30 Week Fiction/Memoir Course – Online
This course is for those who want to write a novel, short stories, or a memoir / autobiography.
You are guided through the course ONLINE by your own personal one-on-one tutor, who is an internationally published author. Many graduates of our Thirty Week course have published books, some in London and New York. See ‘Reviews’ above.
The course features the same material as our classroom course, but you are provided one-on-one guidance by an experienced tutor, David Howard, a leading NZ author who has held many writer residencies around the world.
Your work is discussed and critiqued in an informal but supportive way as you develop your full-length manuscript. Craft and technical issues arise organically from discussion of this work. Students keep a reading and writing journal, which helps chart their development.
The main craft issues of dialogue, character, plot and structure, point of view, description, voice and theme will all be addressed during your Zoom and email sessions.
“What a process. It is probably one of the best things I have ever done, hands-down, in my whole life. And the hardest. I pushed myself in ways that I ever have before. And this is all thanks to your course, and David.” – Nina
“David proved to be an excellent tutor. He was flexible with dates … I appreciated the time he spent … time preparing for each session as he had thoughtful comments and helpful further reading, and I enjoyed his sense of humour …’ – Johanna
At the end of the course, the student will be provided with an analysis, in the form of a publisher’s readers report, on the strengths and weaknesses of her / his manuscript. Successful completion of the course will result in the award of the Higher Certificate in Writing from the Creative Hub.
In the last three years thirty of our graduates have published novels or won prizes in national or international writing awards. See ‘Reviews’ above for details.
Download a summary of the course content and full module set here.
Course Start Date: Anytime ONLINE
Course Fee: $6,990 incl GST if you have done our Intro to Creative Writing (classroom or online), Queen’s Birthday or Summer School (i.e. 10% discount).
$480 deposit. Fee can be paid in interest-free monthly payments over two years.
(Course fee is $7,767 incl GST if you haven’t done one of these introductory courses).
Our Tutors
These are Some of Our Student Successes...
Eileen Merriman
By 2023, our Thirty Week Fiction Course graduate Eileen had published thirteen novels with Penguin Random House. Eileen’s novel ‘Pieces of You’ was published in 2017. This is the compelling story of a young woman who is uprooted from her home city and whose life begins to disintegrate. ‘Catch Me When You Fall’, was published in 2018, and tells the story of a girl who has leukemia, and her relationship with a boy suffering bi-polar disorder. Her third novel ‘Invisibly Breathing’ was published in 2019. Eileen works as a doctor. She has won prizes in UK and NZ short story awards, including the national Sunday Star-Times Award four years in a row.
Ann Glamuzina
Ann’s elegiac novel ‘Rich Man Road’ reached No 1 on the Booksellers NZ fiction sales list. The novel is published by Eunoia Books, a publishing house made up of former students of Hub Director John Cranna. Ann says of her novel: ‘My extended family lives in Croatia and I have grown up with the rich stories and legends of the Dalmatian coast. During WWII, my relatives escaped the German occupation, spending time as refugees in the British run camps in El Shatt, Egypt.’ The novel follows the journey of one of these relatives who migrated to New Zealand. Ann’s novel received a glowing review from Rae McGregor on National Radio, which helped catapult it to No 1 position.
Gina Cole
Gina’s first collection of short stories, ‘Black Ice Matter’ was published by Huia Books and her novel ‘Na Viro’ was published in 2022. Gina is a graduate of our Thirty Week Fiction Course and is a family lawyer of Fijian and British ancestry. In these stories, a woman is caught between traditional Fijian ways and the brutality of the military dictatorship; a glaciology researcher falls into a crevasse and confronts the unexpected; two women lose children in freak shooting accidents. Gina has won prizes in several national writing awards and has been published in several Pacifica and other literary journals.
Greg Hall
Greg Hall’s novel was profiled on Radio NZ and Television New Zealand to coincide with Anzac Day. It is a harrowing but uplifting story of three young men whose lives are overtaken by the First World War. It culminates at the battle of Passchendaele in which more than 800 young New Zealanders lost their lives. Greg is a Director of the Passchendaele Society, and a former senior banking executive.
Heidi North-Bailey
Graduate Heidi’s book of poetry ‘Possibility of Flight’ has been described as ‘a thoughtful and intimate collection that ends unexpectedly with fireworks’. She was short-listed for the 2023 $10,000 Gifkins Award for her latest novel. She won the Shanghai Writers Scholarship to write in China. She was also awarded the Hachette / NZ Society of Authors Trans-Tasman mentorship, to work with a senior editor at Hachette Australia on the manuscript of her latest book. Her work has appeared in New Zealand and international journals. Heidi lives in Auckland, and when not being kept busy with her three-year-old, squirrels away time to write.
Fiona Sussman
Fiona’s latest novel, ‘The Doctor’s Wife’, was published internationally in 2023. She won the Dame Ngaio Marsh award for the best crime novel of 2017, and the Sunday Star Times short story award in 2018, when John Cranna’s graduates took 1st, 2nd and 3rd prizes in NZ’s best-known short story award. Her first novel ‘Shifting Colours’ based on her experience of apartheid in South Africa, is published by Penguin in New York, and Alison and Busby in London. Her second novel, ‘The Last Time We Spoke’ plumbs the dark reaches of urban NZ. Fiona has worked as a general practitioner and graduated from the fore-runner to our Thirty Week Fiction course, taught by Hub director John Cranna. www.fionasussman.co.nz
Rosetta Allan
“Rosetta Allan’s debut novel ‘Purgatory’ (Penguin) is one of those books that draws you into its exquisitely crafted, atmospheric and entirely believable world within the first couple of pages. The time is 1865, the place is Otahuhu, New Zealand – back then just a small outpost designed to create a boundary between the slowly expanding settler’s Auckland, and the edge of the Waikato, still protected by King Country Maori.” NZ Booklovers. Rosetta’s second novel, ‘Unreliable People’ was published in 2019 and her third novel ‘Crazy Love’ in 2021, both by Penguin Random House. Rosetta is a graduate of our Thirty Week Fiction Course and a Hub tutor.
