Information About Martin - Alton teacher

Personal Description:

I can guarantee to make you a better, more technically proficient, more creatively satisfied writer. I am an established author of fiction and non-fiction (Hutchinson/Random House/Penguin), a journalist (Times, Guardian, **Contact Detail Removed**graph, Conde Nast Traveller, BBC News magazine, New Statesman & many others) and a TV/radio presenter-producer-director (BBC TV, Radio 4, Radio 3, BBC World Service, Discovery Channel, Travel Channel etc.). I have taught creative writing at university level for over a decade.

Students have different reasons for wanting to learn creative writing: for some it is purely personal, while others aspire to be professionally published, and need high quality, focussed support to help them break into the business. In all cases, the personal "voice" is vital, but reaching the standard of professional publishability may not be possible without rigorous, targeted, expert guidance.

A good creative writing teacher is above all a highly informed and sensitive person, whose human skills match their grasp of language, style and the publishing marketplace. They will understand what you are trying to say, and help you to understand how to do it better, with suggestions of appropriate reading to broaden and focus your understanding of the genre, marketplace etc. you are operating in, as well as hard-core technical feedback at the micro level of sentence construction, types of metaphor, types of image, how to shape a funny line, the space between irony and sarcasm, the limits of legality, and a great many other issues. Questions of writer's block, ambition and motivation all fit into the writer's journey too.

My output has been broad, covering arts, politics, travel and 'life-writing.' My books with Penguin speak for themselves. As a journalist, I have written columns for the Observer, the **Contact Detail Removed**graph and others. In broadcast, I have presented and directed work of up to feature length (including a recent 72-minute TV documentary, with another currently in production). All this means that I can offer support including writing and editing across several genres, voice training for broadcast, and tuition in radio & TV production.

I do offer 1-hour classes, but I favour two-hour blocks consisting of three roughly equal parts with a couple of short breaks. This allows real in-depth learning, and can be broken into a mix of formal and more informal or review elements, theoretical vs. personal, etc. My aim is to understand the student's aims, and as quickly as possible to enable them to begin to develop their skills, improve their output, and realize their creative aims. I can also, with notice, offer highly-structured half-day, full-day or weekend intensive workshops which are tailored to you and will enable you to make accelerated progress towards your goals. These can possibly be at your residence.

Few things in life provide as much satisfaction as being able to bend language (or audio, or the visual) into a creative artefact that is new, powerful, and capable of communicating your own vision of the world to another human being. As a teacher, it is a great privilege to be able to support that process in others -- and I look forward to hearing from you.

Teaching Experience:

In addition to teaching Creative Writing to university students for over a decade in Southampton, I have taught workshops and lectured in schools, colleges and other contexts in London, Bristol, Edinburgh and eleswhere. In summer 2022 I submitted the thesis for my PhD in creative writing.

Teaching Approach:

My aim is to help the student to understand what it is they want to say, and to move towards the best form to do this, broaching wholly new ideas, or simply hone the form they are already in. My teaching is active, not passive -- my resposibility is to tune into your creative vision; I want our time together to be inspiring for you -- a stretching, productive, fulfilling and cost-effective learning experience.