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“See what you’ve already written as raw material.” This is the kind of advice writers dread… “What do you mean? Thousands of words of deathless prose – raw material?” Yet, […]

Here’s a thing: in our bookshop in Wigtown, south Galloway, we have, at a rough estimate, some five thousand books. They’re all second-hand, of course – and they fall into […]

Tackling a book-length project can be a terrifying journey – unless you have someone to hold your hand and keep step with you. Our Mentoring Programme is tailored to each […]

Random events occur in our lives all the time. We make choices, we react to them, they are followed by unconnected occurrences, with no links to what came before or […]

Salley Vickers is a one-time lecturer in Shakespeare and the nineteenth century novel, among other things, a remedial teacher and a psycho-analyst specializing in helping people who are [...]

Someone I know recently had a fall-out with a relative – over words that seemed to her trivial. For a time, she couldn’t understand it at all. After all, what […]

Don’t lose your writing fitness Daily writing is to writers what exercise is to athletes. Stop, and you’re in danger of becoming stiff and stilted. You lose your flexibility and […]

Novels are, first and foremost, stories. Their first job is to intrigue us, involve us, surprise us, jolt us, shock us – and entertain us. The best novels of their […]

“I need to discover whether I’m a writer or not,” one of our participants said, at the start of our new Creative Writing Course. She said it in hushed and […]

Oscar Wilde was at dinner with a group of friends when one of them delivered a little off-the-cuff bon mot of wit and elegance. Oscar exclaimed, “Oh, I wish I’d […]

It’s a hard, lonely process growing your writing discipline… Oh shut up, you old killjoy. We don’t believe that. We’d much rather you had creative fun among like-minded companions, guided […]