Matt Kendrick
Writer | Editor | Teacher
Go With The Flow
How do we create flow in our writing, sentences that slip one into the next like a river of words? This flash fiction course explores sentence craft at a molecular level, thinking about the connection of ideas, rhythmic patterns and thematic cohesion.
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Upcoming Course Dates
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13th-26th January 2025 (**SOLD OUT**)
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Previous Course Dates
4th-17th March 2024 (SOLD OUT); 6th-19th May 2024 (SOLD OUT); 9th-22nd September 2024 (SOLD OUT)
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Price
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This is a pay-what-you-can workshop. The recommended price is £95*. Where this is prohibitive, please pay what you feel you can afford**. As a workshop facilitator, I am committed to opening up writing opportunities to people from all backgrounds based on ability to write rather than ability to pay.
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*For the sake of transparency, this recommended price is calculated to cover (a) 3.0 hours of course tutor input (per participant) in terms of feedback, discussion and admin; (b) the research / writing time of the course tutor in putting together the course notes (approximately 15,000 words, available to download following the course); and (c) miscellaneous fees (transaction charges, website charges etc.)
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**Available price options: (A) £95, (B) £85, (C) £75, (D) £60, (E) £50. If you are a low-income writer and would be interested in hearing about free places, please enter your details here.
Testimonials
"Matt’s course Go With The Flow is packed full of his usual brilliantly researched, clearly presented, deeply thought out material. He is kind, supportive and generous with his time and expertise. I found it invaluable for my writing and have continued to work through the materials long after! I highly recommend it."​
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Sumitra Singam
"If you’ve ever taken a Matt Kendrick course you’ll be expecting great things from his latest - and you will not be disappointed! ‘Go With The Flow’ has all the Matt trademarks: extensive research presented clearly and concisely; fabulous story examples; and plenty of new (to me, anyway) words and techniques. There is lots of space for applying what you’ll learn, and Matt’s inspiring creative prompts will get your words and stories flowing like never before!"​
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S.A. Greene
"Matt’s Lightbulb courses are beyond brilliant (I’ve done all four). The craft notes, example stories, discussion prompts and writing exercises are different, full of insight, and meticulously presented. And you get to keep them for ever! And the courses are ridiculously good value."​
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Chris Cottom
Topics
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1: Anchors (time and place)
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Story openings.
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Rooting a reader in time and place.
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Paragraph structure.
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Fractured narratives.
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2: Bridges (flow of ideas)
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Anadiplosis.
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Creating bridges between ideas.
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Transitive construction.
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Stream-of-consciousness writing.
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3: Stitches (sentence flow)
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Types of sentence.
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Creating rhythmic variation.
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Appositives, lists, tree-branch asides, multiple yoking, polysyndeton, and other techniques for creating breathless prose.
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4: Threads (narrative and thematic cohesion)
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The parallels between restriction and cohesion.
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Cohesion of narrative, style, voice, perspective and theme.
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Titles and endings.
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In each topic, we'll use example texts to explore techniques we might incorporate into our own writing. These are presented alongside warm-up and preparatory writing exercises with everything leading towards a final flash fiction challenge at the end of the topic.
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The reading list for this course includes pieces by Carmen Maria Machado, L Mari Harris, Roberta Beary, Tessa Yang, Lindy Biller, Barlow Adams, James Montgomery, Lucy Zhang, Sara Siddiqui Chansarkar, Melissa Llanes Brownlee, Matthew Richardson, and Gaynor Jones.
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Each topic is designed to be worked through in roughly three hours. The course is fully asynchronous (work-at-your-own-pace) and fully online to allow course participants to fit it in around their other commitments.
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Course Structure
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Week 0
Participants are given access to the course website seven days prior to the start date. This is to allow writers to make a headstart on reading and preparative exercises. If you would like access to the materials further in advance, this can normally be accommodated.
Week 1
Participants are encouraged to work through the reading materials and preparative exercises. The course forum is open for discussion of stories and craft techniques as well as for sharing micros created from the preparative exercises.
Week 2
Participants can continue working through the course materials at their own pace. The main workshop is open for sharing final challenge pieces and providing feedback on those created by other course participants.
After the course
Participants are sent full course notes in PDF format.
Learning Mode
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Online (website and Google Classroom).
Asynchronous (work at your own pace / no set times / no Zoom elements).
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Forum (opportunitiy to interact with course tutor and other course participants).
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Workshop (opportunity to share work and swap feedback with other course participants).
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Feedback from course tutor on four prepartory micros and detailed feedback (300-400 word structural summary plus in-line comments) on one "final challenge" piece.
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Course Tutor
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Matt Kendrick is a writer, editor and teacher based in the East Midlands, UK. His short fiction has appeared in various journals, and has been included on the Biffy 50 list for 2019-20, in Best Microfiction 2021, Best Small Fictions 2022 and the Wigleaf Top 50 2022.
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He works as a freelance editor and creative writing tutor, drawing on his knowledge of languages and other art forms to inform his workshops on lyrical writing, glorious words, colourful characters and writing flow.
Other Information / Sign Up
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The course is designed for writers of an intermediate or advanced level. To get the most out of the materials, it is suggested that you should have prior familiarity with reading and writing flash fiction, and that you should have a good grounding in other elements of writing craft. While the course is geared towards the study and generation of flash, the techniques and skills acquired should also be useful for writing longer form and non-fiction pieces.
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The course is hosted on a Google website using Google Classroom and Google Drive to enable the forum and workshop elements. To access materials, participants will need to have a Google account. If you don't already have one, you will be sent information on how you can set one up following sign up for the course.
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The terms and conditions for the course can be found here.
Stories written on the Write Beyond The Lightbulb courses
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The prompts on the Write Beyond the Lightbulb courses aim to get participants practising technique and experimenting with new ideas rather than writing perfect stories, but even so many wonderful pieces have been crafted by course participants and subsequently made their way out into the world.
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The stories have been placed in major writing competitions including Reflex Fiction and Bath Flash Fiction, and have also been published in a wide variety of literary journals. A selection of these stories can be read at the link below: