Focus on Short Fiction: The Art of the Short Story

The short story: a brilliant medium for writers, and a challenging one. So hard to get right, and so rewarding when you do.

This five-day creative writing course, led by novelist, poet and writer Vanessa Gebbie, is a great way to focus on the craft underpinning so much successful fiction.

Vanessa, author of The Coward's Tale, has won awards for both her fiction and poetry including a Bridport Prize for short fiction and the International Troubadour Poetry Prize.

The course will bring together like-minded writers in pursuit of answers to the following questions:

• What exactly is a short story?
• What is a story, and what is not?
• What makes it tick? 
• What are the tricks of the trade?  How can writers produce them successfully, better, and better again?
• How can writers be original and surprising, as well as competent, to make their work stand out in the slush pile or competition entry pile? 

Activities will include analysing published works, debating craft issues, and looking at opportunities regarding the short-story market and short-story competitions.

Participants will be encouraged to write every day, play games with words, and open themselves up creatively. The Library itself will be on hand as a space for creative inspiration, as will the beautiful surroundings (weather permitting).

Vanessa envisages the week’s events as an opportunity for busy and focussed creative expression.

“We will make new stories, characters, settings, voices. We will write complete pieces, and work on outlines for others. We will share our own work, if we wish, and focus on giving feedback that is not just useful for the writer, but useful for our own learning. I hope you will leave with enough ideas to keep you going for ages, and the tools to sharpen both your first drafts and your editing skills.” 

For the final evening, the group will be joined by visiting writer Kit de Waal, who will share her work and her secrets of success in a workshop and in an informal reading event round the fire, at which participants will be encouraged to share their own work. Kit will also write with the group on the final morning. 

Residential tickets (bed & breakfast, morning and afternoon coffee, lunch and dinner) start from £454, non-residential tickets £250.

Discount rates for clergy and students apply.

To book call 01244 532350 or email us.

Vanessa Gebbie is a novelist, short fiction writer, editor, teacher and poet. She is contributing editor of ‘Short Circuit, Guide to the Art of the Short Story’, editions 1 and 2 (Salt). Her short fiction collections are ‘Words from a Glass Bubble’ and  ‘Storm Warning’ (both from Salt), and ‘A Short History of Synchronised Breathing’ (forthcoming, Cultured Llama). Her novel ‘The Coward’s Tale’ (Bloomsbury) was a Financial Times novel of the year. She has won awards for both fiction and poetry, including a Bridport Prize and the Troubadour Prize, and her poetry in ‘The Half-life of Fathers’ (Pighog) was selected by the Times Literary Supplement among the best poetry pamphlets of 2014. An illustrated collection of flash fictions, ‘Ed’s Wife and Other Creatures’, will be published in October 2015 by Liquorice Fish. She is recipient of an Arts Council grant, a Hawthornden Fellowship and a Gladstone’s Library writing residency. She teaches widely.

Kit de Waal is published in various anthologies (Fish Prize 2011 & 2012; ‘The Sea in Birmingham’ 2013; ‘Final Chapters’ 2013’) and works as an editor of non-fiction.  She came second in the Costa Short Story Prize 2014 with ‘The Old Man & The Suit’, second in the Bath Short Story Prize 2014 with ‘The Beautiful Thing’ and was longlisted for the Bristol Prize 2014. She won the Readers’ Prize at the Leeds Literary Prize 2014 and the Bridport Prize for Flash Fiction 2014.   Her first novel ‘My Name is Leon’ will be published by Penguin in 2016.