Date/Time
Date(s) - Tue 9th Apr - Fri 28th Jun, 2024
11:00am - 1:00pm
Get your short fiction in shape
Starting in April 2024, we are excited to be able to offer a four-part year-long online course focusing on short fiction, curated and tutored by acclaimed writer Cynan Jones.
The Zoom course will run across four ‘seasons’, each of roughly three-months. Each season will address a different stage of short fiction writing. You can either join us for the full 12 months and evolve your story/ies as the year proceeds, or, if you feel one season speaks to the stage you’ve already arrived at in your writing project, you can hop aboard for that. Read a full outline of each season’s course content below.
Main elements of the course include group workshops, writing sessions, two one-to-one tutorials each season and a closing ceilidh to share your work.
Each season will include:
- three Tuesday group workshop sessions (2 hours each)
- a 20-minute introductory one-to-one tutorial with Cynan
- a 40-minute intensive one-to-one tutorial with Cynan (up to 2,000 words submission)
- 2 x 1-hour writing sessions with optional prompts, hosted by Cynan
- 4 x 1-hour writing sessions, hosted by Moniack Mhor staff
- a final ceilidh celebration and sharing of your work (2 hours)
- support from your Moniack Mhor host, plus optional drop-ins for 15 minutes before each workshop session to chat with your group
You’ll also be invited to join an interactive online forum, which will provide a space to chat with your group, share work and ideas, and where you’ll find resources connected with the workshop sessions.
Course outline by seasons
Season One – Find the story you want to tell (April to June 2024)
For people who want to start writing, people who already write but want to bring a new spark to their work, or for up-and-running writers looking to find inspiration for their next project.
By the end of the season, you’ll have started a new piece or reinvigorated a work in progress, will have embraced early draft writing, and will have a strong engaging base to build from.
Season Two – Unlock your story’s potential (July to September 2024)
For people who want to find the potential and pitfalls of their work in progress, and tackle issues that might be holding their story/ies up.
Over the season, you will have explored new elements, themes and possibilities, understood how to embrace or reject them, and will have a better sense of what your story/ies should be.
Season Three – Bring your story to life (October to December 2024)
For writers who want to find the strongest way to tell the story/ies they have arrived at and make the protagonists, settings and events as rich, appropriate, and compelling as possible.
During this season, you will have lifted your story/ies off the page, brought detail alive, and made your narrative as immersive and convincing as you can.
Season Four – Make the most of your story (January to March 2025)
For writers who have ‘nearly’ finished and want their story/ies to be as strong and impactful as possible, on the page, and beyond the page.
Over the season, you will have raised the level of your story/ies, will have a better idea of what you’ve really written, and a realistic sense of what to do with your work next.
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Season One Timetable – Find the story you want to tell (April to June 2024)
Tuesday 9 April 11:00-13:00 Welcome and Workshop 1
Tuesday 16 April 12:30-13:30 Writing session
Tuesday 23 April 12:30-13:30 Writing session
Tuesday 30 April 11:00-13:00 Workshop 2
Tuesday 7 May 12:30-13:30 Writing session
Tuesday 21 May 12:30-13:30 Writing session
Tuesday 28 May 11:00-13:00 Workshop 3 – Q&A
Tuesday 11 June 12:30-13:30 Writing session
Tuesday 25 June 12:30-13:30 Writing session
Friday 28 June 18:30-20:30 Ceilidh sharing session
All workshops include a short break. Moniack Mhor staff will be on hand to support you during your course.
As a rule, writing sessions will run as scheduled on Tuesday mornings between 12:30-13:30h (UK BST, GMT +1), and include 10-15 minutes for chat and 45-50 minutes quiet writing time. We may request flexibility to offer alternative and | or additional writing session times to suit your tutor and the group.
Tutorials
Your two one-to-one tutorials with Cynan will be scheduled at times to suit you when the course starts. The 20-minute introductory ones near the start of the season, the 40-minute ones at a later point.
Signing up
This course will run with 12 participants each season. You can join on a season by season basis or let us know if you’d like to book the whole year. Writers who take part in all four seasons will be offered a £40 discount of their Season 4 fee.
We will offer priority booking to continuing participants in seasons two, three and four. New participants will also be welcome each season if spaces are available.
Tutor
Cynan Jones is an acclaimed fiction writer from the west coast of Wales. His work has appeared in over 20 countries, and in journals and magazines including Granta, Freeman’s and the New Yorker. He has also written a screenplay for the hit crime drama Hinterland, a collection of tales for children, and a number of stories for BBC Radio. He has been longlisted and shortlisted for numerous awards, and won, among other prizes, the Wales Book of the Year Fiction Prize, a Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Award, and the BBC National Short Story Award.
Cynan worked for a number of years as the Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Aberystwyth University, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2019, and has accumulated countless hours of tutoring and mentoring experience over the last 20 years.
Fees
The full fee for each season of this online course is £340. A deposit of £100 is required to secure your place each season, which is non-refundable after a 14-day cooling-off period. The balance payment of £240 is due six weeks before the course begins.
Bursaries are available, and you also have the option to pay in instalments, please email online@moniackmhor.org.uk to enquire.
For more information please email online@moniackmhor.org.uk.