Creative non-fiction
Choose a start date
- Course Code: HW366
- Dates: 15/01/25 - 26/03/25
- Time: 14:45 - 16:45
- Taught: Wed, Daytime
- Duration: 11 sessions (over 11 weeks)
- Location: Keeley Street
- Tutor: Yvonne Singh
Course Code: HW366
Choose a start date
Duration: 11 sessions (over 11 weeks)
Please note: We offer a wide variety of financial support to make courses affordable. Just visit our online Help Centre for more information on a range of topics including fees, online learning and FAQs.
What is the course about?
The course offers a variety of practical and imaginative approaches to creative non fiction, including travel writing, life writing and the essay. Craft issues will be examined in detail, with published writers analysed to determine how and why their work succeeds. The different genres of creative non fiction will be explored through in-class exercises and weekly assignments.
Students say: "I enjoyed the range and diversity of work that we looked at"; "The feedback on my writing was really useful"; "I liked the in-class writing exercises, being workshopped, and the assigned reading"; "I felt very inspired by what we read and talked about in class.".
What will we cover?
- Exploring ways to approach non-fiction in creative and innovative ways.
- Thinking critically about creative non-fiction through analysis of successful writers.
- Exploring some of the leading genres of creative non-fiction such as travel-writing, life-writing, the essay, historical writing, and writing which crosses all the barriers of genre.
What will I achieve?
By the end of this course you should be able to...
- Think critically and with understanding about creative non-fiction.
- Feel confident about making your own experiments in creative non-fiction writing.
What level is the course and do I need any particular skills?
No formal requirements except a good standard of literacy and a love of reading.
How will I be taught, and will there be any work outside the class?
- Analysis of short pieces in class through group discussion.
- Regular individual short writing exercises discussed and evaluated in class.
- Formal instruction from the teacher combined with group discussion.
All writing courses at City Lit will involve an element of workshop. This means that students will produce work which will be discussed in an open and constructive environment with the tutor and other students. The college operates a policy of constructive criticism, and all feedback on another student’s work by the tutor and other students should be delivered in that spirit.
For classes longer than one day regular reading and writing exercises will be set for completion at home to set deadlines.
City Lit Writing endeavours to create a safe and welcoming space for all and we strongly support the use of content notes in our classes. This means that learners are encouraged to make their tutor and classmates aware in advance if any writing they wish to share contains material that may be deemed sensitive. If you are unsure about what might constitute sensitive content, please ask your tutor for further clarification and read our expectations for participating in writing courses at City Lit.
Are there any other costs? Is there anything I need to bring?
Writing materials.
When I've finished, what course can I do next?
City Lit offers a range of non-fiction creative writing courses, including Autobiographical writing and Biography writing.
All students are invited to join us at Late Lines, our regular performance night for City Lit writers. Students are also encouraged to submit their work to Between the Lines, our annual anthology of creative writing. For the latest news, courses and events, stay in touch with the Department on Facebook and Twitter.
Yvonne Singh was a staff journalist at The Guardian for over a decade, and her work has been published in that paper as well as The Observer, The Mirror, The London Evening Standard, the BBC World website, Marie Claire, Middle East Eye, Commonwealth Writers and The Big Issue among others. She contributed to the Know Your Place anthology that was featured in Guardian Weekend and in the Seaside Photographed exhibition that toured British art galleries in 2021. Her long read essay for The Guardian on her Caribbean origins was one of the paper’s most read in 2019 and her piece on a Trinidadian Hummingbird Sanctuary in November 2020 was praised in a Virago OurShelves podcast. Yvonne has also worked as an editor in a voluntary capacity for the Caribbean literary magazine Pree. Yvonne holds an MA in creative writing from Bath Spa University – her debut manuscript received a distinction and was awarded second prize in the SI Leeds Literary Prize 2018. She was a judge for the SI Leeds 2020 prize. Her short stories have been shortlisted for the Seán Ó Faoláin prize, longlisted for the Brick Lane Bookshop Prize and Black Spring Press, and have appeared in the acclaimed journal Southword.
Please note: We reserve the right to change our tutors from those advertised. This happens rarely, but if it does, we are unable to refund fees due to this. Our tutors may have different teaching styles; however we guarantee a consistent quality of teaching in all our courses.
