This writing retreat is from 3 PM Friday, April 2 through 4 PM Sunday, April 4, 2027.

Registration

The retreat fee is £650 and covers:

• All lectures and performances, evening talks, workshops, and panel discussions.

• Breakfast, lunch, and dinners.

• Coffee, tea, and cake breaks.

At the time of registration, please fill out the application.

One-to-One

A review of 15 pages of work and a 30-minute meeting is available for £95. Write to Kathryn at kathryn (at) kathrynaalto.com to schedule prior to the retreat.

Accommodation

To keep costs low, accommodation is arranged independently by participants at nearby hotels or guest houses. This flexibility allows you to choose from a range of options to suit your preferences and budget. These include hotels such as Travelodge Hotel, Premiere Inn, and Hartnoll Hotel.  Lovely bed and breakfasts are also available in the area. Four rooms are available at Ashley Court for £110 per night on a first-come, first-served basis. Write to Kathryn to enquire about their availability.

1. What is the Retreat into the Devon Countryside? The Retreat into the Devon Countryside is an intimate, immersive residential writing retreat held at Ashley Court, a historic private estate in Devon, England. It brings together serious writers, emerging voices, and creative adventurers for three days of masterclasses, workshops, live music, songwriting, campfire singing, and deep creative community — all set against one of the most beautiful landscapes in the English countryside. It is unlike any other writing retreat in the UK.

2. Who is this writing retreat for? This Devon writing retreat welcomes writers at every level and from every background — whether you are working on a memoir, developing a creative nonfiction book, exploring narrative nonfiction for the first time, writing nature essays, or simply seeking the time, space, and community to reconnect with your creative practice. You do not need to be published. You do not need to have a project underway. You need only arrive with curiosity and a willingness to work. Many past participants have described it as the most creatively alive they have felt in years.

3. I write fiction. Is this retreat right for me? Yes. While the teaching has particular depth for writers of memoir, creative nonfiction, and songwriting, the craft principles Kathryn and Jon teach — voice, structure, character, time, and the architecture of a true story and song — are directly applicable across genres. Fiction writers consistently find the workshops transformative as character, setting, dialogue, language, voice and other features of narrative nonfiction draw upon these components.

4. Where does the retreat take place? The retreat is held at Ashley Court, a privately owned historic estate in Devon, England, surrounded by walled gardens, ancient woodland, and the pastoral Devon countryside. The house is a place of extraordinary atmosphere — fireplaces, modern art, candlelit rooms, and a 19th-century Broadwood grand piano that Jon Boden will play during evening performances. It is the kind of setting that makes writing feel both possible and necessary.

5. Who are the tutors and guest artists? Kathryn Aalto — New York Times bestselling author, historian, and one of the most sought-after teachers of narrative nonfiction and memoir writing in the UK and US — leads the writing workshops and masterclasses. Jon Boden — eleven-time BBC Radio 2 Folk Award winner, former lead singer of Bellowhead, and one of the most original creative practitioners in British folk music — returns as musician and creative collaborator, leading an evening songwriting workshop, performing in the candlelit parlour and outside, and joining the campfire on the final night. Additional faculty will be announced in spring 2026.

6. Can I speak with Kathryn before registering? Yes. Kathryn offers a free consultation for anyone considering the retreat. Book a time directly here.

7. When does the retreat take place? The retreat runs from 3:00 PM on Friday 2 April to 4:00 PM on Sunday 4 April 2027. Arrival on Friday afternoon is followed by a welcome dinner; the programme concludes with a closing session and farewell on Sunday afternoon.

8. What is included in the tuition fee? Tuition covers all writing workshops, masterclasses, guided writing sessions, Jon Boden’s evening performance and songwriting workshop, course materials, and all refreshments and catering during sessions — including breakfasts, lunches, afternoon teas, and evening dinners. Alcohol is separate. The long tables, the conversation, the firelight, and the company are all part of what you are paying for.

9. Is accommodation included? There are four rooms available at Ashley Court. (Contact Kathryn directly as early registrants will have access to these rooms.) Accommodation is not included in the tuition fee, and very affordable options are available locally. Upon registration, you will receive a curated list of nearby places to stay — charming Devon B&Bs, local inns, and country guesthouses — chosen to complement the retreat experience. Many past participants have found that staying locally deepens their immersion in the Devon countryside.

