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Creative Writing: A Workbook with Readings
Creative Writing: A Workbook with Readings provides a complete creative writing course: from ways to jump-start your writing and inspire your creativity, right through to presenting your work to agents and publishers.
It covers the genres of fiction, poetry and life writing (including autobiography, biography and travel writing), combining discussions of technique with readings and exercises to guide you step by step towards becoming more adept at creative writing.
The second edition has been updated and in large part newly written, with readings by a diverse group of contemporary authors displaying a variety of styles and approaches. Each chapter also features an array of inspiring writing exercises, enabling you to experiment with different methods and discover your strengths. Above all, Creative Writing: A Workbook with Readings will help you to develop your abilities while nurturing your individual voice as a writer.
It covers the genres of fiction, poetry and life writing (including autobiography, biography and travel writing), combining discussions of technique with readings and exercises to guide you step by step towards becoming more adept at creative writing.
The second edition has been updated and in large part newly written, with readings by a diverse group of contemporary authors displaying a variety of styles and approaches. Each chapter also features an array of inspiring writing exercises, enabling you to experiment with different methods and discover your strengths. Above all, Creative Writing: A Workbook with Readings will help you to develop your abilities while nurturing your individual voice as a writer.
648 pages, ebook
Published November 10, 2022
6 people are currently reading
6 people want to read
About the author
Jane Yeh
10 books8 followersJane Yeh is a poet and journalist. Her first collection of poems, Marabou (Carcanet, 2005), was shortlisted for the Whitbread, Forward, and Aldeburgh poetry prizes. Her next collection, The Ninjas, was published by Carcanet in 2012. She was a judge for the 2013 National Poetry Competition and was named a Next Generation poet by the Poetry Book Society in 2014. Her poems have appeared in The Guardian, The Independent on Sunday, The Nation (US), Poetry Review, and other journals, as well as in anthologies including The Best British Poetry 2012 and The Forward Book of Poetry 2013 and 2006.
Jane was educated at Harvard University and holds master’s degrees in Creative Writing from the University of Iowa and Manchester Metropolitan University. Before coming to the Open University, she was a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Kingston and Oxford Brookes universities, and was Co-Director of the MA in Creative Writing Programme at the latter. As a journalist, she writes on books, theatre, fashion, and sport for such publications as The Times Literary Supplement, Time Out, and The Village Voice (US).
Jane was educated at Harvard University and holds master’s degrees in Creative Writing from the University of Iowa and Manchester Metropolitan University. Before coming to the Open University, she was a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Kingston and Oxford Brookes universities, and was Co-Director of the MA in Creative Writing Programme at the latter. As a journalist, she writes on books, theatre, fashion, and sport for such publications as The Times Literary Supplement, Time Out, and The Village Voice (US).
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 14, 2025
I read this as part of an Open University module I took. This is a review of the text as a standalone workbook, not the course or the book's integration with the course.
What worked for me:
👍 For the most part, I didn’t get a sense of gatekeeping here. The introductory sections were very open and welcoming, even encouraging workbook users to claim the identity of writers.
👍 While it felt repetitious at times, there’s an attempt to draw the sections (fiction, poetry, and life-writing) together cohesively, encouraging writers to borrow and shape techniques across forms.
👍 I found the fiction exercises and prompts the strongest in the book - there was a good mix of activities and, early on, it’s evident how the exercises are crafted to build and shape skill.
👍 The contributors all had different styles and voices. Some I gelled with, others I didn’t. I was grateful for the sheer number of contributors across fiction and life-writing as it gave me a rounded view of the topics without getting bogged down by an instruction style that didn’t work for me.
What I wasn’t so keen on:
👎 Some of the sections are written in very dry, corporate language that didn’t suit the theme of creative writing particularly well.
👎 Heavy emphasis on western tropes and storytelling mechanics. I was disappointed that there wasn't much space for deviation or experimentation.
👎 I was disappointed by the lack of depth to the workbook. It’s very general and high-level.
👎 I found the extracts very English, culturally (they felt overly bleak across sections too).
👎 The content warnings were so robotic and stilted: list the warnings, please don’t tell us how we should feel about them!
👎 The poetry section felt the most inaccessible to me. I found the readings reinforced my dislike for poetry rather than opening my mind to this diverse form. The exercises in the poetry chapters were also the most uninspired in the book, for me.
👎 The publishing section felt like filler. Basic research into submitting work makes this section feel dated and clunky. For a book this introductory, including a section on getting published feels really premature.
Personally, I found this book most useful when paired with edX and Coursera courses to broaden my perspective, examine more diverse forms of fiction and poetry, and deepen my understanding.
Like any workbook, the usefulness of this book will depend on your existing knowledge and what you’re trying to achieve. Overall, I found it too surface-level and very geared toward an England readership. It was fine to work through but I’m glad it was a companion to a course, rather than something I purchased alone.
What worked for me:
👍 For the most part, I didn’t get a sense of gatekeeping here. The introductory sections were very open and welcoming, even encouraging workbook users to claim the identity of writers.
👍 While it felt repetitious at times, there’s an attempt to draw the sections (fiction, poetry, and life-writing) together cohesively, encouraging writers to borrow and shape techniques across forms.
👍 I found the fiction exercises and prompts the strongest in the book - there was a good mix of activities and, early on, it’s evident how the exercises are crafted to build and shape skill.
👍 The contributors all had different styles and voices. Some I gelled with, others I didn’t. I was grateful for the sheer number of contributors across fiction and life-writing as it gave me a rounded view of the topics without getting bogged down by an instruction style that didn’t work for me.
What I wasn’t so keen on:
👎 Some of the sections are written in very dry, corporate language that didn’t suit the theme of creative writing particularly well.
👎 Heavy emphasis on western tropes and storytelling mechanics. I was disappointed that there wasn't much space for deviation or experimentation.
👎 I was disappointed by the lack of depth to the workbook. It’s very general and high-level.
👎 I found the extracts very English, culturally (they felt overly bleak across sections too).
👎 The content warnings were so robotic and stilted: list the warnings, please don’t tell us how we should feel about them!
👎 The poetry section felt the most inaccessible to me. I found the readings reinforced my dislike for poetry rather than opening my mind to this diverse form. The exercises in the poetry chapters were also the most uninspired in the book, for me.
👎 The publishing section felt like filler. Basic research into submitting work makes this section feel dated and clunky. For a book this introductory, including a section on getting published feels really premature.
Personally, I found this book most useful when paired with edX and Coursera courses to broaden my perspective, examine more diverse forms of fiction and poetry, and deepen my understanding.
Like any workbook, the usefulness of this book will depend on your existing knowledge and what you’re trying to achieve. Overall, I found it too surface-level and very geared toward an England readership. It was fine to work through but I’m glad it was a companion to a course, rather than something I purchased alone.
August 12, 2023
I got this book through my university course, Creative Writing. It's a good book which teaches techniques for being able to become a writer.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews