for links to registration.

That’s all for now. Keep on writing and keep your stories coming into us. And huge congratulations to all our alumni and tutors.