10. What should I bring? A notebook, pens, or laptop — whichever you prefer to write with. Comfortable clothes and walking shoes for the grounds and surrounding lanes. A sense of curiosity, and an appetite for both creativity and conversation. Evening dinners are a dressed-up affair, so bring something you feel good in. You are welcome to bring a work-in-progress for optional feedback, though this is never required.

11. Can I attend if I’m not currently working on a project? Absolutely. Some of the best creative breakthroughs happen precisely when there is no project to protect. Many participants arrive simply to think, to write freely, to begin something new, or to fill what one past guest called their creative cup back up to the brim. The retreat is a space for all of it.

12. Is the songwriting workshop only for musicians? Not at all. Jon Boden’s songwriting workshop is designed specifically for writers who may never have written a song — and for emerging songwriters who want to work more deeply with language and structure. If you can write a sentence, you can write a lyric. Jon’s gift is showing you how close the two crafts already are. No musical instrument or experience is required.

13. Will there be free time? Yes. The schedule balances structured workshops and masterclasses with long, unhurried stretches for walking and reflection, reading in a quiet corner of Ashley Court, journalling in the walled garden, or taking up the optional yoga and massage sessions available during the retreat. Solitude and conversation are both fully catered for.

14. What makes Ashley Court different from other writing retreat venues in England? Ashley Court offers something that very few residential writing retreat venues in the UK can match: a genuine sense of historic place, combined with working gardens, surrounding countryside, and rooms that have their own stories layered into the walls. It is not a hotel or a conference centre. It is a private home, and it feels like one — which means the retreat feels like being a guest in someone’s extraordinary life rather than an attendee at an event. The walled gardens, the warmth of the hosts Tara and Nigel, the cats who curl themselves in your lap during a lecture, the Broadwood piano, the kitchen garden that feeds your meals — all of it contributes to an atmosphere that is quietly and persistently inspiring.

15. Are places limited? Yes, and intentionally so. There are 25 places available to preserve the intimacy and focus that make it distinctive among writing retreats in England. Early registration is strongly encouraged. Places will fill quickly.

16. How do I register? Complete the application form below. If you have questions before applying, book a free consultation with Kathryn here.

17. What is the refund policy? Cancellations made more than four weeks before the retreat start date will receive a full refund. Cancellations after March 2, 2027 will receive a 50% refund. Cancellations within one week of the retreat cannot be refunded, but your place may be transferred to another participant. Travel insurance is recommended.

18. I’ve never been on a writing retreat before. Is this a good place to start? It is an ideal place to start. The retreat is designed to welcome creatives who are entirely new to the retreat experience alongside those who have attended many. The atmosphere is warm, the group is small, and the programme moves at a pace that allows everyone to find their own rhythm. Past first-time retreat participants have described it as the thing they wished they had done years earlier.

The following is the writing retreat schedule that shows the flow of the weekend. There are occasional references to what was taught before. More forthcoming. To request the itinerary from 2026, please contact Kathryn.

Subject to change

Friday, April 2, 2027

3 PM Check-in and explore gardens and countryside surrounding Ashley Court

6 PM Fireside Welcome, Introductions and “The Narrative Life and Why We Write: To Live Twice” with Host Kathryn Aalto

7 PM Dinner by Candlelight 

8:30-9:30 PM After Dinner Talk with Kathleen Jamie

Kathleen will join us for an after-dinner talk and an intimate candlelight conversation with Kathryn Aalto — one of those rare evenings that retreatants remember for a long time afterwards. By candlelight, in the beautiful surroundings of Ashley Court, Kathleen will speak about her creative process: how poems begin, how essays find their shape, what it means to attend to the natural world with the particular quality of attention that has made her one of the most celebrated writers of her generation. She will read from her work — poetry and prose both — and she and Kathryn will fall into the kind of wide-ranging, unhurried conversation that is only possible when the day’s workshops are done and the room feels like a gathering of friends, open for questions. Expect to talk about the relationship between poetry and prose, about landscape and language, about the discipline of seeing clearly and the courage of saying what you see. Expect, too, to leave the evening with a notebook full of ideas and a renewed sense of what your own writing can become.

