Advanced fiction writing workshop

Sarah Leipciger’s most recent novel, Moon Road, was published with Doubleday UK and Penguin Canada in 2024 and has been optioned for film. Her debut novel, The Mountain Can Wait, was published in 2015, and her second novel, Coming Up for Air, followed in 2020; it was longlisted for the Historical Writers Association Crown Award and has been adapted for stage with the Leipzig Opera House, to be premiered in spring 2026. She has had short stories shortlisted for the Bridport Prize, the Fish Prize and the Asham Award, and is a past winner of THIS Magazine’s Great Canadian Literary Hunt. She has also written non-fiction for The Guardian and The Toronto Star. Sarah has facilitated writing workshops across the country, including at literature festivals and men's prisons in London. She is an Associate Lecturer with the Creative Writing Department at Birbeck University, and Guest Tutor at Goldsmiths University.

Livia Franchini is a writer & translator from Tuscany, Italy. She is the author of a novel, SHELF LIFE (Doubleday, 2019) and a poetry pamphlet, OUR AVAILABLE MAGIC (Makina Books, 2019). Her latest English-language translation is THE SKY IS FALLING by Lorenza Mazzetti (Another Gaze Publications, 2023) and a second novel is slated for publication by Doubleday in 2024. Livia is Lecturer in Creative Writing at Goldsmiths where she also coordinates The Goldsmiths Prize for innovative fiction. With Lucy Mercer, she co-edits TOO LITTLE/TOO HARD, a magazine on the intersections of work, time and value. She lives in London.

Writer and visual artist Claire Collison was awarded the Women Poets’ Prize, 2018. Her first novel was a finalist in the Dundee Book Prize, 2005. Her poetry appears in magazines and anthologies, and has been placed in Winchester, Resurgence, and Hippocrates prizes. She has worked as subeditor for MAKE, the magazine of Women’s Art, and Arts Editor for Disability Arts Magazine. Claire was the first MaxLiteracy writer at Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, and designs engagement resources, including for the Government Art Collection, National Maritime Museum, and Photographers’ Gallery. She has led creative projects within hospitals and schools, and with refugees and asylum seekers, vulnerable adults, elders, and young children. Her recent cross-disciplinary project, Truth Is Beauty was performed in venues across the UK. She is a founder member of Poets for the Planet.

Toby Lloyd is the author of the novel Fervour. His stories and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in Somesuch Stories, Carve Magazine, the Los Angeles Review of Books and elsewhere. He has been longlisted for the V.S. Pritchett Short Story Prize and nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from NYU, and his work has been translated into several languages.

Wendy Brandmark publishes fiction widely in British and North American journals, and has won the Bridport Prize. Her short story collection, He Runs the Moon, was longlisted for the Edgehill Short Story Prize. Her novels include The Stray American, which was shortlisted for the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize, and The Angry Gods, which explored racism in 1950s America. She has reviewed fiction for the TLS, The Literary Review and The Independent. She has taught creative writing for over twenty years and is a tutor on the Oxford University MSt in Creative Writing.

Courttia Newland is the author of nine books including his debut, The Scholar. A story collection, Cosmogramma, was published in 2021. His short stories have appeared in many anthologies and broadcast on BBC Radio 4. As a screenwriter he has co-written two episodes of the Steve McQueen BBC series Small Axe, and an episode of The Woman in the Wall for BBC/Showtime. His latest novel, A River Called Time, was shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Science Fiction Book of the Year 2022. Trim Palace was shortlisted for the 2025 Bruntwood Prize for playwriting. He is currently working on a collection of essays, The Art of Opposition, published by Faber in 2026.