Explore History, Culture & Writing

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.

This course introduces you to a range of prose and poetry from the nineteenth century to the present. Learn about how poems work, both ‘on the page’ and as spoken words. Reading novels and short stories, we’ll explore characterisation, the social and historical contexts of the works and writers’ techniques. Come and discover what’s distinctive about different forms of literature.

This intensive creative non-fiction masterclass is open by selective application to a maximum of ten students. You will receive inspiring tutor instruction and rigorous constructive feedback on your work as you prepare for publication.

Come and join us at the Cultureplex Ciné-Club, where once a week, for 12 weeks, 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.

Do you have a personal story to tell that will move, delight, stir and inform readers? This short course guides students in planning and crafting a memoir.



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

Give creative writing a try in this fun and supportive one-off taster session. Ideal if you want to unlock your imagination and express yourself, but need a bit of encouragement to get started.



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

What makes a great story? Discover what goes into a magazine or newspaper article and be inspired to write your own.



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

Get inspired to write on this practical course for freelance journalists and bloggers. Learn to carry out research, interview people, pitch and publish stories, and build your presence on social media.



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