Narrative Non-Fiction Short Courses
The Narrative Non-Fiction short course is aimed at students who are thinking of embarking on a substantial piece of writing. The narrative non-fiction writing course begins with an outline of the main genres (biography, memoir, history, travel writing, science and politics) and follows the course of a project, from planning through to editing via the importance of endings and beginnings, the writer's toolkit, portrait-painting, character-building and finding your voice. The aim of the narrative non-fiction writing course is to encourage and inspire, through group discussion and individual exercises.
Course Information
| Start Date | Start Time | Duration | Cost | Course Code | Apply |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tuesday 4 October 2011 | 18:30 - 20:30 | 10 weekly classes (please note, there will be no class on 18 October, with a replacement class in week 11) | £220.00 | CE1220 | Apply Now |
| Tuesday 17 January 2012 | 18:30 - 20:30 | 10 weekly classes | £220.00 | CE1220 | Apply Now |
| Tuesday 24 April 2012 | 18:30 - 20:30 | 10 weekly classes | £220.00 | CE1220 | Apply Now |
Tutor Info
Kate Chisholm is the radio critic of The Spectator, and author of a biography of the 18th-century novelist, diarist and playwright Fanny Burney. She has also written and published a memoir, Hungry Hell, based on her own experience of the eating disorder, anorexia nervosa. After reading Medieval and Byzantine History at Edinburgh University, she trained as a copy-editor at Cambridge University Press. She began her writing life as a reviewer of books, radio and television for the Daily Telegraph, the Sunday Telegraph, the Daily Mail and the Times Educational Supplement. She has given talks at the Cheltenham Festival of Literature, the Theatre Royal, Bath, McGill University in Montreal, Harvard University and Pembroke College, Oxford. From 2007 to 2009 she was the Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the University of Surrey. She has also contributed to Arvind Krishna Mehrotra's The Last Bungalow, a collection of writings on the Indian city of Allahabad. 'Best Bakery in Town' tells the story of her family's connection with India across several generations. Her latest book, Wits and Wives: Dr Johnson in the company of women, will be published in November 2011.
English Requirements
Good written and spoken English is needed for the narrative non fiction course
What will I learn?
- To identify your appropriate non-fiction genre.
- To analyse critically your own and others' work.
- To initiate, research and compose a piece of narrative non-fiction.
- To begin drafting a book proposal.
Teaching and Assessment
There is no assessment, but the course aims to teach students how to edit and judge their own work through exercises, both individual and in small groups, where reading aloud encourages group discussion. The aim of this course is to encourage students in their writing and offer them the chance to improve their skills. Guidance will also be given on how to prepare a book proposal. Guest speakers may include Julie Wheelwright, director of the MA in Creative Writing (Non-fiction) at City University London, and also an editor/publisher with tips on how to get published.
Recommended Reading
Course texts:
Axline, Virginia, M.: Dibs: In Search of Self (Penguin, London, 1990)
Deb, Siddhartha, The Beautiful and the Damned: Life in the New India (Viking, 2011)
Sebald, W.G.: The Rings of Saturn (Vintage, London, 2002)
Uglow, Jenny: Nature's Engraver: A Life of Thomas Bewick (Faber, 2007)
Waal, Edmund de: The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance (Vintage, 2011)
Suggested Reading:
The Arvon Book of Life Writing, edited by Sally Cline and Carole Angier (Methuen, 2010)
Stet: An Editor's Life (Granta, 2001)
Diana Athill, Instead of a Letter (Granta, 2001)
Carole Blake, From Pitch to Publication: everything you need to know to get your novel published (Macmillan, 1999)
Geoff Dyer, Out of Sheer Rage (Abacus, 1998)
Stanley Fish, How to Write a Sentence: and how to read one (HarperCollins, 2011)
Richard Holmes, Dr Johnson and Mr Savage (Flamingo, 1994)
Richard Holmes, Footsteps: adventures of a romantic biographer (Flamingo, 2004)
The Life of Richard Savage by Dr Johnson (1744) (available in Johnson on Savage (edited by Richard Holmes, Harper Perennial, 2005)
Hermione Lee, Body Parts: essays on life-writing (Pimlico, 2008)
Hermione Lee, Biography: a very short introduction (Oxford University Press, 2009)
John Locke, Of the Abuse of Words (Penguin, 2009)
Alexander Masters, Stuart: a life backwards (Harper Perennial, 2006)
Virginia Nicholson, Singled Out: how two million women survived without men after the first world war (Viking, 2007)
George Orwell, Why I Write (Penguin, 1984)
Lorna Sage, Bad Blood: a memoir (Fourth Estate, 2001)
Lytton Strachey, Eminent Victorians (Oxford University Press, 2003)
William Strunk, Jr and E.B. White, The Elements of Style (4th edn, Longman, 2000)
Leads To...
MA Creative Writing (Non-fiction)
Career Outcome
You will learn to write with clarity and confidence; and will gain confidence in group discussion.