Popping in for a quick announcement! I’m going to be teaching a day course at University of Cambridge this November called ‘Write the one percent: creating diverse, inclusive fiction’. More info here. If you work in a UK state school you can get a 50% bursary on the tuition fee!
During the course of this day-school, we’ll explore the key concepts of diversity in writing and consider why it’s important for writers of all kinds to make their work inclusive. We’ll define some of the most under-represented identities and uncover the common pitfalls in writing about them. How can we avoid stereotypes and inaccurate representation? Thoroughly researching an identity before writing is key, and together we’ll look at how to do that. Through a creative writing exercise, you’ll come to realise to what extent a new perspective and identity can bring real depth and richness to your writing.
Course Programme
10:00 The basics of diverse fiction
11:15 Coffee
11:45 Writing outside of your own experience
13:00 Lunch
14:00 Respectfully writing about sexuality and race in prose
15:15 Tea
15:30 Discussing political and social issues in fiction
16:45 Day school ends
Also, The Quiet at the End of the World was in this week’s Waterstones Weekly newsletter, which I was DELIGHTED by!
And for any speedy readers who have already finished reading The Quiet at the End of the World, I just posted a deleted scene where Lowrie and Shen steal an antique carriage.
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Published by Lauren James
Lauren James is the twice Carnegie-nominated British author of many Young Adult novels, including The Reckless Afterlife of Harriet Stoker, The Loneliest Girl in the Universe and The Quiet at the End of the World. She is also a Creative Writing lecturer, freelance editor, screenwriter, and the founder of the Climate Fiction Writers League. Her upcoming release is Green Rising, a climate change thriller.
Her books have sold over a hundred thousand copies worldwide, been translated into five languages and shortlisted for the YA Book Prize and STEAM Children’s Book Award. Her other novels include The Next Together series, the dyslexia-friendly novella series The Watchmaker and the Duke and serialised online novel An Unauthorised Fan Treatise.
She was born in 1992, and has a Masters degree from the University of Nottingham, UK, where she studied Chemistry and Physics. Lauren is a passionate advocate of STEM further education, and many of her books feature female scientists in prominent roles. She sold the rights to her first novel when she was 21, whilst she was still at university.
Her writing has been described as ‘gripping romantic sci-fi’ by the Wall Street Journal and ‘a strange, witty, compulsively unpredictable read which blows most of its new YA-suspense brethren out of the water’ by Entertainment Weekly. The Last Beginning was named one of the best LGBT-inclusive works for young adults by the Independent.
Lauren lives in the West Midlands and is an Arts Council grant recipient. She has written articles for numerous publications, including the Guardian, Buzzfeed, Den of Geek, The Toast, and the Children’s Writers and Artist’s Yearbook 2021. She teaches creative writing for Coventry University, WriteMentor, and Writing West Midlands, providing creative writing courses to children through the Spark Young Writers programme.
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