Faber & Faber

Jill Dawson, Tobias Hill and Jasper Fforde present the Faber Academy in association with the Guardian Hay Festival 2010.

Wednesday 26 to Friday 28 May 2010, 10am-5pm

Price: £375 (inclusive of VAT)

Over the three days in the beautiful and inspiring surroundings of Hay-on-Wye, in association with one of the country’s most prestigious literary festivals, Jill Dawson, Tobias Hill and Jasper Fforde will address the difficult business of starting to write.

This course offers inspiration and guidance on the matter of getting started with fiction – whether you are an absolute beginner or have started and ground to a halt or whether you are just at an  interesting plateau where something is waiting to come to you but you have no idea what it might be.

The exercises on this course will encourage imagination, spontaneity and free self expression paired with the complementary need for an understanding of structure and the goals of story-telling. This course will also examine strategies to overcome the central problems that face many new writers – the fear of the blank page, the voice of the internal critic and the need for discipline.

The course will have a lively, writerly atmosphere – a combination of playful, experimental, serious and fun – and will address the key questions all novelists and short story writers ask themselves when they begin to write.

The course includes:

•    3 days intensive tuition by Tobias Hill and Jill Dawson, with guest tutorship by Jasper Fforde.
•    A complimentary ticket to a Guardian Hay Festival event of your choice on both Monday and Tuesday evening.
•    A complimentary Moleskine® Notebook
•    A daily artisan lunch
•    Regular coffee breaks
•    A handy course pack including hotel and restaurant recommendations.
•    A special discount off Faber books purchased at www.faber.co.uk

About the Tutors

A short biography of Tobias Hill

Along with his hugely acclaimed previous three novels, Underground (1999), The Love of Stones (2001) and The Cryptographer (2003), Tobias Hill is the author of three award-winning collections of poetry and Skin, a collection of short stories, which won the 1998 PEN / Macmillan Award for Fiction. Born in London in 1970, Tobias Hill has won many awards for his writing and was made the inaugural resident poet at London Zoo in 1998. He is also the Royal Society of Literature Fellow at Sussex University. In addition, he has worked as a rock critic for the Sunday Telegraph and is a regular reviewer for numerous publications. His new novel, The Hidden, was published by Faber in 2009 to great acclaim.


A short biography of Jill Dawson

Jill Dawson is the author of six novels and editor of six anthologies of poetry and short stories. In 1992 she won an Eric Gregory Award for poetry. Fred & Edie, her third novel, was shortlisted for both the Whitbread and Orange Prize, and was voted one of 50 essential novels by a living author. She also writes screenplays and is currently adapting Wild Boy, her fourth novel, for screen. She has held many fellowships, including the British Council Fellowship in Amherst, and the Creative Writing Fellowship at UEA, where she taught on the Writing MA. In 2006 she received an honorary doctorate in recognition of her writing and her work with new writers. Her latest novel The Great Lover, published in January 2009 by Sceptre, explores the life and loves of poet Rupert Brooke.


A short biography of Jasper Fforde

Jasper Fforde was an enthusiastic member of the film industry for nineteen years before becoming published. Author of five 'Thursday Next' and two 'Nursery Crime' books, he says that writing is 'The same as filming, really. Only you do all of the jobs, and not just one.' 

He currently lives and works in Wales, where his hobbies include family, flying and photography. Shades of Grey, Due out in January 2010, will be his eighth novel. His mother, wife, editor and children all think it's really good.

About Faber

Faber and Faber is the last of the great independent publishing houses in London. We were established in 1929 by Geoffrey Faber and our first editor was T. S. Eliot. Among our list of authors we are proud to publish five Booker Prize winners and eleven Nobel Laureates. We are particularly well-known for our unrivalled list of modern poets and playwrights, as well as for publishing writers of prize-winning fiction and general non-fiction. More


About the Guardian Hay Festival

For ten days a year 85,000 people come from all over the UK, Europe, America and the rest of the world to join a carnival celebration of ideas and stories at the Hay Festival.
 The programme of some five hundred events takes place in the tented festival village during the spring bank half term holiday. Writers, politicians, poets, scientists, comedians, philosophers and musicians come together on the greenfield site to talk, eat, think, drink and be merry. For more information on the Guardian Hay Festival go to hayfestival.com.


To make a booking:

Contact Patrick on either patrickk@faber.co.uk or +44 (0) 20 7927 3822.
Or Becky on beckyf@faber.co.uk or +44 (0) 207 927 3908.

Alternatively, write to:

Patrick Keogh
Faber and Faber Ltd
74-77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA

Places are strictly limited so book soon to avoid disappointment.