Creative Writing

Term: Spring Term

Start Date: 1st September 2022

End Date: 10th November 2022

Exhibition Date: 11th November 2022 5:30pm

Early Application Cut off: 31st July 2022

Application Cut off: 20th August

Course Structure:

Lesson: 2 hours Saturday 1pm - 3pm

Supervised Studio time: 2 hours Tuesday 6pm - 8pm

2 unsupervised studio sessions to be arranged at the first lesson

Course Capacity: 10

Art Educator: Joey McPhil

Level: Beginner/Intermediate

Full Fee: $600

Early Fee: $500

Concession Fee: $500

Location: 130 Art Studios – Studio tables

During the first 6 weeks, you will be taken on a crash course through narrative and form. Whether you are a fiction or creative non-fiction writer you will be given tools to get you started, to develop the structure and shape of your writing, to distinguish and place your writing, to get to know your characters and what they want, and to revise and edit your work. You will be given a chance to put all of those tools into practice as you work on a project of your choosing.

The next 3 weeks of the course will be centered around peer-to-peer workshopping. Before each workshop, scheduled students will share a draft of their work (max. 2000 words) with the class and then, during class, receive feedback from both classmates and the educator. This means that students will be expected to read the other projects and prepare feedback for each week of workshopping. The schedule of workshops will be organised during the first lesson, so you will have plenty of time to prepare. We will also establish workshopping guidelines early on so you have an idea of how to construct and receive feedback.

At the end of the course, you will have the opportunity to present a reading of your project during a cross-discipline student exhibition! You may also wish to submit your final project to the educator for additional feedback and editing (max. 5000 words but it is up to you how much you submit). And, finally, there will be the opportunity to have your work published as part of a 130 Art Studios magazine/anthology.

Come ready for an active and engaging course, with a wealth of honest and constructive discussion!

Joey is in his final year of a Master of Creative Writing at the University of Sydney. He has a particular fondness for the otherworldly writing that comes with fantasy and science fiction, but is learning a love of all things writing craft thanks to his studies. He took a bit of an odd path to start writing though, pushing through the trials and tribulations of a Bachelor’s Degree and a year of professional work in engineering just to decide that it wasn’t for him. It was during that time, however, that he discovered a passion for sharing knowledge through experience tutoring and mentoring. His engineering plays into his writing structure and the ‘science’ of science fiction, but the soul of his writing comes from the inspiring imagination of magical worlds. He is a fanatic of the fantastic, a tackler of the technologic, a lover of the lyrical, (a frequenter of the thesaurus,) and he wants to share it all.

All materials are provided for the lesson – own materials required for independent studio time