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.
- Develop your confidence in writing: grammar, punctuation, expression (level 1-2)
Course start date: Fri 2 May 2025 (and 2 other dates)Location on this date: Keeley Street
Would you like to be more confident in the way you write whether emails or reports at work or messages to friends? Do you want to work on how you form sentences, understand grammar and use punctuation so your writing is more creative? Do you want to learn how to create meaning in your writing?. This course will help you be more secure in your professional, academic or creative writing skills and help you improve some of your weak areas around forming and punctuating sentences with appropriate grammatical form. You will develop your confidence in the most essential areas of writing including different sentence structures, writing paragraphs, using punctuation effectively, using active and passive voices and proofreading.
You need to do a pre-course assessment. Contact universal.skills@citylit.ac.uk / 020 8078 0489 for a face-to-face assessment or click the Start Assessment button on this page. Log on with your email address (not name).
This course is FREE if you are employed and on a low wage or you are claiming benefits. For more information Click here
Full fee £179.00 Senior fee £143.00 Concession £90.00 - Art and War: Art at the Imperial War Museum Course start date: Wed 15 Oct 2025
Location on this date: Off Site
Tutors: Julie BarlowThe IWM opened in 1920 and moved to its current London site in 1936, with the intention of recording military action in which the United Kingdom was and has been involved since WW1. The museum has an exciting new thematic display of its extensive art collection. Explore how artists respond to conflict both in the past and today.
Full fee £29.00 Senior fee £23.00 Concession £19.00 - French 3 lower: conversationCourse start date: Wed 15 Oct 2025 (and 1 other date)
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Michel WillameCome and practise your intermediate spoken French and develop your language skills in these topical discussion classes. Based on recordings from French television, radio news and newspaper articles.Full fee £159.00 Senior fee £159.00 Concession £103.00 - Spanish 3 upper: Arte español en Londres de Velázquez a SorollaCourse start date: Wed 15 Oct 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Anna Riera MoraMejora tu español a través de un recorrido por el arte español.
En este curso, podrás desarrollar tus habilidades lingüísticas en español a través del análisis y la discusión de algunas obras maestras españolas de prestigiosas colecciones de arte londinenses como The National Gallery, la Wallace Collection y Apsley House (la casa de Wellington).
Ideal for students who have done 3 or 4 years of Spanish, have studied present and past tenses (B1 level), and are looking to practise more talking and listening skills.Full fee £139.00 Senior fee £111.00 Concession £90.00 - Becoming confident on the cloud: a new way of sharing and managing your files - OneDrive and Google drive (foundation) Course start date: Thu 8 May 2025 (and 2 other dates)
Location on this date: Keeley Street
The digital world is changing from sending emails to sharing files. Attaching files, sending them, downloading them, working on them, saving them, re-attaching and re-sending them is becoming a thing of the past. Instead, with cloud computing, you can share and collaborate on files either at the same time or separately without any emailing or downloading. Join this course and learn how to do this and stay on top of your file management. Learn how to use OneDrive and Google Drive to create, store, share and collaborate on different types of documents on your PC as well as other devices. Discover also how to maintain security while syncing your devices and accounts. By the end of this course, you will have grasped what cloud-computing means and be confident of exploring it further.
This course is FREE if you are employed and on a low wage or you are claiming benefits. For more information Click here
Full fee £109.00 Senior fee £76.00 Concession £55.00 - Spanish 2 upper: consolidation Course start date: Wed 15 Oct 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Roberto GallegoFurther improve your Spanish in this lively class, taught in Spanish with the emphasis on developing your speaking and listening skills. You will also acquire a greater understanding of Spanish grammar. Suitable if you have completed 'Spanish 2 upper' and you would like to revise/consolidate the content/grammar before continuing to level 3 lower.
