Applying for our Writing a Novel Course?

If you’re applying for our Writing A Novel course, you need to put together 1,000 words of prose fiction and a cover letter. But it’s not necessarily as easy as it sounds. Here are some tips on what you should be thinking about.

The tutors are looking for a certain amount of confidence in the voice – that can be in any genre, but it’s the proficiency that they’re looking for.

If you’re already writing the novel you’d like to develop during the course, that’s great, but don’t worry if not – send us 1,000 words of prose fiction that represent you best as a writer. Some people have hardly written anything in their lives, but we spot the promise in that 1,000 words.

Your cover letter should detail your relationship with writing – do you write often? Next to never? Have you done courses in the past? Tell us factually what you’ve done, but we also want to see your love for the subject shine through.

You should also tell us what you hope to get out of the course – do you want to complete a draft? Meet fellow novelists? Overcome writing hurdles that have held you back in the past?

Include anything else that you think might be of interest – for instance, what you like to read – in order to give the tutors a sense of how you will fit into their group.

The application process is just about finding the right group for you – group dynamic is such an important part of the course that we have to make sure that everyone fits together properly. It’s not about streaming, or picking the ‘best fifteen pieces’. What would that even mean anyway?