Explore History, Culture & Writing

Have you started work on your novel? This course is suitable for experienced creative writers who want to make progress with a novel draft. Learn more about the art of novel writing and move your project forward in a supportive workshop environment.



This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.

Explore the fundamental techniques of writing for the stage in this introductory course. Get to grips with dialogue, character, story and structure, and start work on your own play.

Relatively new to writing poetry? This inspiring course offers an opportunity to experiment with language and a variety of poetic devices alongside fellow emerging poets. Discover the key elements of a poem in a friendly and interactive class.

Explore practical and imaginative approaches to creative non fiction, including travel writing, life writing and the essay. Analyse published work, produce your own pieces, and benefit from detailed feedback.



This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.

Learn to write for the screen on this practical, introductory course. Writing exercises, presentations and screenings will teach you key skills, and you’ll begin to produce work and an outline for a full-length project.

Want to have a go at creative writing in a supportive environment? Join one of these introductory courses. Guided exercises will give you the tools to explore language creatively and find your own writing voice.

For those familiar with the basics of poetic form, this intermediate course explores craft and content through reading exercises, writing exercises and constructive feedback. Ideal if you have already attended 'Ways into poetry'.

For experienced writers, this supportive but rigorous workshop offers the perfect opportunity to develop your novel or short story. Receive in-depth feedback and benefit from detailed group discussions on the art of fiction.



This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.

Do you want to write a drama script for television? What do you write and where do you start? Through exercises and examples this course will assist you in developing your own projects.



This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.

Fit creative writing into your busy day: a relaxed, informal rolling programme for writers of all levels of experience who enjoy being thrown new ideas and experimenting with poetry and prose.



This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.

On this ongoing workshop you will develop your work-in-progress with constructive feedback from tutor and classmates. You need to have completed a ‘Writing for children’ course before joining this class.



This course will be delivered online. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.

Continue to explore the key elements of dramatic writing, and benefit from supportive and detailed feedback on your own work. New students with some playwriting experience are welcome to join.

Come and join us at the Cultureplex Ciné-Club, where once a week, for 12 weeks (and throughout the rest of the academic year), we will watch and discuss film. Taking its cue from the famous Parisian ciné-club set up by the celebrated critic and writer, André Bazin, ‘the single thinker most responsible for bestowing on cinema the prestige both of an artform and of an object of knowledge’, and the man who foresaw the emergence of film studies as a legitimate discipline of academic study, our contemporary incarnation of the film club will offer a curated series of films for detailed study, discussion and debate. Each film will be introduced, placed in both its cinematic, cultural and historic context. In sharing our viewing in City Lit’s premier screening room, the Cultureplex, we will approximate the experience of watching film in the cinema, one that is intense and fully focussed in a way that other modes of viewing often are not. After the screening we will devote the rest of the class to a collective exploration of the film, led by the tutor, but involving everyone in a participatory discussion that will allow all to express their responses, their views, their thoughts on the film screened.

A chronological introduction to Western art from c.1250 to the present day, taught by looking at artworks in London’s galleries, and related materials.



This course will be delivered online and in person. See the ‘What is the course about?’ section in course details for more information.