Creative Writing and Media
Co-ordinating Lecturer(s)
- Dr Nick Jones Tel/Ffôn: (029) 2087 6108 Email/Ebost: JonesN3@cardiff.ac.uk
Our creative writing courses are designed to help you develop writing skills in a number of genres. These include our suite of popular creative writing workshops, as well as two brand-new courses which look at memoir and journal writing. Our literature courses offer both an overview of periods and genres and the chance to study individual works in depth. Our courses are very popular so it is recommended that you pre-enrol to avoid disappointment.
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Creative Writing and Media Courses
Creative writing
This course welcomes all who have an interest in the process of creative writing. The class comprises exercises, reading of texts, tutor-led discussion, and the sharing of student work. Genres covered include micro-fiction, the short story, the novel and poetry. Expect inspiration, an awareness of the craft, and enjoyment!!
Watching Reality – How Documentary Works
Documentary film has scandalised, informed and intrigued audiences for a hundred years. New forms such as faction, docu-soap and reality TV maintain its claim to show us the truth about life. From Current Affairs to Fly-on-the-wall, documentary claims to show us life as it really is but paradoxically it employs artifice and selection to shape the experience it purports to present.
Creative Writing at the Museum (I)
This course will enable you to go behind the scenes at the museum, exploring collections and exhibitions and to continue to improve your writing skills, producing dramatic monologues, poetry and prose pieces based on what you have seen. As well as reading and discussing the work of published writers, there will be workshop sessions where museum staff and curators talk about their work. This course is run in partnership with Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales, Cardiff.
Creative Writing at the Museum (II)
This course is designed around the galleries and exhibitions in the Museum. The course content is always new, so there is no requirement for you to have completed Creative Writing at the Museum I to enrol. Come along to improve your writing skills, produce dramatic monologues, poetry and prose pieces, and enjoy workshop sessions where museum staff and curators talk about their work. This course is run in partnership with Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales, Cardiff.
Creative Writing Workshop
This is a warm and lively class, suitable for both new and experienced writers. Emphasis is placed on exploration and experimentation, with the idea that each student learns about their own voice and exposes their own creative potential. Through sampling various written forms, from lists to letters, poetry to prose, fiction to memoir, students discover what feels natural and authentic, as well as extending what feels possible, to them as writers.
From Art and Images into Words
This course will use a range of fine art works from Chagall, Van Gogh to Salvador Dali to help inspire and stimulate your own creative writing. We will look at themes such as dreams, longing, conversations, family and journeys as a spur to writing and developing narrative stories, poems and memoir. There will be structured exercises and workshops and plenty of helpful and friendly encouragement and support.
Introduction to Modern Journalism
Designed for people who want to understand what they are being told by the media and why they are being told it, this course offers the opportunity to explore how news is chosen, shaped and presented. It also explores how elections and wars are reported, and considers social media and citizen journalism. Students will then be shown how to structure news and features, how to write them and finally how to establish a simple web platform to create their own blogs and newsletters.
Novel Writing Workshop
Guided by a professional author, this is a course for anyone who has a book currently in them that they’d prefer to see sitting in a bookshop. What are the components that make a novel unputdownable? How can you ensure that your readers are enthralled? Looking at all genres of contemporary full-length fiction, this course will take you right through the novel-writing process, as well as offering guidance in the all-important art of attracting an agent and/or publisher.
Reading and Writing Memoir and Autobiography
A course for anyone interested in how a person's writing of past experience can be as fascinating and compelling as the novel or short story. We will read extracts, discuss, share work, and do writing exercises aimed at generating an imaginative 'remembering' of the past. Skills and enjoyment!
Reading and Writing Poetry
This course adheres to the sound advice that if you want to write poetry you should read it. It is open to everyone who wants to have a close but open minded look at how poetry works and who would like to have a go at writing poems. Come and consider how and why words sing!
Scripting a Television Drama
In this course, an experienced scriptwriter for mainstream television will help you conceive, plan and script a television drama based on established techniques and professional criteria. Pre-enrolment is essential as places are limited.
Scriptwriting Workshop Online
This course offers personal, long distance tutorial support (via e-mail) to new and experienced writers who want to pursue a project of their own. The nature of the study will be tailored to the student's individual requirements. The course is primarily aimed at students writing for film and television who already have a script ready to work on. Enrolment in advance, accompanied by some brief autobiographical details and a short summary of your chosen project, is essential.
Telling Tales
Led by an experienced author, this is a course for anyone interested in developing and honing their fiction writing skills. Concentrating primarily, though not exclusively, on the short story form it is intended, through analysis, application and inspiration, to get you crafting truly compelling fiction. The course also includes advice on finding markets and getting published, and taking your passion for writing to the next level.
The Art and Ritual of Journal Writing
This course provides opportunity for students to explore the practice of journal writing as a means of recording and reflecting upon day-to-day experiences; creating a vivid and meaningful document for years to come; and developing creativity, insight and mindfulness. Students will be invited to experiment with a variety of journal-writing forms, using the material of their own lives, and will establish their own personalised and sustainable journal-writing practice.
Writing Cardiff
By researching local history archives, including newspapers, and studying the work of Cardiff writers, photographers and artists, this course will help you put together a collection of poems, short stories or dramatic monologues inspired by the city.
Writing from Experience I
Everyone has a story to tell and writing often comes from personal experience. Life encapsulates a rich source of memories and events. This course embraces themes such as childhood, family, work, dreams, journeys, love, tragedy, humour and obsession in its quest to develop aspects of creative non-fiction
Writing From Experience II
This course looks at themes that are relevant to our own personal experience, such as childhood, family, work, dreams, journeys, love, tragedy, humour and obsession. There will be plenty of helpful and friendly encouragement and support along the way. Although this course is chiefly designed as a follow on to Writing from Experience I, newcomers are always very welcome!
Writing the Body
Based in the anatomy department at Cardiff University School of Biosciences, this course will enable you to respond to medical images as well as the work of contemporary artists and writers with different approaches to representing the human body.
