Teaching

Chris is currently Director of the Adult summer school and Assistant Director of the International Summer School at the University of Sussex http://www.sussex.ac.uk/sussexinsummer. He also teaches at the University of Oxford, Department of Continuing Education where he runs annual summer schools on creative writing and theatre.

Chris has put his many year's of teaching to good use and written a complete evening class course in creative writing.

It is part of a series of complete evening class books and is proving to be the bestselling title in the range.

cover - Creative Writing PackThe in-depth course package is designed to suit your lifestyle without emptying your wallet. Flexible and convenient, the unique teaching method gives you clear instruction and guidance on all the creative writing skills you need, at a time and pace that suit you.

Course Summary

Course Package

Your Tutor

Chris Sykes is a playwright and poet; he is also an excellent and popular teacher, convening creative writing classes for the University of Sussex and teaching creative writing for the University of Oxford and the City Literary Institute. He was Deputy Chair of The Writers Guild of Great Britain.

isbn: 978-0340974919
The course is available from all good bookshops or

Book + CDBuy Creative Writing from Amazon

Chris teaching
The Oxford University lecturing team - Dr Angus Hawkins, Chris Sykes, Astronomer Royal Sir Arnold Wolfendale and Dr David Griffiths, on board the QM2 to New York, September 2004

Chris has taught creative writing and theatre studies for various institutions including the City University, London; the Open University, the Open College of the Arts the Arvon Foundation and the New University in Buckinghamshire.

In April 2004 he delivered a series of lectures on writing on the inaugural Westbound voyage of the QM2 from Southampton to New York for the University of Oxford, Oxford Discovery programme. A trip he repeated in September of that year.

Chris is very experienced at lecturing and running small group workshops for writers. Fees on request.

Student comments from some of Chris’s classes

The Play’s the Thing, the Oxford Experience - University of Oxford

Very good seminar. Chris Sykes is devoted to his students. The course is informal (you can intervene when you want and give your opinions) and, however, demanding and very challenging. Well done!
Chris Sykes’ style and knowledge is most enjoyable and useful. Class interaction excellent.

Chris Sykes was very knowledgeable and insightful. Pretty much every time he opened his mouth he said something that made me think.

Chris Sykes was a delight. Excellent facilitator and good mix of theory and practical exercises and visuals.

The Art of Lying - a creative writing course the Oxford Experience, University of Oxford

It was excellent. Not only did it improve my technique while I was here, but also it gave me very effective tools to use for the rest of my life as a writer. I recommend the tutor, Chris Sykes, very highly.
Not what I thought it would be. GOOD!  Surprising use of new techniques to generate creativity in writing. Tutor used good combination of classroom discipline and freedom to comment, so we kept on track.
The tutor, Chris Sykes, did a superb job. Rather than cover the technical aspects of creative writing, he focussed on the imaginative aspects.
Chris is as good a tutor as one could have – superb course and wonderful control of the class and the subject.
Better than good. Chris is a fine teacher – organised, knowledgeable, someone who makes learning a pleasure.

The Oxford/Berkeley Summer School

He was extremely effective, using classroom discussions and student writing, and exercises as a basis for teaching writing technique.
Very creative and helful.
Used hands on examples of how to make writing better. Flexible.

Art of Lying  The City Lit

Really good fun. The tutor was very accepting of all work and gave useful feedback.
I felt bad that one of the students didn’t have a loop for his hearing difficulty but the tutor was incredibly supportive of the learner.
It was very enjoyable – fun – and really blew away the cobwebs. Very useful for creativity.
It was fun and free and useful.
The exercises were good. I leave with good ideas for getting started in writing and character development.
I liked the relaxed atmosphere, the quick build up of trust between the students, the fun exercises, some useful in writing.
I liked the individual and group activities. I enjoyed the strong emphasis on experiential, playful learning. Well structured and well facilitated.
I like (sic) discovered myself.

 

 

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