Ways into creative writing

Rosie Chard is a novelist, writing tutor, freelance editor, writing mentor and English language teacher. After qualifying as a landscape architect, she lived and worked in Denmark and Canada for several years, designing gardens, parks, and urban spaces. Inspired by the enormous skies and harsh winters of the Prairies she wrote her first novel Seal Intestine Raincoat, published in 2009 by NeWest Press. It won the 2010 Alberta Trade Fiction Book Award and received an honourable mention for the Sunburst Fiction Award the same year. She was also shortlisted for the 2010 John Hirsch award for the Most Promising Manitoba writer. Her second novel The Insistent Garden, also published by NeWest Press, was the recipient of the Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction in Canada in 2014. The Eavesdroppers, her third novel was published by NeWest Press in September 2018. She is currently writing her fifth novel. Www.rosiechard.org.

Paula Lichtarowicz is the author is three novels. Her most recent, The Snow Hare, was published by John Murray Press in 2023. She has a Masters in Psychology, a Post Graduate Certificate in Teaching Creative Writing, and a professional background in TV documentary production.

Paul Laffan is the author of The Fabricated Christ: Confronting What We Know about Jesus and the Gospels (Fortress, 2019) and Is He Out There? Debating the God Delusion (Sussex Academic, 2023). He has written several novels and ghosted several works of autobiography. He holds a BA in English Literature from Oxford and an MA in Creative Writing and a PhD in English from Florida State University in America. He taught writing and literature for six years at Florida State, and has also taught at Birkbeck, Morley College, the Mary Ward Centre and Lambeth College.

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.

Nicole Acquah is a playwright, dramaturg and a performer/devisor. . She has taught Playwriting at Royal Holloway University, and is a resident playwright and visiting lecturer at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. Nicole's semi-autobiographical show For a Black Girl had successful runs at VAULT Festival and Camden People’s Theatre, and was later commissioned by The Curve, Slough. In 2019, she was seed commissioned by Nouveau Riche Theatre Company, to write a new show called Caste-ing which was developed by and performed at The Barbican. She has been commissioned by RCSSD to write several plays for MA Advanced Theatre Practice, including infomania (also selected for The Miniaturist’s new writing night) and Ophelia (workshopped and directed by Ayse Tashkiran). She holds a BA in Drama and Creative Writing, and an MA in Advanced Theatre Practice. Nicole runs theatre company Acquah&Co, focusing upon championing and celebrating Black British voices.

Erica Buist has been writing features for the Guardian for over a decade. A memoir piece she wrote for Guardian Weekend ended up forming the basis for the first chapter of her debut book, This Party’s Dead. She has worked as a playwright for various theatre companies, an writer/ interviewer for the charity St Mungo’s, and is now working on her first novel. Erica has taught journalism at various universities including Cambridge, Goldsmiths, Lincoln, Exeter and Keele, and has led numerous courses with Guardian Masterclasses.

Lucy Popescu is a writer, editor and arts critic. She has published two anthologies about refugee experiences, A Country of Refuge (2016) and A Country to Call Home (2018) and is the author of The Good Tourist (2008). Lucy is chair of the Authors’ Club and its Best First Novel Award. She reviews books for The Observer, FT and TLS, among other publications, has a regular column in the Literary Review and is theatre editor at Camden New Journal. Lucy has taught creative writing for over ten years, is a writing mentor at Freedom for Torture and also curates literary events. Before that, she worked with the English Centre of PEN.