Explore History, Culture & Writing

Ever wondered what studying a Literature course at City Lit is like? Tempted to try, but not ready to commit to a whole course? Try this taster session on contemporary fiction to boost your confidence and whet your appetite for further study!







Includes information on the Literature programme offering for term three, which runs from April to July 2023.

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.

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.

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.

Some moments in our lives are so powerful they beg to be shared with the world. This six week course will help you plan and craft a memoir that will resonate and inspire.

A study of the unique visual flavour of Byzantine art and architecture, the development of a range of craft industries, and the impact of Byzantium on other cultures.



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

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.

Knock on the door of artists’ houses and studios from 1900-1960 to experience exciting and visually dazzling spaces created over the course of their careers. At a time when artists were beginning to forge their own brave new visual worlds, this course considers what the homes might tell us about the artists and how they wanted their homes to be seen.