Writing Courses & Workshops Online & in London
Be inspired to write, and learn how to get published at the college where Andrea Levy, Malorie Blackman, Anna Burns, and other celebrated authors studied. Read our success stories to see what's possible for you as a writer.
Learn from published authors
Whether you're just starting out or ready to publish your first book, the benefits of our writing courses include expert tuition from a published author and feedback on your work as you develop your writing skills. There will also be opportunities to participate in group discussions and activities with fellow students.
Unheard Voices Scholarship
City Lit’s Malorie Blackman Scholarships for 'Unheard Voices' provide three annual awards to fund one year’s study within the Creative Writing department at City Lit. Learn more >
See what it's like be part a City Lit online creative writing course.
- Russia and Ukraine: The memory politics of conflictCourse start date: Thu 12 Jun 2025 (and 1 other date)
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Olivia DurandThe ongoing Russian occupation of Ukraine and the Ukrainian fight for its people, land and sovereignty is not only fought on the battlefield. Join us to explore how history and memory politics is also at central
Full fee £19.00 Senior fee £19.00 Concession £12.00 - Micro-memoir: a tasterCourse start date: Fri 14 Nov 2025 (and 1 other date)
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Julie GartonA life is measured in moments as well as momentous occasions. This fun day workshop coaches students in the art of micro-memoir. Can you write about an instant that changed you in fewer than 200 words?Full fee £19.00 Senior fee £19.00 Concession £19.00 - Writing the family
Course start date: Sat 5 Jul 2025 (and 2 other dates)Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Nick BarlayA thought-provoking workshop designed to tackle the challenges of writing about family life in creative non-fiction projects, and offer guidance on shaping personal stories into coherent, engaging narratives.Full fee £79.00 Senior fee £79.00 Concession £40.00 - Spanish beginners: tasterCourse start date: Mon 10 Nov 2025 (and 6 other dates)
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Adriana Itriago GavidiaGet a flavour of a new language and its basic sentence structure. Learn some useful phrases and some pronunciation guidelines. A fascinating introduction for complete beginners.Full fee £19.00 Senior fee £19.00 Concession £19.00 - Writing for blogs Course start date: Fri 14 Nov 2025 (and 1 other date)
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Terry FreedmanGot a passion, a journey or an obsession to share? Blogging is the perfect medium through which to share your interests with the world. This taster course teaches the essential skills required to write blogposts that will resonate.Full fee £79.00 Senior fee £79.00 Concession £40.00 - How to write a novel Course start date: Mon 28 Jul 2025 (and 2 other dates)
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Thomas McMullanThis course deals with all aspects of novel writing technique and prose style. Ideal for fiction writers about to begin a novel or those with a novel at early draft stage.Full fee £89.00 Senior fee £89.00 Concession £45.00 - Spanish beginners: module 1BCourse start date: Tue 29 Jul 2025 (and 1 other date)
Location on this date: Online
Learn to speak Spanish on this short course for near beginners. Suitable if you have completed Spanish beginners: module 1A or if you have a very basic knowledge of the language (please check course outline for Spanish beginners: module 1A to see what you should know already).
Full fee £99.00 Senior fee £99.00 Concession £64.00 - Film studies taster Course start date: Sat 13 Sep 2025 (and 2 other dates)
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Paul SuttonLearn how to evaluate and discuss films while enjoying a working example of a City Lit Film Studies class. In this class we will view and explore clips from a number of films, including popular remakes, enabling us to consider and compare themes and techniques from differing filmmaking countries. There will be a chance to review – in brief – film courses at City Lit (September - December 2025).Full fee £19.00 Senior fee £15.00 Concession £12.00 - Introduction to journalism Course start date: Mon 3 Nov 2025 (and 1 other date)
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Allis MossOn this course students will explore the basic skills a freelance journalist needs to write and sell news and features to newspapers and magazines. From developing ideas and identifying outlets to interview skills and approaching editors.Full fee £159.00 Senior fee £159.00 Concession £80.00 - Hindi beginners: short introductionCourse start date: Mon 3 Nov 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Roopam AggarwalLearn the basics of this captivating language with an emphasis on practical use and the development of your listening and speaking skills. Suitable for complete beginners. Learn to speak Hindi and develop your listening and speaking skills in this communicative class which emphasises the practical use of the language. Suitable for complete beginners.Full fee £119.00 Senior fee £119.00 Concession £77.00 - Prostitution in Ancient RomeCourse start date: Tue 4 Nov 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Sean GabbThe oldest profession as practised among the Romans - not for the squeamish.Full fee £19.00 Senior fee £19.00 Concession £12.00 - Introduction to Financial Assets Course start date: Wed 5 Nov 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Rich CochraneLearn about the main types of asset traded on financial markets including shares, bonds and derivatives, including how and why they are used and the mathematical techniques used to value them.Full fee £499.00 Senior fee £399.00 Concession £324.00 - Image and identity: 20th century Chinese art and cinema Course start date: Wed 5 Nov 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Meitao QuExplore the work of Chinese artists and filmmakers between the turn of the 20th century to the turn of the 21st as they try to make sense of a world caught on the cusp between the old and the new. What place did art and cinema have in socio-political movements, and how did visual culture reflect the hopes and anxieties of the time?Full fee £179.00 Senior fee £143.00 Concession £116.00 - ‘Stranger’ Things: Muriel Spark’s ShapeshiftingCourse start date: Wed 5 Nov 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Fiona McCullochThis course will introduce and discuss two novels by eminent author, Muriel Spark- Memento Mori (1959) and The Ballad of Peckham Rye (1960). Her writing wilfully upends notions of conformity and acts as a disrupter to accepted conventions. Instead, ‘Spark beckons us to encounter the stranger’ (Marilyn Reizbaum). Playfully disrupting passive readers and stretching comfort zones, Spark’s work provides a space to access unaccustomed outlooks that make us rethink our relationship with ourselves, others, and the world. Instead of unconsciously going with the flow, she awakens us to life’s stranger things.Full fee £129.00 Senior fee £129.00 Concession £84.00 - 20th to 21st Century War Poetry: British and InternationalCourse start date: Thu 6 Nov 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Stephen WinfieldExplore the astonishing range of poetic responses to a hundred years of warfare, acts of witnessing, endurance, defiance and condemnation by writers across the globe: Sassoon and Wilfred Owen in Britain, Brecht, Milosz, Celan, Akhmatova and Stepanova in Europe and Russia, Darwish and Zhadan in the Middle East and Ukraine, and many others. How do they describe the indescribable? High art or doggerel, what does it matter once the bombs start to fall?Full fee £129.00 Senior fee £103.00 Concession £84.00
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