View tag: creative writing courses

Book review: Sky’s the Limit

Published by Emma Lee-Potter in on Saturday 1st September 2018

Janie Millman and her husband Michael Wilson are two of the most life-enhancing people I know. I met them when Janie spoke about her sparkling first novel, Life’s a Drag, at the Purbeck Literary Festival two years ago and they were brilliant company. They regaled us with the story of how they’d bought an 18th century townhouse in south west France on a complete whim after spotting a picture in ...keep reading

How a creative writing course inspired me

Published by Emma Lee-Potter in on Thursday 7th January 2016

University creative writing courses are getting it in the neck again – this time from novelist DJ Taylor. In an interview with John Humphrys on Radio Four’s Today programme this morning he declared that universities have become “employment bureaus for novelists.” In a spirited defence, Andrew Cowan, director of creative writing at the University of East Anglia, pointed to the success of a host of distinguished authors, from Kazuo Ishiguro ...keep reading

Hard Copy is published as an ebook

Published by Emma Lee-Potter in on Friday 4th January 2013

The world was a different place when my first novel, Hard Copy, was published back in 1998. The internet was in its infancy, my laptop was the size of a sewing machine and when I sent an email I had to follow dial-up instructions running to two sides of A4 paper. Even then I rarely succeeded. I began writing the book when I enrolled on Manchester University’s MA in novel ...keep reading

How to write a plot – novelist MJ Hyland’s advice

Published by Emma Lee-Potter in on Saturday 15th October 2011

A staggering 150,000 books were published in the UK last year – yet thousands of us yearn to add even more to the pile. Writing’s a long, hard, solitary business so I’m always looking for ways to escape my office. On a sunny autumn morning I came up with the perfect plan and drove 40 miles through the stunning Cotswolds countryside to attend a Writing a Good Plot workshop at ...keep reading