This Creative Writing course is for writers for children of all ages, from the picture-book age through to young adult (YA). Prose fiction is likely to be the main area studied, but you'll have the chance to look at writing in all forms, including poetry, picture book texts and narrative non-fiction for young people.

The course supports you to create a significant body of writing, with practical plans for its place in the real world of publishing. It is based on the principle that most writers learn and benefit from working closely with their fellow writers, in a disciplined, supportive setting, and with tutors who are practising and published writers in their field. Many of our students aim to complete a substantial body of work by the end of the course, or to be well equipped to do this in future.

The writing workshop is at the heart of the course. With tutors and your fellow writers in a workshop setting, you'll learn to see your work through objective eyes and to think clearly about the different strategies you might adopt. You'll learn from each other’s mistakes and successes, as well as your own. You'll be urged to try things out, take risks and experiment, and reflect on and discuss the writing process. The context modules help you to see your own writing in the wider context of published children’s writing. The course encourages you to read widely and analytically.

Graduates have achieved publication deals with a range of different mainstream and smaller publishers, including Andersen Press, Bloomsbury, Chicken House, Egmont, Faber & Faber, Gullane, Hot Key Books, Nosy Crow, Orion, Oxford University Press, Penguin, Quercus, Scholastic, Simon and Schuster, Templar and Walker Books. Many more students have secured literary agents and are likely to secure publication deals in the future. 

Some of our graduates have gone on to teach creative writing and thus to share their skills with others. Some have combined their writing with subsequent careers in journalism, writing for magazines, teaching of different kinds, publishing or television.

Books published by graduates from this course include:

• Ways to Live Forever, Sally Nicholls
• Frost Hollow Hall, Emma Carroll
• The Snow Merchant, Sam Gayton
• Sky Hawk, Gill Lewis
• Stolen Lucy Christopher
• The Year of the Rat, Clare Furniss
• Stone Rider, David Hofmeyr
• Shrunk, Fleur Hitchcock
• Sweet Pizza, Giancarlo Gemin.