Full fee £159.00 Senior fee £127.00 Concession £103.00 - Understanding the Digital World Course start date: Wed 15 Oct 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Marc CohenThis is a new course and we are currently preparing the course outline.Full fee £249.00 Senior fee £199.00 Concession £162.00 - Acting: Foundation (Certificate Level 2) Course start date: Sat 10 Jan 2026 (and 1 other date)
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Cara Jennings, Vernon Thompson, Martin WimpressDo you want to be an actor but find it hard to fit the training around your other commitments? This intensive and practical accredited course, running every Saturday for 25 weeks including Induction and final tutorials, provides classes in the core disciplines of acting, voice and movement, and culminates in a showing of contemporary scene work to an invited audience. Successful candidates achieve the Level 2 Certificate in Performing Arts awarded by OCN London.
Full fee £1,499.00 Senior fee £1,499.00 Concession £1,499.00 - History, memory and mental wealth: why we need to talk about empireCourse start date: Fri 17 Oct 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Martin JorgensenFormally, European imperialism ended decades ago. Yet, the different legacies still affect the world and many societies today. Join us for a discussion on why we need to talk about empire and mental wealth.Full fee £19.00 Senior fee £15.00 Concession £12.00 - Italian intermediate book clubCourse start date: Fri 17 Oct 2025
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Silvana VistolaThis course is for intermediate and lower intermediate learners of Italian (Italian 2 Upper and Italian 3 lower, or learners in their third or fourth year of studying Italian) who would like to improve their reading skills and learn new grammar and vocabulary through reading and discussing works of Italian fiction and/or non-fiction. The texts chosen may be in the form of easy readers to facilitate understanding. The chosen texts will be written in Italian, and discussions will be in Italian, though some English may be permitted, so learners will be able to stretch themselves and feel more confident about expressing their opinion and asking questions in class.Full fee £139.00 Senior fee £111.00 Concession £90.00 - Some like it Indie: How the Independents Revoultionised Postwar HollywoodCourse start date: Fri 17 Oct 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
What do The Apartment, The Great Escape, West Side Story, In the Heat of the Night, The Pink Panther, The Magnificent Seven, Fiddler on the Roof and Some Like it Hot have in common? They were all produced by one small production company, run by three brothers, as the studio system was replaced by the new independent producers. Most Hollywood history fetishizes the 1970s as the decade in which the movies finally came of age. But this course looks back to the late ‘50s and ‘60s and zooms in on a single independent production company, the Mirisch Company, to understand the seismic shift that transformed Hollywood – not only in how films were produced but also in terms of the subjects and styles of the films themselves.Full fee £219.00 Senior fee £175.00 Concession £142.00 - Italian 2 lower conversation Course start date: Fri 9 May 2025 (and 1 other date)
Location on this date: Online
Tutors: Rosanna CarlàThis skills-based course is for lower intermediate learners of Italian and is intended to improve your Italian speaking skills in everyday situations. We will be looking at both formal and informal scenarios, and the aim is to help you to feel more comfortable speaking Italian in order to improve your fluency. Please note this course is intended for Italian 2 lower learners (learners in their second year of study).Full fee £149.00 Senior fee £119.00 Concession £97.00 - Piano: return to playingCourse start date: Fri 17 Oct 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Gary PrestonDid you once play the piano? Are you thinking of returning to playing? This short course, taught in a friendly and supportive environment, will help you refresh your dormant skills and re-kindle your passion for playing.Full fee £179.00 Senior fee £143.00 Concession £125.00 - Physics unravelled: navigating the maze of string theory Course start date: Sat 18 Oct 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Gary RetallickWith its promise of answering questions about black holes, gravity and dark matter/energy, string theory has captivated many physicists for the past 50 years. In this course, we will look at string theory in a non-technical way and consider what the prospects are for this remarkable theory.Full fee £69.00 Senior fee £55.00 Concession £45.00 - What is a Short Story?Course start date: Sat 18 Oct 2025
Location on this date: Keeley Street
Tutors: Alexander Fairbairn-DixonWhat is a short story? Come and discuss its characteristics, its length, design, mood and style. What distinguishes it from other kinds of short narrative? We’ll compare short stories to other forms, such as myths, legends, anecdotes, fabliaux, parables, fables, and ‘tales’. We’ll look at some of the greatest practitioners including Edgar Allan Poe, Katherine Mansfield, and O’ Henry.Full fee £69.00 Senior fee £55.00 Concession £45.00
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