New London based courses – 20 July

In July I will be hosting some more London based (SE20) courses.

On the 20th of July I will be doing an all day course. (This was down as the 6th originally, but it turns out I am an idiot)

If there is enough interest there will also be a mid week course – running over 4 weeks – from late July to August.

The classes cost £100, and class sizes are limited.

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If you’ve heard enough, and you’re in, email me here. With your preference for Saturday or midweek.

If you can’t make it to London there is always the online course.

The course is based on my career as a bloke who parked cars for a living at 27, and at 38 is the global writer for ESPNcricinfo. I had no qualification in journalism, contacts, or any idea how the media worked. So the course is me reverse engineering my career, looking at media trends and other people who have been successful. The idea is that it can help people become better writers, with practically ways of thinking and writing about sport. There are lectures, examples and also some in class work.

It will cover:

Who you are as a writer

How to think about athletes and teams

What kind of articles you can write

My biggest fuck ups

How to find sport stories

The tools of modern sports writing

A guide to interviewing

How to write for different publications

A start to finish guide on long-form writing

Data and writing

Breaking into the industry

Podcasting, videos and film

And Giant Lizard Theory

More info on the course here.

Details:

Price:

100 quid

Dates:

Saturday, 20 July.

If you are interested in booking email me here for queries.

Location: A place in SE20, London.

New London sports writing classes: 23rd June and Tuesday night classes

I have two sports classes coming up, and looking at my schedule, they may be the last one in the UK this year.

It is Saturday class on the 23rd of June, from 1000-1800, in SE20, near Penge East station.

The second is three Tuesday night classes, 19th of June, 26th of June and 3rd of July, from 1900-2200, in SE20, near Penge East station. Sadly this one has been cancelled.

The classes cost £75, an class sizes are limited.

If you’ve heard enough, and you’re in, email me here. If you can’t make it to London there is always the online course.

The course is based on my career as a bloke who parked cars for a living at 27, and at 38 is the global writer for ESPNcricinfo. I had no qualification in journalism, contacts, or any idea how the media worked. So the course is me reverse engineering my career, looking at media trends and other people who have been successful. The idea is that it can help people become better writers, with practically ways of thinking and writing about sport. There are lectures, examples and also some in class work.

The course will cover:

Who you are as a writer

How to think about athletes and teams

What kind of articles you can write

My biggest fuck ups

How to find sport stories

The tools of modern sports writing

A guide to interviewing

How to write for different publications

A start to finish guide on long-form writing

Data and writing

Breaking into the industry

Podcasting, videos and film

And Giant Lizard Theory

More info on the course here.

Details:

Price:

75 quid

Dates:

Saturday, 23 June.

If you are interested in booking email me here for queries.

Location: A place in SE20, London.

New London Course – 24 Feb

My sports writing course is coming to a Saturday near you, if you’re near London or can make it to London on the 24th of Feb. It’s £75. Class sizes are limited.

If you’ve heard enough, and you’re in, email me here. If you can’t make it to London there is always the online course.

It will be in the SE20 area of London from 10-6.

The price will be £75.

The course will cover:

Who you are as a writer

How to think about athletes and teams

What kind of articles you can write

My biggest fuck ups

How to find sport stories

The tools of modern sports writing

A guide to interviewing

How to write for different publications

A start to finish guide on long-form writing

Data and writing

Breaking into the industry

Podcasting, videos and film

And Giant Lizard Theory

More info on the course here.

Details:

Price:

75 quid

Dates:

Saturday, 24 Feb.

If you are interested in booking email me here for queries.

Location: A place in SE20, London.



The online course is now available

After testing it on 40 or so guinea pigs in London, countless work experience kids, freelance writers on their way up, and doing a few AMAs on Reddit, my online sports writing course is now available.

It is $50, and that includes over 2 hours of lectures, and 20,000 words of written content, which includes lists, checklists, guides and a cartoon of Garfield.

If that is enough information, go sign up now.

This is a course on how to write about sport.

