In this six-week course, we will read a short story each week and look at different ways the short story form can be used – sometimes bent, stretched and subverted. The sessions will be playful, allowing a freedom to try new ways of writing.

The short story is a really exciting form. There are conventions to story writing, and you might be familiar with various patterns and shapes which give recognisable shapes to novels and films. Short stories often follow these patterns as well, but because they are short, the form also allows for experimentation - your reader is much more likely to accept strangeness and to revel in the unexpected for ten pages rather than three hundred.

Part of the session each week will be along the lines of a reading group – we will discuss the themes that come up in the story as well as looking at the techniques the writer has employed. In the second half of the session we will examine the techniques more closely and have a go at using them in some writing exercises. There will be an optional homework exercise each week, and you will have the opportunity to share your work with other members of the group.

The days of the sessions will be:

Tuesday 3 November

Tuesday 10 November

Tuesday 17 November

Tuesday 24 November

Tuesday 1 December

Tuesday 8 December