Mentor: Mavis Cheek
IF YOU HAVE BEEN hesitant about starting to write but think you might, this course will give you some of the pointers and encouragement you need to have a go. If you have already begun but have ground to a halt, the course will help to kick start your writing again and encourage you to look at your work afresh. We will look at character, setting, dialogue and form - sometimes a book is actually a short story and a short story is really a book. There will be morning workshops to loosen up the creative muscles with writing exercises that are fun as well as practical and in the afternoons you will each have the opportunity for one to one consultation with your tutor. At this stage writing is all about enjoyment - the pain comes later

MAVIS CHEEK was born and grew up in Wimbledon. She began her working life at Editions Alecto, the contemporary art publishers. After Alecto, she attended Hillcroft College for Women from where she graduated in Arts. After her daughter Bella was born, she began her writing career in earnest; journalism and travel writing at first, then short stories, and eventually, in 1988, her novel Pause Between Acts was published by Bodley Head and won the She/John Menzies First Novel Prize. She is the author of thirteen novels novels including Mrs Fytton's Country Life, Janice Gentle Gets Sexy and, most recently, Amenable Women which was described in The Times as 'a brilliantly funny, warm, intelligent read'. She now lives and writes in the heart of the English countryside..