Is your manuscript ready to share with the world? This 4-day intensive course will answer all your most pressing questions. How do you grab an agent’s attention? How do advances and royalties work? What does a PR campaign do for your book, and how should authors engage with social media? Whether you’re working in fiction or non-fiction, you’ll be given tools for editing your work, and guidance on every stage of the publication process, from traditional publishing – how it works and how you can work it – to the pros and cons of self-publishing. You’ll also explore common concerns for writers: legal, contractual, financial and AI.
Your tutors, Jo Thompson (Editorial Director at HarperCollins) and James Spackman, veteran publisher and literary agent (and the industry’s pitching expert – ‘The Book Pitch Doctor’), will help you clarify your personal goals, learn how to tackle your inner critic, discover how to gain distance on your own work, and polish your pitch to perfection.
What to Expect:
• Supportive workshops to deepen your craft: All the essential elements of polishing your prose, from plot and structure to character, voice and point of view, and advice on the next steps – approaching an agent, and beyond
• Expert guidance from your tutors: Experienced industry professionals share their insights into refining your work in progress and giving it the best chances of success
• Personal Feedback: Focused 1:1 sessions with your tutors for constructive feedback on your work
• Exercises: Try out new techniques, learn what to cut and what to keep, and how to pitch your project with conviction
• Community: Share meals and workshops with a supportive group of fellow writers
• At the end of the week: You’ll leave with a fresh sense of direction in your work and a deeper understanding of the processes of publication, from submission to an agent, through the editing stages, to marketing and publicity
*Please use the expandable links below to reveal timings and further details of the course schedule.
Room with a valley view: £640
Rooms in this price band have a single or double bed, and most are on the first or ground floor. One room in this price band is in the attic but has a valley view.
Attic room without a valley view: £590
These rooms have low ceilings and extra stairs to climb.
Concessions: Room with a view: £448
Concessions: Room without a view: £413
As part of our effort to increase participation in the arts, we offer limited concessionary places at a 30% reduction. You can select this option at checkout if available.
Physical access at Lumb Bank:
The upper floor of the barn is accessible by lift, and the ground floor is level access or ramped. There is an accessible toilet on the ground floor. Lumb Bank’s main building is accessible for wheelchair users, but the access to the house itself is down a steep country lane, and the initial part of the driveway is bumpy and uneven. If you are coming on a course and require assistance to enter the building or are a wheelchair user please contact us on access@arvon.org or rozie.kelly@arvon.org so we can meet you on arrival and guide any vehicles in. If you need to park onsite please contact us to arrange this in advance (one space available per course).
Please see our access page for general access information for residential courses.
Our grants scheme may be able to cover a portion of your course fees. Disability costs and additional living/support costs are taken into account when considering your grant application. You may also be entitled to concession pricing on selected courses.
If you have any questions or concerns and want to chat to a member of staff prior to booking please contact us on access@arvon.org
The Ted Hughes Arvon Centre, Lumb Bank is an 18th-century millowner’s house in West Yorkshire, which once belonged to Ted Hughes. It’s set in 20 acres of steep woodland with breathtaking views to the valley below.
You’ll find many quiet places to write in the house and garden – and a well-stocked library. All rooms are single occupancy, and bathrooms are shared.
All your meals are provided, locally and sustainably sourced wherever possible. Help yourself to breakfast, our team will prepare lunch, and dinner is prepared in groups each evening using the delicious recipes and ingredients provided.
Explore the Pennine landscape of woods and rivers, weavers’ cottages, packhorse trails and ruins of old mills. It is half a mile from the historic village of Heptonstall and two miles from Hebden Bridge.
See here for more information on Lumb Bank.
James Spackman
Jo Thompson