Saturday, April 3, 2027

8–9 AM Breakfast

9–11 AM Poetry and Prose with Kathleen Jamie

Kathleen Jamie will lead us in a writing workshop that grows naturally from the conversation of the evening before. We will gather in a circle — and if the Devon morning is kind, as it so often is in early April, we may move outside into the grounds of Ashley Court, writing in the open air with the landscape itself as both prompt and companion. Kathleen will set writing exercises drawn from her own practice, inviting you to work at different levels and stages of a poem — to make choices about sound, image, rhythm, and attention that you may never have made consciously before. This is not a lecture. It is a dialogue: between Kathleen and the group, between poetry and prose, between the exercises on the page and the conversation that opens up around them. She will respond to your work with the same quality of attention she brings to her own, and students often find that a single exchange in a workshop like this — a question answered, an idea reconsidered, a new possibility glimpsed — can shift something in their writing that stays shifted. Come ready to write, to listen, and to be surprised by what the morning brings.

11 AM Coffee Break

11:30–1 PM Song-lyric Writing for Non-Songwriters with Jon Boden

• What are the fundamental differences between song-lyric writing and poetry?
• How can a non-musician approach lyric writing?
• How can engaging with the art form of song-lyric writing interact with other types of writing and enrich your own practice?

1-2 PM Lunch

2-3:30 The Red Thread: Structure, Arc, and the Architecture of a Piece with Kathryn Aalto

Every piece of writing has a spine — an organising idea, a thread of meaning that runs through it from the first sentence to the last, holding everything together even when the writing ranges freely across time, place, and subject. Finding that thread, trusting it, and following it all the way to the end is one of the most important and least-taught skills in narrative nonfiction. This workshop is about exactly that.

Using her signature red thread and pins metaphor — a way of thinking about narrative arc that students in Kathryn’s writing programmes have found genuinely transformative — Kathryn will guide participants through the structural logic of a piece of narrative nonfiction: how it begins, how it moves, and how it ends. We will look at how the opening of a piece makes a promise to the reader, and how the ending must honour that promise in a way that feels both inevitable and alive. We will work with examples from the finest practitioners of lyrical narrative nonfiction, and we will work with your own writing — mapping its arc, finding where the thread goes slack, and discovering where it pulls taut with meaning.

Come with a piece in progress, or simply come ready to write. You will leave with a clearer sense of how your material wants to be shaped — and with the structural tools to shape it.

3:30-5 PM Coffee Break and Open Mic

We’ll gather for a late-afternoon of shared voices and stories. Open Mic Hour is an informal, welcoming space for writers to read their work aloud—whether a finished piece, something newly written during the retreat, or a passage still finding its form. This hour is not a performance, but a celebration of expression and listening. It’s a chance to hear the rhythms and cadences of your own voice, to test the weight of words in the air, and to experience the resonance that comes when stories are shared in community. Participants are invited to read for up to five minutes. You may bring a piece prepared in advance or select something you’ve written during the weekend. Simply sign up on the list posted earlier in the day.

Tea, wine, and warmth will be on hand as we gather to honour language, courage, and the joy of being heard.

5–8 PM: Quiet Reflective Time and Connection

8 PM Dinner

9:30 PM Music and Campfire with Jon Boden

In 2026, Jon performed from 9 PM until 1:30 AM and it was so magical and memorable. Imagine glowing candelabras, a soaring tenor in a room made for live voices, and a spellbound audience.  He braided live music from his career as a solo artist, part of a duo (Spiers and Boden), and with bands (The Remnant Kings, Bellowhead) with a talk on “The Creative Life: Purpose, Balance, and Perspective.” In 2027, Jon will be playing music around a campfire Ashley Court, improvising songs written by retreat participants and drawing upon his rich musical performance history. We are not merely observing a performance but taking part.

Sunday, April 4, 2027

8–9:30 AM Breakfast

9:30-11 AM The Narrative Life: What the Page Teaches Us About Living with Kathryn Aalto

Saturday will be a late night, so here we have a later start!

There is a moment that many writers recognise — sometimes years into their practice — when they realise that the skills they have been developing at the desk have quietly been reshaping the way they move through the world. They notice more. They listen differently. They find themselves standing in an ordinary moment — a conversation, a landscape, a loss — and sensing, beneath the surface of it, a structure. A shape. A meaning that was always there, waiting to be seen.

This class is built around that realisation, and takes it seriously as both a literary and a philosophical proposition: that the tools of narrative nonfiction are not only tools for writing. They are tools for living.

