Sessions will take place 7pm–9pm every Thursday night for twelve weeks. Below is a session breakdown, which is subject to change, but should give you a good idea of what to expect.
Session 1 – 22 April: What is a short story? We'll think about where short stories come from, fairytales and folklore, about shaggy dog stories and urban myths. We'll look at the shortest short stories, from six words to flash fiction.
Session 2 – 29 April: On the cusp: some of the best short stories dramatise or simply capture a moment, a tipping point, a character on the verge. We'll look at how the best coming-of-age stories do this, and how we can learn from them.
Session 3 – 6 May: Ma wrote true stories, not necessarily autobiographical, but close enough for horseshoes, wrote Lucia Berlin's son. We'll look at secrets and shame and how they can be a strength: at how to write – or use – your own life.
Session 4 – 13 May: Masterclass with special guest tutor TBC.
Session 5 – 20 May: The weird and wild and wonderful: we'll look at contemporary types of magic realism, and how to harness the power of the modern parable.
Session 6 – 27 May: WhatsApp? We'll look at how some of the most exciting contemporary writers are incorporating social media into their work, at how to write contemporary life, and how to write a compelling contemporary setting.
Session 7 – 3 June: With so few words to play with, every word needs to matter. In this session devoted to dialogue, we'll look at how to write what your characters aren't saying, and how to get the reader to read in between the lines.
Session 8 – 10 June: Masterclass with special guest tutor TBC.
Session 9 – 17 June: We'll look at how to establish and maintain a mood and atmosphere, and how to choose and write the setting so that it becomes a living part of your story.
Session 10 – 24 June: Bravura techniques: we'll look at how the short story can use unusual and virtuoso techniques such as second person or choral narrators, being told backwards or in the future tense, and other unusual and exciting forms.
Session 11 – 1 July: We'll look at how to rewrite, revise and edit your work, having fun with the famous example of how Gordon Lish edited Raymond Carver.
Session 12 – 8 July: We'll finish by devoting the final session to answering further questions and issues that have arisen over the course of the autumn. We'll look at how and where to get published and at opportunities for new writers. We'll finish with celebratory readings of everyone's work.
Note: Two people's work will be workshopped each week. Work submitted for discussion by the group can be that week's writing exercise or simply a passage on which you would value constructive criticism, of up to around 2,000 words.