Hone your non-fiction writing skills in an inspiring and supportive environment. Teaching is hosted on Zoom and our bespoke online learning platform. You’ll join a group of 15 budding writers, all working on personal memoir or narrative non-fiction, for weekly Zoom teaching and workshopping on Wednesday evenings. Over three months Wyl Menmuir, former journalist and award-winning author of novels and non-fiction, will teach on key life-writing topics, including how to map out your story, create compelling characters that are true to life, weave facts into your story, and dramatise scenes from reality to place the reader at the heart of the action. You’ll learn how to strike the right balance between writing from memories and using research to capture the truth.
This course will help you cultivate your craft whether you’re working on a personal memoir like Safiya Sinclair’s How to Say Babylon or Tara Westover’s Educated; nature writing like Helen Macdonald’s H is for Hawk or Merlin Sheldrake’s Entangled Life; a travel narrative like Chris Broad’s Abroad in Japan or Felicity Cloake’s One More Croissant for the Road; or a professional confessional like Adam Kay’s This is Going to Hurt.
In addition to the weekly teaching and workshopping you’ll also attend a live industry masterclass on Zoom featuring insights from a top literary agent and non-fiction author. When the course ends, you’ll be given the opportunity to share your work with literary agents from Curtis Brown and C&W.
Over 280 of our students have gone on to become commercially published authors, including Dr Benji Waterhouse, author of the memoir You Don’t Have to Be Mad to Work Here: A Psychiatrist’s Life (Jonathan Cape, May 2024).
Wyl will lead weekly Zoom sessions on Wednesday evenings from 7.00pm to 8.45pm (UK time) unless otherwise stated. Please note that precise dates of masterclass sessions and details of course speakers are subject to change.
The course fee of £1,850 (inclusive of VAT, please note that additional fees may apply if you’re based in a country with a higher VAT rate than the UK) per student is payable, in full, by bank transfer or debit/credit card before the start of the course. (Please note, card payments will incur an additional transaction fee.) However, if you are unable to pay the full fee upfront, let us know and we can arrange an instalment plan.
Please apply with the first 3,000 words of the memoir or narrative non-fiction book you’d like to work on during the course, and a synopsis of no more than a page (both need to be in the same document, as you can only upload ONE file in the application below). Our form will also ask you to make a short statement about the type of story you’re working on (e.g., personal memoir, travel writing, nature writing, food writing, professional memoir etc.). Unfortunately, this course is not suitable for those writing medical papers, academic texts, or technical manuals.
The CBC team will select applicants based on the quality of the writing sample provided. We may start reading and responding to applicants ahead of the final deadline and we therefore advise people who are keen to join this course to apply early.
The final deadline for applications is 10am (UK time) on the application deadline date. The date is dependent on which course start date you're applying for. Use the drop down 'select date' toggle to see currently available start dates and their associated deadlines. Be sure that you've selected the right course start date before you click the 'Apply Now' button.
If you encounter any problems during the application process, or have any more questions about the course, please email help@curtisbrowncreative.co.uk for assistance.
Wyl Menmuir is a multi-award winning author based in Cornwall. His 2016 debut novel, The Many was longlisted for the Booker Award and was an Observer Best Fiction of the year pick. His second novel, Fox Fires was published in 2021 and his short fiction has been published by the BBC, Nightjar Press, Kneehigh Theatre and National Trust Books, and has twice appeared in Best British Short Stories. Wyl's first full-length non fiction book, The Draw of the Sea, won the Roger Deakin Award from the Society of Authors and a Holyer an Gof Award. His second non-fiction book, The Heart of The Woods, won the prestigious Award for Excellence from the Outdoor Photographers and Writers Guild. A former journalist, Wyl has written for Radio 4, The Guardian and The Observer.
Photo by Oliver Udy.
Students will join a live Zoom masterclass session with a literary agent and author (speakers TBA).