The Classic Short Story Competition Ready Course with Trevor Byrne

Thursdays 19.00-20.30 on Zoom

12^th, 19^th, 16^th March (no sessions 2^nd  and 9^th April )    16^th, 23^rd, 30^th April, 7^th and 14^th May

Entering writing competitions is great fun and brilliant for building up your writer’s CV if you get placed. Join this eight-week course where, at the end of it, you’ll have a 2000-word short story that you can be proud of, and that is competition-ready.

We’ll be closely analysing stories by Daphne Du Maurier, Jorge Luis Borges, John McGahern, Flannery O’Connor, Joyce Carol Oates, Vladimir Nabokov, James Joyce, Anton Chekhov, and other writers who excel at conveying the mysteries and mundanities of life in the short story form.

The course will include two workshopping sessions where you’ll be given feedback from Trevor Byrne and the rest of the attendees, and you will also give feedback on their short stories. Guidance and support will be given on how to do this.

You’ll be expected to do a lot of reading and writing in between sessions, and a full course outline and reading list will be sent once you’ve signed up. Places are limited to eight so everyone (and their stories) are given a lot of attention.

Free entry into the Raw Writing Short Story competition (worth £25) when you sign up for this course! The deadline for the Raw Writing Short Story competition is 17th June 2026, the word count is 2000 maximum, and the prize will be a mentoring package (six sessions) with a published writer, a place on a six-month Raw Writing course, and publication in the Raw Writing Anthology.