Derbyshire Writing School – Reviews & Feedback
Dear Friends,
We hit out first birthday tin September 2021 and Derbyshire Writing School turned one year old!
During the chaos that was 2020, we decided to bring a dream to life and Derbyshire Writing School was born.
Our aim has always been to create courses, workshops and resources that balance the creative and the practical. We wanted to remove the writing jargon, and the elite feel it can sometimes carry. We wanted to fling open the doors and welcome everyone to our club.
We believe everyone has a story to tell. It could be an award-winning fiction tale, a non-fiction book full of your expertise or a beautiful memoir that brings your memories to life. We can help you get the words out of your head and into the world.
Derbyshire Writing School — Creative writing taught the way it should be:
Fun
Heartfelt
Practical
We believe in your stories, and the world needs to hear them. We’re writing every day, and we know how hard it can be. We designed our courses with this in mind, a healthy balance of both practical and creative tools, mixed with enthusiasm and passion. We wanted to help you feel confident and in control of your writing.
Have you always been told you couldn’t or shouldn’t write? Then we are the creative writing school for you.
We teach you to write from the heart, letting your voice and truth come alive on the page whilst giving you the practical skills to see your project through to the end.
So how did Derbyshire Writing School fair in its first year?
It was a rollercoaster of a year. With excitement and challenges.
39 Blog posts
33 Podcast Episodes
1300 Podcast Downloads
10 Newsletters
1000s of Writing Prompts
4 New Team Members
1000s of Website Visits
4 New Courses
6 New Workshops
1 New Group Programme
40 Prompt Boxes
25 Christmas Countdown Prompts
But most importantly, we were joined by people from around the globe. We’ve had people from Germany, India, America and across the UK and we are so grateful that you’re here.
The highlight has always been meeting you, the people we can now call friends. Thanks for listening, reading, sharing, supporting, or attending our sessions. We appreciate you.
Feedback and reviews for Derbyshire Writing School:
We believe in running a values-based business, which means our personal values are front and centre in everything we do. We believe in authenticity, kindness, and quality content.
✍Writing is for everyone.
✍Your story matters.
✍ Courses should be creative and practical.
We care about your experience, and we want you to enjoy our courses, workshops and products and learn from them, but most of all we want you to finish your book!
Here’s what people have said about taking part in our courses over the last 12 months:
· Very informative, got me feeling energised about my writing.
· I really enjoyed it. It felt like a safe constructive environment and Laura was a really good tutor and guide through the session. I have signed up for Developing a Writing Mindset.
· Expert teaching, tailored to individual needs.
· Thank you Laura. I really appreciate your time tonight and look forward to doing more sessions with you soon
· I loved the photo prompts, it’s like you’re trying to guess someone else’s story and I loved that.
· A friendly instructor with a genuine interest in your work and who is likely to teach you something you didn’t know.
· Yes, it was a brilliant mix of high-level poetic input from Charlotte, teaching us about 3 different poetic forms, plus time to have a go ourselves. There was time to share at the end but no pressure to do so, and Charlotte created a lovely welcoming atmosphere, even on zoom!
· A taster of writing, with tips for how to get started.
· Loved being able to feed insights from poetry into my writing.
· It was well-informed without feeling like an “info dump.” A lot of material was covered in a comparatively short space of time, too.
· Loved the experience.
· Charlotte was amazing and I really enjoyed it, thank you!
· Great facilitation, and a really nice group of people - wowed by what people wrote, and happy to share my email with other group members in order to share the work that we wrote on the day...
· I was quite nervous and was made to feel totally at ease.
· Charlotte is a fantastic facilitator. It was a pleasure to attend her workshop.
· A lot of really useful information and a lot of encouragement - and ways to make writing a novel more manageable.
· A really well-thought out and motivating approach to constructing your novel and setting achievable goals.
· I was so impressed by Laura’s attention to detail, friendliness and knowledge and encouragement. There was opportunity for discussion too. It was a really well-constructed and well-prepared course. I would highly recommend it - thank you so much.
· A much deeper insight into the novel writing-process. Very valuable pointers to target setting and a host of very useful guides to embarking on a project and maintaining progress to a conclusion.
· An excellent course, that I have thoroughly enjoyed. Laura’s teaching technique was enthusiastic and approachable. I would recommend this course to anyone thinking of writing a novel for fun or publishing.
· A very big thank you, Laura for all your hard work in putting the course materials together and delivering it so professionally. I particularly welcomed the way in which you encouraged participation and set relevant and manageable writing tasks for us for us throughout the course.
That list is what it’s all about for us!!! We are filled with pride and excitement to know our courses are helping you to learn and grow as a writer.
What’s next?
We’ve listened to you and what you keep telling us you need to progress your writing. That’s why we are planning on launching some new initiatives over the next few months:
Our 1:1 coaching will launch. Our writing coaching will push you to answer the tough questions and challenge the blocks that are stopping you from creating your best work.
Our 3% Club will launch. The 3% Club brings the practical elements to writing a book together with the creative. We believe you can’t have one without the other.
Our Prompt Boxes will change from a subscription to one-off packages. This means you can buy them as gifts or as a treat for yourself, as and when you need some inspiration.
Our workbooks will be ready for you to purchase, starting with our writing mindset workbook.
Our Poetry courses start in earnest with our guest facilitator Charlotte Lunn.
And hopefully, we will be able to invite you to our very in-person writing retreat!
It’s going to be a busy 12 months!
But plenty of things are staying the same:
Our monthly newsletter will continue – Each month we share useful articles, free writing resources, and tips to help you develop as a writer. You can sign up here and you’ll get 101 writing prompts to get you started.
Our podcast will continue – Every Friday we’ll release a new episode of ‘Begin’, the podcast from Derbyshire Writing School. Each week we answer your questions and share how you can get your book finished.
Our weekly blog posts will continue – Each Tuesday we share detailed blog posts, bursting with ideas and tips. You’ll find a huge archive of advice on our website.
Our alumni Facebook group will continue – we’ve created an exclusive Facebook group for everyone who attends one of our courses. It’s a great place to network and talk to fellow writers and it’s only available to those who have completed a course with us.
Our popular courses will be running, so if you’ve been thinking of signing up, it’s time!
Thank you for being a part of our journey so far. We are glad you’re here and we are grateful for your support. Writing can feel lonely at times, but it’s always worth it. We’re here and we’ll keep cheering you on. Keep going friends, we promise it’s worth it.
See you soon.
Laura & Pete
Derbyshire Writing School
