Writing about real lives and experiences – your own, or someone else’s – is rewarding but also daunting. What if you have too much information, or your story involves other people? What if you have too little information: how do you fill the gaps? How do you keep the reader reading? What if your core purpose is to write creatively not about a life, but about a specific place or time, journey, experience, sickness, idea or vocation? And when does creative storytelling tip over into fiction?

In this practical tutorial we will dig into all these questions, and use short exercises to explore different ways to tell real-life stories. Whether you’re writing memoir, shaping life-writing round someone in your family or from the past, or want to build a narrative round a specific experience, you should leave with fresh ideas about the possibilities, and  more confidence in how to tackle them.