Last night was probably the 15th time I’ve watched Aliens — and yet with John Yorke’s five story stages firmly planted in my head I watched it with a fresh pair of eyes. And the film followed these points to a tee. I just wanted to point out the obvious: just how much John and…

I’m a journalist and documentary-maker so I have quite a lot of experience with pitching. However, I had never never thought about my pitches in terms of story elements, story structure — I’ve always just done them on instinct and judging them on whether they read well. So I’m finding John and Peter’s Factual TV…

I couldn’t recommend PWA [and] Faber Academy highly enough. Not only have they taught me how to improve my writing, but the supportive community of fellow writers and the feedback they give is absolutely amazing.

I really appreciate the support and guidance from [the tutor] and the group. This course keeps me opening the laptop.

WIP is really good for learning the craft, redefining how we write and how we make it better i.e. writing with more awareness of different aspects of good writing. The peers are a great bunch of writers. The first session, my tutor put me in a group with two other YA writers to feedback on…

It’s so good to immerse myself not just in my story, but the stories of the other participants. Our stories feel like living, breathing organisms that we’re gradually coaxing into life. Rather like the plants my teenage protagonist is learning to care for in the allotment on his estate.

I have taken the Beginners’ Fiction and Setting courses from Faber Academy, and I have been impressed and grateful at how nurturing and dedicated the Faber Team has been in supporting my ambition to learn — I could not imagine doing this under the aegis of any other writing academy.

I have really enjoyed this course and met some fascinating writers with whom I would like to stay in touch.

This has been an absolutely fantastic group, and I would want to remain in touch. I’ve greatly enjoyed and benefited from working with my fellow students.

The tutor has been a wonderfully astute and I will happily sing his praises to anyone in need of kind but true writing advice. I am so grateful.

The whole point of the course did seem to come together for me. Setting, detail, research, I had been doing this in previous work but this showed me I need to keep this in mind as I write. More importantly (on a personal note) I have started writing again.

The Research course has given my writing a boost and I’ve found the feedback from other members extremely helpful and formative. It’s also great to continue to have contact with the alumni circle of writers.