Are you drawn to the unusual? Do you find yourself constructing narratives that exist outside of traditional literary structures? Do you want to experiment with form and structure within your writing?
Join acclaimed novelist and short story writer Kirsty Logan for an online weekend course that focuses on writing stories with unusual structures.
What do we mean by unusual structures? To give you an idea, Kirsty’s own writing has included a story in the form of an auction catalogue, a questionnaire (only the questions, not the answers), a list of items bought in a shop, entirely in footnotes, a series of monologues, told in reverse chronological order, and containing no words.
Over the weekend you will discover new writers, discuss their work, and embed their approaches to unusual structures into your own work through regular writing exercises.
Kirsty will also offer more general guidance on story, including how to ensure your narrative and your characters don’t get lost in a structure, but find one that expands them. By the end of the course you will have a better understanding of ways to experiment with how you are telling your story and find the best structural fit for it, however unexpected it might be.
Please note, this event page is only for Day One of the course. You can find out about the full weekend here.
Day One Benefits:
- 3 hours of expert tutoring and advice from Kirsty
- Practical sessions with hands-on exercises to support your writing development
- Course materials available to view ahead of each session, plus catch-up audio recordings
- Access to your course writing community beyond the weekend itself via our Slack channel
Schedule
Day One: A Bit Unusual
Saturday 10th December, 10am - 1:30pm
- Story as prose poems (eg. Citizen by Claudia Rankine)
- Story as non-fiction prose poems (Sum by David Eagleman)
- Story as a series of tiny stories (Trysting by Emmanuelle Pagano)
- Story as a series of voices (Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders)
Each of the four sections will include a short reading, discussion and a writing exercise for you to partake in.
Kirsty Logan is the award-winning author of six books, most recently Things We Say in the Dark, a collection of feminist horror stories recently optioned for TV. She also wrote and presented a 10-part series for BBC Radio 4, A History of Ghosts. Her latest publication is the Audible Original The Sound at the End, an Arctic ghost story. Her next book Now She Is Witch, a medieval witch revenge quest, will be published by Harvill Secker in January 2023.
The ticket to attend Day One is £60 (incl. VAT) per student and is payable in full online. You can attend both days at a discounted rate of £95. Book tickets to the full weekend here.
Please note that payment instalment plans are available for all W&A events, writing courses and editing services. Contact W&A Admin on writersandartists@bloomsbury.com so that we can find a payment schedule that works for you.
If this event is Sold Out, please look out for other writing courses by visiting our Events homepage.
Accessible to All
It’s of real importance to Writers & Artists that our events and courses remain accessible to all.
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As part of our accessibility scheme, one bursary place is available for the full weekender. Please visit our bursaries page for further information about how to apply for future bursaries.
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This is an online course presented via video-conferencing software. Joining instructions and full guidance will be provided before the course start-date.
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Course materials are made available to participants after each session at the discretion of the course leader.
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A recording of each session will be circulated to participants and remain available to view for a time-limited period.
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The course will include written text and visuals. Please contact us in advance so that we can make arrangements to be sure all documents appear in a format that works for you.
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If you’d like to attend but have any questions or concerns regarding accessibility, then please email AccessWA@bloomsbury.com