I never finished high school, never finished any higher learning, never worked for a newspaper, had no real contacts, started without knowing anyone in the sport I was writing about and without a single friend who was a journalist. And so, like the Unabomber, I wrote, and wrote, and wrote. I wrote my way into a weird job – global writer – at one of the world’s biggest sports websites, ESPNcricinfo.

I wrote like no one else because I didn’t know there were ways you were supposed to write about sports. I wrote about things that I cared about because I didn’t understand about news cycles. And I wrote with a piece of me in each article, because no one was around to tell me not to. This all means that I have built a career on writing about sport that isn’t like the careers of others.

This course is me reverse-engineering my writing.

The course is part theory and part practical. There are over two hours of lectures, but there are also many checklists and tips to show you how to think, plan, and write, and also a practical component where you have to mesh my teachings with who you are.

I have tried to make it as practical as possible, so that if you find yourself in a press box the next day or writing a feature from your living room, you could take what you’re learning and apply it.

This is not a course on how to get into the industry; most of those are a bit scammy and I don’t want you to think you can take my course and suddenly become the Times chief sports writer. This course is aimed at taking who you are as a fan, and showing you how to use it to become a sports writer. It is not a sports journalism course, although facets of that are covered. It is mostly about making what you write about sports as good as it can possibly be.

The areas covered:

Who you are as a writer

How to think about athletes and teams

What kind of articles you can write

How to find sport stories

The tools of modern sports writing

A guide to interviewing

A start to finish guide on long-form writing

Data and writing

And Giant Lizard Theory

It doesn’t matter to me if you went to Oxbridge, now work at the Guardian covering Premier League, or are an uneducated 57-year-old plumber who has always wanted to write her thoughts on trends in Handball, this course is for everyone. This course is for anyone who wants to write better about sport.

While I am mostly a cricket writer, the things I have learnt can be used in any sport, and in truth, probably outside sport too. I have won a prestigious award, helped present a Guardian masterclass this year, written for an arseload of major publications around the world and am hopefully still in my prime, not some old guy with patches on my elbow talking about how sports writing was great when people chewed cigars and worked with one finger on a typewriter.

I am a working writer, learning every day, striving to get better, and using my work, my failure, as a way of helping you.

Sports writing, with the birth of internet and cable TV, has never been better. I want each and every one of you to write something as good as you can write. It doesn’t matter if you don’t all become David Remnick, but it does matter to me that you get that rush when you finish a story that you’re so passionate about on the page.

Let us write.

 

Update and info for the Online Course

An update on the online course:
 
To register interest for the course, sign up here.
 
The course is currently being written and filmed, and if all things go well, by mid-November, it should be online. When finished it should be somewhere around 6 hours in lectures, with many checklists and exercises involved, it is roughly an eight-hour course in total. The price will be around £39.
 
This course itself is my attempt a few years ago to reverse engineer my writing, so I better understand it. I also look to a few other writers for what works for them, while I’m also fascinated about how the media landscape evolves. From all that I have put together an extremely practical course that will help you look at sport in a new way, and should allow you to express your words in the best way possible to write quality pieces and grab attention while doing so.
 
The course has already been run in London and attended by people who have never written about sport through to people who write professionally already. Writers of all experience have said this has helped them. The course was deliberately designed for people of varying writing backgrounds.
 
This is not a sports journalist course, some facets of journalism are covered, but it is really about writing better about sports. It is also not a course that will tell you how to structure a sentence better; it is not a how-to-write course, although there are many tips and sections on how to improve your writing. This course is mainly about opening up your mind to the many possibilities of sports writing, how to plan and how to train your mind into what to look for.
 
The course is very much aimed at finding out who you are as a sports fan and using that to guide you into being the best sports writer you can be.
 
Areas covered:
 
Why sport matters
Your favourite player
Guide to the pressbox
Writing tools
Game time checklist
The story of sport
Types of pieces to write
Advice on news, data and interviews
Help on breaking into the industry
Audio and visuals
How to find stories
A thorough guide to writing a feature
 
The course is a series of lectures, checklists, guides and exercises that are designed to make you focus on what it is you love about sport, and then how to write better about it.
 
