Comma Press Online Science-Fiction Short Story Course

Join Manchester-based Comma Press for their latest series of six creative writing workshops, held online fortnightly on Wednesday evenings (12 August, 26 August, 9 September, 23 September, 7 October and 21 October). Led by Andy Hedgecock, this course is specifically about science fiction (sf), and will help you get a handle on the predominant narrative structures and techniques used by short story writers in that genre, including characterisation, dialogue and narrative voice.

You don’t necessarily need any experience of creative writing , but it’s important that you have an interest in, and enthusiasm for, the short story form and the science-fiction genre. To get the most from the course, you should be prepared to do some background reading, undertake writing between sessions, and contribute your opinions and insight during the group discussions.

This course is specifically about science fiction (sf), and will help you get a handle on the predominant narrative structures and techniques used by short story writers in that genre

This isn’t a course devised to help you write a novel, a novella, poetry, micro-fiction, or biography – it’s all about the short story, which presents its own specific demands and opportunities to writers (for the avoidance of doubt, short stories typically weigh in at somewhere between 1,500 and 8,000 words long; see more here).

Andy Hedgecock is a freelance writer, researcher and trainer. His earliest reviews, essays and interviews were published in the anarchist press in the 1980s. Since then he has written for publications such as The Spectator, Time Out, Penguin City Guides, The Oxford Companion to English Literature, Interzone, The Third Alternative, The Breaking Windows Anthology and Foundation. Andy was co-editor (fiction) of Interzone, Britain’s longest-running British sf magazine, from 2006 to 2016. He is a regular contributor to The Morning Star.