Grammar and punctuation workshop

When should you use a colon or a semi-colon? Why can ending a line on a preposition make your sentence sag?  What’s the difference between its and it’s, and fewer and less? Do you get confused when to use which/that and lay/lie?

If so, join our grammar and punctuation workshop. It’s designed for writers who either can’t remember the grammar rules they were taught at school and want a refresher, or who never learned them in the first place. 

We will discuss:

• The importance of grammar to creative writing and touch on changing trends (e.g recent increases in verbing and nouning).

• What grammar and punctuation offer creative writers, plus how difficulties with both can diminish our stories.

• Common areas of difficulty for creative writers

• Common mistakes made by creative writers

• Stories which demand for the rules to be bent and the effects on the reader

• The potential differences in character grammar and narrator grammar

• Ways to edit your work with grammar and punctuation as your focus.

• The benefits and pitfalls of enlisting the help of AI in correcting and improving our grammar and punctuation.   

The workshop will take place over 2.5 hours online on Saturday 30th January 2027 from 10-12.30pm and will be run by Rosie Chard, a novelist, creative writing tutor and past TESL teacher. (Certificate in teaching English as a Second Language, University of Manitoba.)

The workshop is designed for writers of fiction and creative non-fiction. It's open to students on the Creative Writing Programme and our other courses (who will receive a discount) but also open to any writers who feel they can benefit.