City Writes

City Writes is City St George’s termly writing event, showcasing the best of City St George’s 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

Enter our City Writes Competition

For an exciting opportunity to read alongside our published guest speaker at the City Writes event, short course writing students and alumni are invited to take part in the City Writes termly writing competition.

To be considered, applicants must submit 1,000 word of fiction writing (we also accept creative non-fiction, such as memoir or travel writing, and though we do accept young adult, we don’t currently accept children’s fiction) on any subject. Competition and submission guidelines can be found here.

Our guest this term is debut author, Lauren du Plessis, whose novel Tender, came out with Influx Press this September 2025. A Writers’ Workshop alumna, Lauren’s novel is an absorbing folk-horror that will thrill and unnerve. Blending folkloric horror with explorations of womanhood against a backdrop of eco-anxiety, Tender burrows into the quiet violence of overcoming and accepting our darkest sides. We can’t wait to hear an excerpt.

Guest alumna Lauren Du Plessis

Lauren du Plessis is a British writer of speculative, folkloric, and weird fiction. Her short stories have appeared in Litro and Mslexia among others. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Literature at Oxford Brookes University, and has worked across marketing and narrative writing, mostly for games. She lives in the bluebell-saturated chalk hills of the Chilterns with her family.

For your chance to join Lauren du Plessis on stage on Wednesday 10th December 2025 over Zoom, 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 14th November. Competition and submission guidelines can be found below.

We can’t wait to read your submissions. Good luck!

Key Dates:

• deadline for competition entry is midnight Friday 14th November.
• competition winners will be announced in Week 9
• event is 10th December 2025 at 7pm on Zoom. Register here.

Deepa Anappara

• Deepa Anappara, City Writes guest and author of acclaimed novel, Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line
• Emma Claire Sweeney, author of Owl Song at Dawn and Visiting Lecturer at City Short Courses
• Luiza Sauma, author of Everything You Ever Wanted and City Short Courses alumna 
  
• Greg Keen, author of Soho Dead, and City’s Novel Studio alumnus
• Imogen Hermes Gowar , author of The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock and City Short Courses alumna
• C. G. Menon, author of Skin Deep and short courses alumna
• Cherry Potts, author of The Dowry Blade, publisher and Visiting Lecturer at City Short Courses
• Harriet Tyce, author of Blood Orange and City’s Novel Studio alumna
• Anna Mazzola, author of The Unseeing and The Story Keeper and City’s Novel Studio alumna
• Rosamund Davies, editor of Story Cities and City’s Novel Studio alumna, with other alumni published in the flash collection: Evleen Mann, Maire Malone, Jayne Buxton and the publisher and Visiting Lecturer, Cherry Potts.
• Shahrukh Husain, author, screenwriter, editor of e.g. Virago’s The Book of Witches, and Novel Studio alumna
• Deepa Anappara, author of Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line and City Novel Studio alumna
• Kiare Ladner, author of Nightshift and City Novel Studio alumna
• Alex Morall, author of Helen and the Grandbees and City short courses alumna
• Ciaran Thapar, author of Cut Short and City Short Courses alumnus
• Michael Mann, author of Ghostcloud and City Short Courses alumnus
• Simon Culleton, author of Shadows of Fathers, and Attiya Khan, author of Ten Steps to You, both Short Courses alumni
• Elizabeth Chakrabarty, author of Lessons in Love and Other Crimes, Novel Studio alumna
• Hannah Begbie, author of Mother and Blurred Lines, both Harper Collins
• Emma Grae, author of Be Guid Tae Yer Mammy and The Tongue She Speaks
• Caroline Green, author of Down Among the Dead and The Whisper House
• Laurence Kershook, author of The Broygus, and Katharine Light, author of Like Me
• Lara Haworth, author of Monumenta, Canongate
• Jo Cunningham, author of Death by Numbers, Constable.
• Han Smith, author of Portraits at the Palace of Creativity and Wrecking, John Murray

• Your story doesn’t need to follow a theme, it just needs to be the best 1000 words you can send us.
• Your email should state your name, the title of your story/extract and the name of the City Creative Writing Short Course you took or are taking.
• Your story should be attached as a word (doc. Or docx.) rich text or pdf document and should not include your name to allow us to judge the stories anonymously. Please name your file with the story title and not your name or the competition name.