Sara Maitland wrote that folk tales speak deeply to us because they are ‘filled with the reverberations of everyone’s dreams.’ On this online course, we will explore the different ways in which we can harness the strange power of folk tales in our writing.
Folk tales have long been borrowed by writers, from Charles Perrault’s first ‘literary fairy tales’ in Mother Goose, to Angela Carter’s subversive and riotous remixes in The Bloody Chamber, to Lucy Wood’s Cornish folklore-infused Diving Belles.
As well as exploring folk tales themselves, we’ll look at a range of published fiction that demonstrates this range of approaches. This might include stories from writers such as Angela Carter, Marina Warner, Sara Maitland, Donald Barthelme, Joyce Carol Oates, Kirsty Logan, Lucy Wood and more.
This course is aimed at new or established writers, who are either already experimenting with using folk tales in their writing, or who would like to learn about this approach for the first time.
Dates: 13 March – 30 April 2025
Location: Online
Cost: £185
Further info and to book
here