Calling all aspiring fantasy authors! Curtis Brown Creative (CBC) has opened its new online Writing Fantasy course for applications. Across nine weeks, fifteen students will learn from tutor Lucy Holland (pictured above) during lively Zoom teaching sessions, workshops and one-to-one tutorials.
“I’m thrilled to be working with Curtis Brown Creative to take writers deeper into the core elements of the genre,” said Lucy Holland. “We’ll be looking at worldbuilding on a character level, as well as ways in which fantasy can challenge us to write outside our direct experience. I’m also excited to cover popular subgenres like myth retellings & romantasy, and how to harness tropes to tell a compelling story.”
Students will also attend a special Zoom masterclass with Eliza Chan, author of the number one Sunday Times bestseller Fathomfolk, and her C&W literary agent Alexander Cochran.
This is the latest in CBC’s range of online courses with a genre focus. Students on the course will explore essential elements of fantasy writing – from worldbuilding to using and subverting traditional tropes and creating a cast of characters with series potential.
At the end of the course, the CBC team will help students submit their fantasy novels to the agents at C&W and to Curtis Brown’s newly formed Sci-Fi & Fantasy division. The division launched earlier this year with the goal of ‘discovering and championing voices that can bring fresh and diverse perspectives to a popular genre’.
Notable fantasy authors from their past courses include Rosie Talbot, author of Sixteen Souls, and Megan Scott, author of The Temptation of Magic, which reached number two on the Sunday Times bestseller list when it was published by Harper Voyager in May 2024.
Applicants to Writing Fantasy are invited to submit the opening 3,000 words of their novel-in-progress and one-page synopsis by the deadline: 8 September 2024. The course costs £960. CBC are also providing a scholarship place; the Breakthrough Scholarship for Fantasy Writers with Low Income will award one talented writer a free place on the course. The course will run from 8 October to 3 December 2024.
Find out more about the course here.