We will take each element of the craft in turn and turn it outward — from the page toward the life. Narrative presence asks us, on the page, to be fully in the scene: to render experience with the kind of sensory and emotional specificity that makes a reader feel they are there. But what does it mean to bring that same quality of presence to our actual days — to be, in our own lives, the attentive narrator rather than the distracted one? Narrative arc invites us to ask, of any piece of writing, where it is going and what it is becoming. The same question, asked of a life, is not a trivial one. Character — the deep, patient study of what makes a person who they are — teaches us a quality of attention toward others that has consequences far beyond the literary. Dialogue, on the page, is never merely conversation: it is revelation, tension, subtext, connection. To listen to the people in our lives the way a writer listens for dialogue is to hear what is not being said as clearly as what is.

Language and voice — the twin disciplines of finding the precise word and the authentic self behind the sentence — are, in life as on the page, acts of courage. To speak in your own voice, to resist the approximate and the performed, to mean what you say and say what you mean: these are not only stylistic virtues. They are ethical ones. Setting and resonance — the writer’s understanding that a place is never merely backdrop, that landscape carries meaning, that where we are shapes who we are — gives us a richer relationship with the physical world we inhabit. And the principle of resonance itself: the idea that the particular contains the universal, that the part speaks to the whole, that a single well-observed detail can open onto everything — this is perhaps the deepest gift the craft can offer a life. It is the understanding that nothing is too small to matter, and that attention, paid honestly and long enough, always finds its way to something true.

The Narrative Life is not a metaphor. It is a practice. And this class is an invitation to begin — or deepen — yours.

11-11:30 AM Coffee Break

11:30-1 PM Collaborating with Voices from the Past with Jon Boden

When a theatre director creates a production of Shakespeare, it is assumed that they will re-shape it into something original, something personal, something that chimes with the twenty-first-century concerns that Shakespeare himself could not possibly have comprehended. Shakespeare’s texts are not viewed as sacred objects that must not be interfered with, but living, breathing works of art that can interact with and adapt to modern creative voices. Although well established in drama, this relationship is often not the case with poetry, prose and song lyrics from the past, where the text is more often seen as an immutable artefact to be revered but not actively interacted with.

• How can the work of writers from the past enrich our own practice?
• What are our responsibilities to those whose work we are utilising?
• Can a collaboration with a long-dead writer be a dialogue with that artist, or are we just unilaterally repurposing their creation for our own purposes?

1-2 PM Lunch

2-3:30 PM The Living Witness: Narrative Nonfiction in the Age of AI with Kathryn

There is something that artificial intelligence cannot do, and it is the thing that narrative nonfiction does better than any other form: it bears witness. It places a singular human consciousness — with its particular history, its scars and longings, its specific way of standing in the world — in contact with reality, and brings back a true account. That act of witnessing is not a supplement to knowledge. It is a form of knowledge. And in a cultural moment when language is increasingly generated rather than lived, it matters more than ever.

This class takes up the question of what it means to be a narrative nonfiction writer right now — not with anxiety, but with clarity and a renewed sense of purpose. We will consider what the form has always offered that no algorithm can replicate: embodied experience, moral complexity, the irreducible particularity of a life. The smell of a place. The weight of a grief. The precise quality of light on a specific morning that changed everything. These are not decorative details. They are the form’s deepest argument for its own necessity.

We will also think about the writer’s role in society more broadly — as cultural memory-keeper, as truth-teller, as the person in the room who stayed long enough and looked hard enough to say something real. Narrative nonfiction has always been a literature of presence. In an age of absence — of generated text, of synthetic voice, of content without consequence — that presence is not just valuable. It is radical. It is, perhaps, the most important thing a writer can offer the world right now.

Come ready for a conversation that may well change how you think about why you write. And leave the retreat with an inspired and renewed sense of purpose.

3:30-4 PM Farewell

Kathryn Aalto: Author, Teacher, and Guide to the Art of Narrative Nonfiction

If you have ever wanted to write the true story that has been living inside you — and wanted someone in the room who knows exactly how to help you find it — Kathryn Aalto is that person.

Kathryn is a New York Times bestselling author, historian, literary scholar, and one of the most sought-after teachers of narrative nonfiction and memoir writing working in the UK and US today. Her teaching is the kind that writers describe in the same breath as life-changing: technically rigorous, deeply personal, and lit throughout by a contagious enthusiasm for what becomes possible when a writer finally learns to trust their own story.

