Strathclyde Institute for Genealogical StudiesWrite Your Own Story (online course)

Registration is open - book online here

Cost: £130.00

Dates:  Tuesdays - 19 January to 23 February 2027 (6 weeks)

Time: 19.00-21.00 GMT

Write Your Own Story: Creative Writing for Autobiographers

Join us for this online course delivered via Teams: In this 6-week course transform your life experiences into powerful, compelling writing. Through guided exercises and inspiring readings, you’ll explore memory, voice, and emotions while crafting vivid scenes from your own life.  

The teaching and Q&A portions of each session will be recorded and made available to students ASAP after each session. These will be available through the 23rd of March 2027.

Course structure:

Six two-hour sessions covering:

  • Introduction: the creative writing approach to autobiography
  • Exploring memory to build your material
  • Finding and structuring your story
  • Developing an engaging style – voice and perspective
  • Scene and setting 
  • Revision, editing and getting into print
  • Workshop of a short piece of writing from each student  
Tutor biography:

David Pettigrew is a tutor of over twenty years' experience for the Centre of Lifelong Learning's daytime, evening and weekend creative writing courses, the Creative Writing Mentoring Programme, the Blaze online writing courses and the Classic Book Group. He is also the Centre's Departmental Disability & Guidance Officer. 

Alongside his teaching, David is a professional editor working in the Scottish publishing industry. Qualifications include an honours degree in English Literature, masters degrees in Publishing and Creative Writing (with Distinction), and a postgraduate diploma in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education. He is a recipient of a Scottish Arts Council New Writers Bursary award and his short stories have been published in a number of writing anthologies. He also researches and writes non-fiction in the area of Scottish local and social history.