Curtis Brown Creative launches new short story writing course on ...

Curtis Brown Creative (CBC) is expanding its Zoom courses, with Writing Short Stories – Advanced, taught by 2023 BBC Short Story Award winner Naomi Wood.  

It will take 15 students and last for nine weeks. Students will also attend two exclusive Zoom masterclasses: one with Deborah Treisman, fiction editor for the New Yorker, and one with Kevin Barry, short story writer and Booker Prize-longlisted author, and his literary agent, C&W’s Lucy Luck. At the end of the course, the CBC team will help students submit their stories formally to the agents at Curtis Brown and C&W.   

The new course is the latest in CBC’s range of online courses with interactive Zoom teaching sessions. CBC said it has increased its online offering four-fold in the past three years and now runs over 40 online courses for writers of all levels of experience, supported by its bespoke learning platform, which was updated and relaunched in 2023.  

Jennifer Kerslake, head of courses/editor at CBC, said: “I love reading short stories – the very best carry such an astonishing, powerful charge – and I am delighted we’re launching this new online course with Naomi Wood, whose brilliantly sharp and funny ‘Comorbidities’ won the BBC Short Story Award last year. We also have three incredible special guests – Kevin Barry, Lucy Luck and Deborah Treisman – providing insight and expertise. It’s set to be a really exciting course, and I can’t wait to start reading applications and to welcome 15 talented emerging writers to their first Zoom workshop with us in April.” 

Applicants to Writing Short Stories – Advanced are invited to submit a short story or extract from a piece of short fiction of up to 3,000 words by 24th March 2024. The course costs £1,100. CBC is also providing a scholarship place. The Breakthrough Scholarship for Short Story Writers with Low Income will award one talented writer a free place on the course. The course will run from 24th April to 19th June. 

More information is available here.