Our fact-based Storytelling Short Course explores how narrative drives different genres including memoir, biography, travel and food writing.

A new 10-week course on longform non-fiction is now open for entrants. Delivered on fortnightly Saturdays at 2pm remotely, it is open to all levels and genres of reportage, including memoir, essay, travel and food writing, and biography.

Based at City, University of London, the course will discuss readings from writers like Joan Didion, George Orwell, Janet Malcolm, Patrick Radden Keefe, and more.

You’ll also workshop each other’s work and receive detailed edits on your writing from the course director.

Course Overview

Understand how to structure, plan your progress, build dramatic tension, how to create character, and instill a sense of place and time.

This London-based, online course is aimed at those who wish to enhance their skills in non-fiction writing. This series of storytelling workshops is taught over five Saturday classes and delivered by a professional writer. Over the 5 fortnightly sessions you will develop your own work, learning from the group and tutor feedback and discussion.

Meet The Tutor

Jem Bartholomew is an award-winning freelance reporter, with a focus on writing narrative nonfiction about poverty, social exclusion and other topics. He recently wrote two chapters for the book of reportage, Broke: Fixing Britain’s Poverty Crisis (Biteback, 2023).

Jem writes for publications including The Guardian, Economist, Wall Street Journal and Columbia Journalism Review. Between 2022 and 2023, he was a reporting fellow at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University.

Jem grew up in council housing in southwest England. He holds master’s degrees in history from Oxford University and in journalism from Columbia University. He has been awarded funding from the US-UK Fulbright Commission, Study Hall, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, and he is the recipient of the 2023 Tony Horwitz Fellowship.

Apply Now

Find out more about the course and secure your space now.