Photo by Ricardo Gomez Angel on Unsplash

‘Form is not a container for content; it is a way of thinking.’
- Maggie Nelson

Many projects stall or get stuck not because of lack of material, but because we’ve defaulted to a form or structure that doesn’t quite fit.

This session looks at some of the ways of forming and organising material available to contemporary life writers — beyond straightforward chronology — and at how form and structure can generate movement, pressure and meaning.

We’ll read and analyse a piece of life writing together, and try a short exercise designed to open up different ways of organising your own material.

This session is for writers who already have some life writing underway — notes, drafts, fragments — and are beginning to think about shape.

The session also gives a sense of how we’ll work in the 10-week course From Fragments to Form, which focuses on developing a strong opening and a clear structure for a longer project.

Date and time: Wednesday 29th April, 10:30–12:00 on Zoom (UK time, daytime session)
Limited to 12 spaces

Book your place here

About the Tutor

Kate Potts is the author of three poetry collections. Her latest, Pretenders (Bloodaxe, 2025), is a hybrid, multi‑voice exploration of imposter feelings and identity. Feral (Bloodaxe, 2018) was a Poetry Book Society recommendation and a Telegraph poetry book of the month.

She has a PhD in Creative and Critical Writing and a PGCE in post‑16 education, and has taught at City, Royal Holloway, Oxford, and Middlesex Universities, as well as for The Poetry School, Arvon, and other creative‑writing and community organisations. Her work has been supported by Arts Council England and shortlisted for the Michael Marks Award and The Moth International Poetry Prize.

Alongside her teaching, she runs Poetical Workshop, an online poetry community, and writes Speak Up! — a Substack newsletter about creative practice, failing better, and taking up space.