Cambridge author Anita Lehmann launches fast-track creative writing course

Author and Cambridge resident Anita Lehmann has turned her own creative writing journey into a series of courses and workshops to support others who want their work published - and you could get a 20 per cent discount if you apply before 27 September.

The author of 12 books, Anita was born in Bern, Switzerland and first moved to Cambridge in 2005.

“Six years and two kids later, my husband got offered a job in Geneva,” says Anita, who says she became “an accidental stay-at-home Mum” and adds: “This is when I started writing.”

The family - now including three offspring - moved back to Cambridge in 2017, “because we missed the Cambridge 'vibe' and our friends.” Anita’s first book, The Red Hot Fireball, was published in 2017.

“By the end of this year, I will have 12 books out. Cambridge has definitely become our home.”

The books are a range of titles for children, and others for adults - the hilarious and slightly noir take on fairy tales, The Princess and the Prick is in its third print run with Harper Collins. Some are in German, some are in English.

The business Anita has started - her first “besides being a self-employed author” - leads on ‘The 30-minute writer’ course, which involves “30 minutes a day to becoming a published author” emerged from a realisation.

“I've had brilliant teachers, great opportunities, and have learned rather a lot about the business of writing over the past ten years. It's now time for me to pay it forward. The 30-minute Writer is my way of doing exactly that.

“The 30-minute-Writer is the course I'm building my business around. I also offer one-to-one coaching for deeper support and to get unstuck with a specific writing project. The course is a really comprehensive, solid basis for any kind of creative writing project, fiction or non-fiction, long or short.”

The course offers “how to get your first flash fiction story written from scratch and sent out for publishing in just a few weeks”. If you thought ‘flash’ meant dazzling, you’d be overoptimistic, for flash fiction is rather more prosaic - it’s under 1,000 words. (It can be dazzling too, of course.)

“Flash fiction is a fantastic genre as and of itself,” says Anita, adding that “all my published work is in short form”.

“But you can also use it as a building block. If you think of a novel as a house and your scenes as bricks... how are you meant to build that house without understanding how to lay bricks?

“Once you learn how to write, develop, and edit a piece of flash fiction, you can easily adapt that knowledge to write a scene...and the whole process of writing a novel becomes much more manageable.”

And how does the course help writers get published?

“In the course, I take people through a series of questions to help them think through what they want from publishing, then to establish a strategy to work towards that goal.

“People want to publish a book for many different reasons, and it's important to be aware of your 'what and why' before launching into sending out proposals. It makes the process much less stressful and more efficient.”

There’s other ways to get the benefit of Anita’s experience.

“I offer fun, interactive school visits and am also happy to run creative writing workshops for organisations and companies.”

- Cambridge Independent readers can receive a 20 per cent discount until 27 September by using the code INDEPENDENTWRITING at checkout. Find out more here.