‘Carly was amazing. I cannot say enough good things. She is professional, well organised, brilliant, creative, energetic & fun. She is the best critic I’ve ever met and with every 5 minute conversation with her my writing has grown exponentially. She meets students where they are, is respectful and encouraging and yet so constructive.’ – Student at SUISS (Scottish Universities International Summer School) 2019

I am an experienced creative writing teacher and workshop leader.  I have worked with many different groups including: primary and secondary school children, refugees and asylum seekers, new women writers and university students. I’ve led workshops in prisons, parks and public libraries. While my workshops have covered a wide range of topics, my areas of specialty are poetry and historical fiction. Please see the rest of this page for more information about the teaching services I offer.

‘Playing with Poetry’: A new, five-week long poetry course in Spring/Early Summer 2023

Beginning Saturday May 27th, I will be leading a five-week long creative writing course online focused on poetry! Across the five weeks, we will be experimenting and ‘playing’ with five different styles/genres of poetry. The course will be fun, engaging and suitable for both new poets and more experienced ones who want to deepen their practice. 

Experimenting with new styles can unlock new ideas within us and reveal new ways of looking at our writing and the world. 

To book and for more information on the course, please see the Eventbrite page. 

One to One Editorial Feedback Sessions

As an award-winning poet and author, I offer one to one editorial feedback sessions on poetry and prose, as well as coaching for spoken word poets. These sessions will be held online for the foreseeable future.

If you’ve written something creative that you’d like some feedback on, feel free to get in touch and book a session with me. I love working with new writers to develop their craft and many of the writers I’ve worked with have gone on to be published.

Single Fiction and Poetry Feedback Session

Cost: £40

This includes: in-depth written editorial feedback on one piece of writing and one 30-minute session with me

Once you’ve booked this session, you can then email me up to 1,500 words of prose (short story, novel extract, or creative non-fiction essay) or 25 lines of poetry. If this is part of a longer project, please provide a few sentences of context. Please also let me know at this point if there is any specific aspect of the piece that you are concerned about or would like feedback on.

I’ll then read your work and provide you with written comments and suggestions throughout the text (using tracked changes). I’ll also provide you with a final summary detailing the strengths of the piece and what can be improved.

During our 30 minute online feedback session, we’ll talk through my suggestions. I’ll also offer any recommended reading I think would be useful for you, and will answer questions you may have about this piece, or about writing and publication generally.

Fiction and Poetry Development Package (Three Sessions)

Cost: £100

This includes: in-depth written editorial feedback on up to 4,500 words/75 lines of poetry, and three 30-minute sessions with me

This package can be tailored to suit your needs. You can send me 4,500 words of prose or 75 lines of poetry either before our first session (if you already have the material ready) or you can send it to me in smaller chunks before each session. We could use our sessions to discuss revisions on a single story or poem, or you may choose to submit several. This package is also perfect for those who may have started a story, but aren’t sure where to go next, because we can develop it together over the course of the three sessions.

Single Performance Poetry Coaching Session

Cost: £50

This includes: in-depth written feedback on one spoken word poem and one 30-minute session with me

If you are a spoken word poet and would like feedback on a poem you’re working on for live performance, then this session is for you. Ahead of our session, I’ll ask you to submit a recording (preferably video) of you performing the poem. During our thirty-minute session, we will discuss the language of the poem, as well as elements of performance (tone, pacing, gestures etc.) you can use to bring your poem to life onstage.

Get in touch with me at carlybrownwriter@gmail.com to book or to request more information. All 1:1 editorial feedback sessions are open to writers from all over the world, and other time frames and levels of mentoring can also be arranged.

If you’re looking for feedback on a full-length manuscript (such as a poetry collection, a novella, novel or a short story collection), please email me and we can discuss rates for this.

I look forward to working with you! 

Workshops with Organizations and Schools

If you’d like to discuss a creative writing workshop for your writing group, school, community group or book festival, please feel free to email me: carlybrownwriter@gmail.com

If you are Scotland-based, please note that I’m also a member of the Scottish Book Trust’s Live Literature Database. The program works with communities to help fund author residencies and events such as readings and writing workshops in schools, libraries and other community settings. You can view my page in their author directory here.

‘Carly is a great motivator and enthusiast of Spoken Word Poetry. She inspired us to perform the words we wrote in just 20 minutes…It was amazing to watch each other blossom and become engrossed in producing words designed to be spoken and performed. And they worked! Thanks to Carly’s encouragement we were keen to test our virgin poetry and skills in front of the microphone. Everyone was different and everyone was great to hear and watch. Many thanks to Carly for opening our eyes and ears and for sharing her knowledge and experiences with us. She has sown a magical seed.’ – Susan L. Allen, Vice Chair of The Borders Writers’ Forum

Teaching history

I hold a Doctorate of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Glasgow. At the university level, I have taught on the MLitt in Creative Writing at the University of Dundee, as well as on the undergraduate Creative Writing course at the University of Strathclyde, covering the foundations of fiction, poetry and creative nonfiction. I also designed and led an eight-week long creative writing course for undergraduates at the University of Glasgow and am currently a Creative Writing Tutor for SUISS (Scottish Universities International Summer School) at the University of Edinburgh.

I have many years of experience working with children and teens. I acted as an Assistant Director at a youth theatre summer camp in Texas, was a volunteer ‘Befriender’ with Families First in St Andrews, Scotland (meeting for one-to-one fortnightly sessions with a child with difficult home circumstances) and have also worked as an au pair/English tutor in Florence, Italy.

Other organizations that I’ve worked with include The Young Walter Scott Prize (co-designing and co-leading historical fiction writing workshops for teens at historic homes in Scotland and England), Spaces of Belonging (co-creating poetry workshops for refugees at Glasgow Botanical Gardens) and Glasgow Women’s Library (developing and leading a performance poetry workshop series for women, helping them to enhance their performance skills).

Testimonials

‘The workshop I attended with Carly Brown was brilliant. I was nervous, but the atmosphere of the workshop was very relaxed and encouraging. I gained a lot of confidence in my ability to perform my own work. Carly is really knowledgeable and easy to work with.’ – Jo Gilbert, 3 time poetry slam winner (attended Women Poets Out Loud: Performance Poetry Workshops at Glasgow Women’s Library)

‘[Carly] was brilliant and always ready to help. I could tell that she was really into the course and into the subject.’ –Student in University of Glasgow undergraduate Creative Writing class

‘This course was helpful in making me more confident about my ideas and my work […] The format of the course, the discussions during workshop, the encouragement to give and get feedback, gave me skills that can be applied for life’- Student in University of Glasgow Creative writing class