The Books

Her writing moves at the intersection of story, history, landscape, and the natural world — territory that will feel immediately resonant to anyone drawn to nature writing, memoir, creative nonfiction, or the kind of literary essay that asks serious questions about how we belong to places and to time.

The Natural World of Winnie-the-Pooh (2015) traces the real landscapes and lives behind one of the most beloved stories in the English language. Writing Wild: Women Poets, Ramblers, and Mavericks Who Shape How We See the Natural World (2020) recovers the voices of the women writers, walkers, and visionaries who taught us how to look at the land — and whose example continues to shape how nature writing is made today. Both books are well-researched yet written in her trademark style that is both accessible and lyrical. Her work has been reviewed in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times, and she has contributed essays and criticism to Smithsonian, Outside, BuzzFeed, and international publications across the UK and US.

The Teaching

For more than twenty-five years, Kathryn has taught narrative nonfiction, memoir, and creative writing at every level — from complete beginners finding their way to a first draft, to experienced writers working toward their next publication. She has lectured at universities on both sides of the Atlantic, led immersive writing retreats across the UK and the United States, and guided thousands of writers through the particular challenges of telling true stories well: how to structure a life on the page, how to find the voice that is unmistakably yours, how to sustain a creative practice through the inevitable difficulties of a writing life.

Her approach draws equally on literary depth and practical technique. She does not teach writing as a set of rules to follow but as a set of questions to live inside — questions about time, memory, character, voice, and what it means to render the real world with the precision and care that narrative nonfiction demands. Writers who work with her leave not just with stronger drafts but with a clearer understanding of who they are as writers, and why that matters.

At the Devon retreat, Kathryn will lead workshops in creative nonfiction and memoir writing tailored to the full range of experience in the room. Whether you are beginning a book, deepening a project already underway, or simply trying to understand what kind of writer you are, her sessions will give you the tools, the perspective, and the confidence to move forward.

The Background

Kathryn holds a degree in Literature from the University of California, Berkeley, a Master’s in Creative Nonfiction from Western Washington University, and a Master’s in Garden History from the University of Bristol. She is also a trained garden designer, a former award-winning arts administrator, and has appeared in film and on television as an authority on literature, landscape, and the natural world. She lives in Devon — which means she brings to this retreat not only her expertise but an intimate, lived knowledge of the landscape that surrounds it.

She is, in other words, precisely the teacher this retreat was built around.

Jon Boden: Musician, Composer, and Creative Collaborator

Jon Boden is one of the most influential and widely celebrated figures in modern British folk music — and one of the most compelling creative minds you will encounter at any writing retreat anywhere in England.

His story begins, as the best ones do, with two people and a shared obsession. In 2001, Jon began performing traditional English songs alongside melodeon player John Spiers. The duo became Spiers & Boden, and Spiers & Boden became the seed of something larger: Bellowhead, an 11-piece folk ensemble that would go on to become the most successful traditional folk band of its generation — selling out concert halls, headlining festivals, and introducing a new audience to the raw vitality of English folk music.

Over the course of his career, Jon has won eleven BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards — more than any other artist in the history of the award. But the accolades, impressive as they are, tell only part of the story.

In 2010, at the height of Bellowhead’s success, Jon launched one of the most quietly radical creative projects in recent British musical history: A Folk Song A Day, in which he recorded and released one traditional unaccompanied song every single day for a year. The project was an act of cultural generosity — a celebration of song as a living, social, communal practice — and created an extraordinary digital archive of folk heritage that continues to be discovered by new listeners today.

Beyond performance, Jon is a composer, educator, and original thinker about creativity. He has composed for theatre at the Royal Shakespeare Company. He has pioneered Colourchord, an accessible system for teaching four-part harmony singing that brings communal music-making to people with no formal training — the same spirit of openness and inclusion he will bring to the songwriting workshop at Ashley Court. His three solo albums — Songs From The Floodplain (2009), Afterglow (2017), and Last Mile Home (2021) — form a post-oil concept trilogy that moves through landscape, resilience, and what it means to be human when the old certainties fall away. For writers working in narrative nonfiction, memoir, and nature writing, the thematic territory will feel immediately familiar.

Jon studied Medieval History and Literature at Durham University and Composition for Theatre at the London College of Music. He holds honorary doctorates from both institutions for his contributions to English folk music and culture.

