Academy Mini : Spring 2024 with John McCullough & Fran Lock

Duration: 4 weeks
Dates: 7–30 May 2024

Applications are now closed.

Dive into our four-week Academy Mini course with award-winning poets John McCullough and Fran Lock, to deepen and energise your practice. The Academy Mini offers the time and structure for a month’s intensive focus on your poetry, comprising:

  • two-hour tutor-led classes each week from 7–9pm UK on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and

  • a scheduled half hour individual tutorial each week. 

The programme is designed around a weekly tutor rotation. You will receive two weeks of teaching and tutorials from each of our two fantastic tutors. 

Workshops and tutorials will be delivered via Zoom. You will have access to a dedicated classroom space on Padlet, where you will be able to access course materials and ask any questions, as well as a Padlet board where you can share poems, feedback and discussion with the other members of your cohort.

Workshops are recorded and the recordings will be made available to you, password-protected on our Vimeo, the day after each session. At the end of the course you will receive a handout collating the course materials, as well as links to the session recordings, to revisit in future.

Course delivery is wholly online. We welcome applications from students anywhere in the world, but applicants should note that all teaching is provided in evenings UK time.

The Course Fee is £600. We are pleased to offer two fully-funded bursary places for low-income writers.

This course is selective and strictly limited to twenty places. Applications are now closed.

“I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend the Out-Spoken Mini course, in fact it should be made compulsory! The tutors evidently put such care and time into tailoring the bespoke modules and I was blown away by the generosity and verve with which they approached each session.”
— Academy Mini Participant

Our Tutors

Our tutors are renowned practising poets with many years of experience in poetry, performance, teaching and mentoring:

 

John McCullough

John McCullough's latest book of poems is Panic Response (Penned in the Margins). It contains 'Flower of Sulphur', shortlisted for the 2021 Forward Prize for Best Single Poem, and this collection was also featured in The Times as a Notable New Poetry Book of 2022. John's previous collection, Reckless Paper Birds, won the 2020 Hawthornden Prize for Literature and was shortlisted for the Costa Poetry Award. John has won other awards including the 2012 Polari Prize and his collections have been named Books of the Year in The Independent, The Guardian and The Observer as well as his work often appearing in magazines such as Poetry London, Poetry Review and The New Statesman. He lives in Hove with his partner and two cats.

Fran Lock

Fran Lock is a some-time itinerant dog whisperer, the author of numerous chapbooks and thirteen poetry collections, most recently lyric essay collection Vulgar Errors/Feral Subjects (Out-Spoken Press, 2023), Hyena! (Poetry Bus Press, 2023), shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize 2023, and ‘a disgusting lie’: further adventures through the neoliberal hell-mouth (Pamenar Press, 2023). White/ Other (The 87 Press, 2022), a collection of hybrid lyric riff, was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation.

Fran was the Judith E. Wilson Poetry Fellow at Cambridge University (2022-23), researching feral subjectivity through the lens of the medieval bestiary. Fran’s other work includes the chapbook Forever Alive (Dare-Gale Press, 2022), and the critically acclaimed work of ‘queer mourning’ Hyena! Jackal! Dog! (Pamenar Press, 2021). Fran is Commissioning Editor at the radical arts and culture cooperative Culture Matters, where she most recently edited the mammoth anthology The Cry of the Poor (2021). She is a member of the new Editorial Advisory Board for the Journal of British and Irish Innovative Poetry, and she edits the Soul Food column for Communist Review. Fran teaches online for Poetry School, and she is the co-host of the cross-cultural poetry podcast Social yet Distanced with her cousin Jack Varnell. Fran is a super proud pit bull parent. She lives in Kent.

FAQs

  • The Academy Mini is intended to be an intensive experience, allowing you to focus on your poetry over a month with twice weekly workshops and weekly tutorials.

    Students are expected to have some experience writing their own poetry to get the most out of the course, but no publication record or prior formal study of poetry is required.

  • The Spring Term will run from Tuesday 7 May to Thursday 30 May (inclusive).

    Applications are open via our Submittable portal until midnight UK SUNDAY 21 APRIL 2024.

    Our tutors will review all applications, and applicants (including those for bursary places) will be notified during the w/c 29 April 2024.

    Payment of applicable course fees should be made in full by 5 May 2024.

  • Yes. We welcome applications from poets anywhere in the world, provided that they note that the course is focused on English language poetry and that all teaching is scheduled on weekday evenings (UK) time.

  • The course is designed so that tutors rotate weekly, ie. Week 1 (Tutor A), Week 2 (Tutor B), Week 3 (Tutor A), Week 4 (Tutor B).

  • Yes. In addition to the two taught group workshops, you will have the opportunity for a half-hour individual tutorial each week.

  • If your application is successful, payment of the full course fee of £600 will be required in advance of the course start date.

    Payment should be made by bank transfer and you are responsible for any currency conversion or other transaction fees.

    The above does not apply to fully-funded bursary places.

  • We are unable to offer instalment payment at the current time.

  • Yes, we are pleased to be able to offer two fully-funded bursary places for low-income writers on each of our Academy courses. If you would like to be considered for a bursary place, please apply through the ‘Application for a Bursary Place’ option on our Submittable portal: https://out-spoken.submittable.com/submit/291541/academy-mini-jm-fl-may-2024-bursary-application

  • No, we cannot consider applications for two categories. The bursary places are intended for low-income writers who would not otherwise be able to afford to attend the course.

  • No. Our Academy courses are designed by the tutors to form an integrated whole. We are unable to offer attendance to part of the courses. If you are interested in shorter form teaching, Out-Spoken does offer in-person masterclasses, and one-off online workshops.

  • Recordings of workshop sessions will be made available to students after each session, so you will be able to watch-back any sessions you miss. If you are unable to attend an individual tutorial scheduled with a tutor we request that you contact that tutor to inform them as soon as you are able. Reasonable efforts will be made to reschedule missed tutorials but we cannot guarantee this.

  • Yes, each group workshop will be recorded and the video made available to participants the next day via our password-protected Vimeo. You will retain access to these after the course ends.

  • You can read our full Terms & Conditions here: www.outspokenldn.com/academy-tcs

  • If you’ve read these FAQ and our Terms & Conditions, and you have a query that’s not addressed, do please email Patricia Ferguson on academy@outspokenldn.com and she’ll be happy to help.