WRITING Inspiration

Cathy Hayward Cathy Hayward

Five Minutes With course alumna Sophie Anderson

Sophie Anderson took the Creative Writing Programme from 2016 to 2018. She has since had two novels – The Butterfly Garden and The Sapphire Cove – published and is currently out on submission with her third.

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Cathy Hayward Cathy Hayward

Five Minutes With Sharlene Teo

Sharlene Teo is running a two-day course in June on Writing Otherness – how to write different perspectives from our own. Here she talks about her debut novel, her work as a creative writing lecturer and the importance of confronting our biases, privileges and stereotyped perceptions when writing fiction.

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Cathy Hayward Cathy Hayward

Five minutes with CWP alumna Louise Kenward

Louise Kenward’s anthology Moving Mountains: Writing Nature Through Illness and Disability was published last autumn. Here she talks about how taking the Creative Writing Programme from 2015-17 helped to kickstart her writing dream and offers some advice on writing while living with pain and fatigue.

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Cathy Hayward Cathy Hayward

Jacq Molloy’s top writing tips

The start of the year is always a time for new year’s resolutions, and setting (or resetting) a regular writing habit is likely to be near the top of the list for many of us writers and poets.

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Cathy Hayward Cathy Hayward

John McCullough’s top writing tips

Here poet and CWP tutor John McCullough offers his top writing tips to keep you maintaining your writing practice through the festive season. They’re relevant to both poets and prose writers.

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Cathy Hayward Cathy Hayward

Five Minutes With alumna Lisa Fransson

This month Lisa Fransson’s debut novel The Shape of Guilt is published, with a launch at Brighton’s Waterstones bookshop. Lisa took the Creative Writing Programme from 2014-2016. Here she talks about her writing life.

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Cathy Hayward Cathy Hayward

Five minutes with: alumna Sue Wallace-Shaddad

Sue Wallace-Shaddad took the Advanced Poetry Workshops in 2022 and earlier this year Clayhanger Press published her collection Sleeping with Clouds, a collaboration with artist Sula Rubens. Here she talks about her poetry journey.

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Cathy Hayward Cathy Hayward

Kate Bradley publishes third novel

Kate Bradley’s third novel The Sisterhood was published by Simon & Schuster this spring. An alumna of the Creative Writing Programme, here she talks about how the course set her on course to publication.

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Cathy Hayward Cathy Hayward

Amy Lavelle publishes second novel

Course alumnus Amy Lavelle’s second novel comes out this month. Here she talks about how the Creative Writing Programme set her on course to be a published author.

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Cathy Hayward Cathy Hayward

CWP alumnus Jane Crittenden publishes debut novel

Jane Crittenden’s debut novel Worlds Apart comes out this month, published by Amazon. Here she talks about how taking the Creative Writing Programme helped to kickstart her dream of writing a novel.

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Cathy Hayward Cathy Hayward

Is it worth getting qualified as a writer?

If you’re an aspiring writer, should you do a degree, or an MA or MFA in creative writing? There are now hundreds of creative writing courses, undergraduate degrees, MFA’s and MA’s being offered by American and English universities. Are they worth the money? Is it worth getting qualified as a writer?

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