I’ll be back in touch soon with a firm date for the release.I n the meantime, why not check out the facebook page about the course where I take a closer look at quality sports writing.

Online course news

The online course is not yet finished, but we hope to have it finished by November.

Currently the course is being trialled with real life humans.

The idea of the course is to help you learn how to think about sports writing, and then practical tools of how to go about the job itself.

To sign up for info on the online course, click here.

Fans with laptops; the sports writing course

Screenshot 2017-09-19 12.37.24

***ALL LIVE CLASSES ARE CURRENTLY BOOKED OUT***

***Register interest for online classes here***

This is a course on how to write about sport.

I never finished high-school, nor completed any higher learning, haven’t worked for a newspaper, had no real contacts, and without a single friend who was a journalist. And so, like the Unabomber,  I wrote, and wrote, and wrote. I wrote my way into a weird job – global writer – at one of the world’s biggest sports websites, ESPNcricinfo.

I wrote like no one else because I didn’t know there were ways you were supposed to write about sports. I wrote about things that I cared about because I didn’t understand about news cycles. And I wrote with a piece of me in each article, because no one was around to tell me not too.  All this means I have built a career on writing about sport that isn’t like the careers of others.

This course is me reverse engineering my writing.

It is a workshop designed to change the way you think about sport, to open you up to write the best you can on it.  We’ll be talking, writing, and brainstorming. I have tried to make it as practical as possible, so that if you find yourself in a press box the next day or writing a feature from your living room, you could take what you’re learning and apply it.

I want you to come out of this a better writer.

This is not a course of how to get into the industry, most of those are a bit scammy, I don’t want you to think you take my course and suddenly believe that you can learn the shortcuts how to be the Times chief sports writer. There will be a section on how to get into the media, but in reality, the best way to get a job is to work on your writing. The better a writer you are, the more interesting things you say, the better the stories you write, the more chance you have of making it than anyone who is trying to game the system.

The areas covered:

Who you are as a writer

How to think about athletes and teams

What kind of articles you can write

My biggest fuck ups

How to find sport stories

The tools of modern sports writing

A guide to interviewing

How to write for different publications

A start to finish guide on long-form writing

Data and writing

Breaking into the industry

Podcasting, videos and film

And Giant Lizard Theory

It doesn’t matter to me if you went to Oxbridge, now work at the Guardian covering Premier League, or are an uneducated 57-year-old plumber who has always wanted to write her thoughts on trends in Handball, this course is for everyone.  This course is for anyone who wants to write better about sport.

All I ask is that you love sports and writing, we’ll work out the rest.  While I am a cricket writer, I don’t give two shits about what sport you love, this works for all sport, and in truth, probably outside sport too.

I have no qualifications as a teacher, mind you, I have no qualifications as a writer either, but that hasn’t seemed to matter.  I have won a prestigious award, presented a guardian masterclass this year, written for an arseload of major publications around the world and am hopefully still in my prime, not some old guy with patches on my elbow talking about how sports writing was great when people chewed cigars and worked with one finger on a typewriter.

I am a working writer, learning every day, striving to get better, and using my work, my failure, as a way of helping you.

Sports writing, with the birth of internet and cable TV, has never been better. I want each and every one of you to write something as good as you can write, it doesn’t matter if you don’t all become David Remnick, but it does matter to me that you learn how to turn passion into words.

Details:

Price:

75 quid

Dates:

For latest classes available, click here.

Midweek courses run over four weeks, two hours each class.

Saturday courses are one off superclasses.

If you want to put your name down to be on a list for upcoming classes email me here for queries.

Location:

SE20, London.

Bookings:

Email me here for queries.

About me.

On wiki.

My Cricinfo work.

My guide to writing.

Some non cricket stuff, golf and football.

Taken by @dudleyplatypus

Taken by @dudleyplatypus

(This has not been edited, so all errors are down to that; first lesson, sub-editors are important, kiddies).