faber academy - worth it?

[sparkysparkysparky]

Hi I'm considering the Faber academy writing courses. Anyone had any experience of them?Worth the money? Guess what? I don't have much!

[schmalex]

I did a three day intro one. It is very good, but also very expensive. I've also done classes at CityLit, which are way cheaper and also very good.

Do you write already? I found that a lot of people on the Faber course didn't actually do any writing. You don't really need to spend £££ on a course to be able to write, and ultimately you need to be able to motivate yourself if you're going to write a book.

[sparkysparkysparky]

Ta . I do write just not with confidence.

[JohnSnowsTie]

I did a MN/Faber two day course a couple of years ago run by novelist Joanna Briscoe (signed up because I LOVE her) and it was good. Day 1 was quite intensive - writing for 30 mind at a time then reading aloud - and Day 2 was more theoretical/taking through ideas and techniques.

[sparkysparkysparky]

Thanks for responding . All very useful

[Dunlurking]

Massively disappointed with Faber atm because they cancelled my 3 day YA fiction writing course yesterday - one weeks notice! I'd booked saver hotel rooms and advance fare train tickets - all non refundable, so am £200 out of pocket. They were very nice about it, but hadn't had enough bookings to run the course.
Have to say the course looked really good on paper, but now I will never know!

[Pigeonhouse]

I took a sick friend's place on one of their writing weekends in around 2006/7, and my experience chimes with Schmalex's -even though it was expensive and people had travelled, some internationally, no more than a couple of the participants had so much as set pen to paper (or equivalent), which was frustrating. The novelist who was teaching is someone whose work I loved (rather less keen on it these days, tbh) but definitely not a natural instructor. She focused heavily on thinking about imagery, which baffled a lot of people.

I assume the 'Writing Your Novel' long courses attract a more experienced and committed applicant, but they are expensive...