“You’re in the middle of writing something and your mind goes blank… ok, you’re being warned, aren’t you?” Discover Ray Bradbury’s simple trick for overcoming writer’s block.

Lesson Eighteen: Writer’s Block

James Baldwin

Contemporary novelist Caryl Phillips close reads a dramatic passage from ‘Another Country’ by James Baldwin to see what we can learn from the great American writer.

Lesson Seventeen: What I Learned from James Baldwin

If you’re going to put your work out in the world, then sooner or later, someone’s going to take a pop at it. This lesson features tips on handling critics from novelists John Fowles and Graham Greene, plus some unexpected behaviour from Henry James.

Lesson Sixteen: Dealing with Critics

“Easy reading is damned hard writing,” says Maya Angelou. Hear the many pains she takes to ‘sharpen her language’ in this lesson about revising your work.

Lesson Fifteen: Write and Repeat

Graham Greene

Hear how Graham Greene gradually evolves a character – and a novel - on a research trip to a leper colony in the Congo.

Lesson Fourteen: In Search of a Character with Graham Greene

Sometimes the world gives writers a location so atmospheric it’s just waiting for a back story. But how do we do it justice? Poet Ted Hughes, diarist Christopher Isherwood and Vladimir Nabokov on capturing the soul of a place in words.

Lesson Thirteen: Place

Allen Ginsberg

How often do you get the chance to attend a lecture by one of the Beats? An extraordinary opportunity to spend time with poet Allen Ginsberg, as he explains Jack Kerouac’s theory of writing.

Lesson Twelve: A Workshop with Allen Ginsberg

If you want to write good dialogue, you need good ears. Listen to all the little idiosyncrasies of an individual voice: the cadences, elisions, flourishes. With an extended reading from short-story writer and poet, Grace Paley.

Lesson Eleven: Listen Up!

Waiting for the muse to strike? Give it up and get writing. Here are five creation stories from the archives to inspire you, from novelists Beryl Bainbridge, John Fowles, Daphne du Maurier, Roald Dahl and Ray Bradbury.

Lesson Ten: Find your Story

In praise of day-dreaming, holidays and playing hookey: this lesson exalts the importance of time off.  Go to the pub with W.B. Yeats, flit through the airport with Noel Coward, and wander the streets of Paris with Henry Miller.

Lesson Nine: Keep Human

Lessons in creative writing from a ghostly array of great novelists, poets and playwrights such as Ted Hughes, W.B. Yeats and Allen Ginsberg. Presented by Cathy FitzGerald.

The subconscious mind can be the writer’s greatest helper – or nastiest foe. This lesson considers ways to access its mysterious depths, with archive clips of novelists Doris Lessing and Aldous Huxley and a mesmerising reading of “I’ve Known Rivers” by poet Langston Hughes.

Lesson Eight: The Writer’s Mind

Yes, we need talent – but we also need discipline. In other words: keep your ass in the chair. With tips from Daphne du Maurier, Graham Greene and James Bond creator, Ian Fleming.

Lesson Seven:  Routines and Rituals

Show don’t tell. Well, no, actually – show AND tell. This lesson explores different ways of presenting a scene, with tips from the Yiddish writer, Isaac Bashevis Singer, playwright Harold Pinter, and a wonderfully creepy fairy tale from Angela Carter.

Lesson Six: A Note on Style

To plot or not to plot – that’s the question. Some writers plan in advance; others set out without a map and see where they wind up. Featuring archive of Angela Carter, Elmore Leonard, and Ray Bradbury, plus William Golding as the Stern Teacher.

Lesson Five: Planning a Route

How nosy are you about your protagonist? Do you know what she eats for breakfast? Likes to dance to? How she parts her hair? A lesson about creating characters, with tips from Graham Greene and Muriel Spark, plus Baroness Orczy reveals how she met the Scarlet Pimpernel.

Lesson Four: Creating Characters

How do we recognise a dancing, hell-raising word from one that just wants a quiet life flat on the page? Poet Ted Hughes helps us recognise words that act and use their muscles, plus rare archive recording of Virginia Woolf.

Lesson Three: Getting Better Acquainted with Words

How do we find a voice? Figure out what’s ours – and only ours – to say? Tips from Neil Gaiman and Invisible College favourite, Ray Bradbury, plus stand-up and burps from Charles Bukowski.

Lesson Two: Sell your Heart

If you want to write – read. Marinate your mind in the sentence and the word. With Susan Sontag on the book-drunken life; Ralph Ellison on the jazzy genius of TS Eliot; and Eudora Welty, whose mother bartered her hair for a barrel of books.

Lesson One: The Importance of Reading

Simply the greatest podcast on writing I’ve ever listened to. An inspirational masterpiece, I hope they produce a follow-up someday.

Wonderful

The Invisible College

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