Jem Poster and Sarah Burton

Whether you want to record your own life for the benefit of future readers (perhaps simply for your family, perhaps for a wider readership) or want to research and interpret the lives of others, this one-day event may be exactly what you need. Designed by two professional writers with long experience of teaching creative writing at university level, the programme will address a range of relevant matters in ways both practical and thought-provoking, involving both writing and the discussion of writing. Although the focus will be primarily on life-writing, writers of poetry and fiction are likely to gain useful insights from the event.

Among the topics discussed will be the shaping of narrative in biography and memoir, the role of research, and the importance of bringing the creative imagination to bear on the facts we discover.
The course has been devised with 30 participants in mind; however, the presence of two tutors means that almost all of the teaching will take place in groups of 15. Each group will have two sessions with each tutor.

Professor Jem Poster is emeritus professor of creative writing, Aberystwyth University, and tutor for Cambridge University’s Centre for Creative Writing. He is author of a collection of poetry, Brought to Light, and two novels, Courting Shadows and Rifling Paradise. Sarah Burton, founder and former director of Cambridge University’s MSt in creative writing, is the author of Impostors: Six Kinds of Liar and A Double Life: A Biography of Charles and Mary Lamb. Her novel, The Strange Adventures of H, will be published in May 2020.

The session

9.30 - 11.00: Session 1:Introduction. Owning your story
11.00 - 11.30: Coffee
11.30 - 1.00: Session 2: The known and the imagined
1.00 - 2.00: Lunch
2.00 - 3.30: Session 3: Shaping your story
3.30 - 4.00: Tea
4.00 - 5.30: Session 4: Researching your story. Drawing it all together