At the Devon retreat, Jon will perform in the candlelit parlour at Ashley Court, lead a songwriting workshop open to writers at every level of musical experience, and sing around a campfire. He has also created a specially curated Spotify playlist to begin your immersion in his world before you arrive.

For writers who have never thought of themselves as songwriters — and for those who have always suspected they might be — this is a rare opportunity to learn from one of the most original creative practitioners working in Britain today.

Learn more about Jon and his work here.

More teachers to be announced in Spring 2026.

“Listening to Katy, Rob and Jon share their expertise, experience and wisdom, and spending time in the company of fellow creatives was both illuminating and deeply nourishing. Every detail of the Retreat into the Devon Countryside was thoughtfully considered from the stunning setting at Ashley Court and the personalised, handwritten letter given to each of us on the first day to the wisdom and generosity shared, fireside conversations and exquisite food. The experience was the soul medicine I needed, more so than I realised at the time.” — Nicky J., Devon, England

“For me, the Rural Writing Institute was a dream opportunity: a perfect location, and the chance to learn craft from fabulous writers rooted in the land, as well as other accomplished and prominent practitioners of poetry and creative nonfiction. What I had not expected, but has proved equally powerful, was the immediate creation of a writing community characterised by profound mutual trust and fellowship. In those few days, we began friendships — across nation, gender, age, levels of experience, and multiple other differences — that will clearly endure. That such a group of colleagues and comrades was forged during the Institute is a tribute to the transformative generosity shown by Kathryn, James, and the Rebanks family. Their trust, openness, respect, and genuine joy in the work they do spread outward to all of us. The seeds planted and nourished there have already born rich crops of creative work and professional advancement.” — Nicola Pitchford, winner of the 2022 Nature Chronicles Prize

“I’ve had the privilege of learning from Katy as part of the Rural Writing Institute, and in her Life Writing class. The class every fortnight gave me momentum and accountability, things which can be hard to muster on my own. As well as learning loads about theory, and reading some brilliantly insightful books together, I benefitted hugely from submitting writing each session and having others read it and feedback — this was something I was nervous of at the start, but it became one of the things I most valued. Katy’s experience and passion shine through, and each of us could feel that she cared about our words, and cared deeply about us becoming the best writers we can be. My writing and ideas felt safe here, which encouraged me to dig deeper. An unexpected gift of the course was the incredibly supportive community — something I hadn’t realised was so important in the writing life, but which now feels as vital as pen and paper. Thank you Katy for sharing your knowledge, experience, encouragement and passion with us, and for building such a great community.” — Elizabeth W., Devon, England

“Margaret Atwood said “If you really want to write, and you’re struggling to get started, you’re afraid of something”. Kathryn fixes those nagging fears by showing writers what we have that is already good, and what we can do better tomorrow. It’s win-win, and she remakes a traditional “class” into such an enjoyable, productive journey. I’ve also been lucky enough to experience the awe-inspiring surroundings and warm community that form the bedrock of the Rural Writing Institute. It’s not often that you can genuinely say that one long weekend shifted the way you look at the world, but the effects are still with me in my reading and writing years later.” — Caroline R., Aberdeen, Scotland

“I was privileged to be part of 2018’s Rural Writing Institute cohort and to meet an amazing and diverse group of writers through that. However, taking a course with Katy has been the catalyst which has not only got me into the habit of writing, but has taken that writing to a whole new level. Katy helped me to see that I could do better, through a mixture of well-managed discussion and timely, constructive feedback. She has turned me from an aspiring writer into an emerging one. It sounds cheesy, but her course really has been life-changing.”  — Sarah H., Yorkshire, England

“I learnt so much from taking Kathryn’s Memoir and Life Writing course. Although I had published a lot of academic work, I was struggling making the transition to writing in a more personal vein and lacking in confidence. I found in Kathryn a superbly knowledgeable and lucid teacher. Through the lectures and class discussion, I learnt how to implement narrative nonfiction techniques and, in just a few weeks, saw my writing become much more engaging and evocative. I also benefited from being part of a supportive and friendly learning community, and building relationships that I expect to last far beyond the duration of the course. Finally, I really appreciated Kathryn’s warmth and positivity, both in the virtual classroom and in her individual feedback. She was an attentive and sympathetic reader of my work, giving clear guidance for improvement while simultaneously building my confidence. The course enabled me to see new possibilities in my writing and I am keen to work with Kathryn again as I continue to develop.” — David H., Leeds, England