An unforgettable start to our panel discussion with a live performance by D/deaf creative Sarah Adedeji, whose work blends emotive art and advocacy. This panel will delve into how imagination serves as a tool for liberation, healing, and creating new worlds. Dean Atta, Ekow Eshun, and Maame Blue will share insights into their creative processes and explore the power of imagination in reshaping identity, history, and futures, chaired by OtherStories Founder Nancy Adimora.

We’re thrilled to welcome back Maame Blue, the Ghanaian-London author behind 'Bad Love', as she launches her latest page-turner, 'The Rest of You'. Don’t miss this chance to get up close and personal with Maame in an evening of real talk, laughs, and insights with bestselling author Dorothy Koomson leading the conversation.

Join author Maame Blue as she leads this workshop showing you how to add depth to your complex characters by breaking down fictional platonic, romantic or family relationship narratives, looking at point of view, and exploring historical context.

The Lighthouse team invites you for an evening of magnificent fiction by a bookshop favourite! Maame Blue's new novel is a tale of friendship, uncovered memories and past secrets, set between present-day England and mid-90s Ghana, which we think you'll love.

Join prize-winning authors Maame Blue and Chibundu Onuzo to discuss their latest novels and the meaning of the Twi proverb Sankofa.

Writing about family can be a complex but wholly transformative experience with the right approach.

Join Maame Blue in this 3-hour workshop as she takes you through guided readings of award-winning fiction about family, alongside useful writing exercises and feedback points to help you develop your familial stories.

Join us to celebrate the launch of Maame Blue's The Rest of You - a powerful tale of womanhood, friendship and the Black British experience.

Join Maame Blue and Marcelle Mateki Akita to delve into the playlist behind THE REST OF YOU, exploring the creative space where music and novel writing intersect!

Are you working on a multi-character family narrative? Are you struggling to balance your story alongside the development of each character? Perhaps you’re unsure of which angle to take?

Join Maame Blue as she takes you through guided readings from brilliant novelists writing about family, alongside useful writing exercises and feedback points to help you develop your own approach to writing about family.

This live workshop will take place via Zoom — on AEST Time.

Do you want to create more complex characters in your writing? Join award-winning author Maame Blue for her flagship workshop on crafting complex characters. Through close readings of contemporary fiction, discussions and writing exercises, you’ll be on your way to creating multilayered characters that can drive a narrative forward!

This is an exciting opportunity to fit creative writing into your hectic week. Running as an informal rolling programme, you can come for just one term or stay throughout the year, knowing that for a precious hour you’ll be thrown ideas that will take your writing in new directions.

Running for 11 weeks (27 April to 6 July 2023) we will be experimenting with poetry and prose, working with dialogue and descriptive language, finding sources of inspiration in unexpected places and playing with imagery and figures of speech.

Join Maame Blue in this workshop as she takes you through guided readings of award-winning fiction about family, alongside useful writing exercises and feedback points to help you develop your own familial stories.

This course will run ONLINE from Thursday 17 - 31 August, Thursdays @ 18:30 - 20:30 VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA time

Intimate relationships are the centre of so many of the stories we wish to tell. How do we make connections – figurative and physical – between characters realistic? In this exciting short course, you’ll focus on the ins and outs of writing romance, developing your skills in crafting characters and scenes.

Our unmissable creative writing retreat is back for a second year – with fresh content, award-winning novelists, dedicated creative time and a community of fellow writers to help you put pen to paper and write.

Do you love reading about messy romantic entanglements, fraught family interactions or the multi-layered relationship with self? Would you like help to create more characters that drive these kinds of narratives?

Learn how to create your own complex characters by utilising context and breaking down character motivations.

Learn from some of the best genre-defying fiction writers experimenting with the notion of family, to help your own writing. Join award-winning author Maame Blue for this 3-hour online workshop.

This course will cover the basic aspects of novel writing, and is ideal for intermediate students who have an idea for a novel or a novel in progress. The syllabus will cover a wide variety of techniques including character, point of view, dialogue, structure and style. There is also an element of workshop in this course.

Running for 11 weeks (3 May to 12 July 2023) at 19:40 - 21:40 on Wednesday evenings, we will be covering issues of craft and content, including character, point of view, structure and style; examination of technical elements including dialogue, scene-building, and effective writing on a sentence-by-sentence level; keeping the reader's interest; workshopping of students' work.

During this one day online session, attendees will be given the space to pull from their own internal worlds and knowledge of working with people one-on-one, to take part in creative writing lessons that will teach them how to create authentic, multi-layered characters on the page. This will be especially valuable to members who want an alternative creative outlet for taking care of their own wellbeing as practitioners outside of the consulting room.

This event will include the following:

• Incorporating self-perception into your character creation

• Looking at examples in fiction

• Learning how to create context for characters

• Writing our own complex characters.

This is an exciting opportunity to fit creative writing into your hectic week. Running as an informal rolling programme, you can come for just one term or stay throughout the year, knowing that for a precious hour you’ll be thrown ideas that will take your writing in new directions.

Running for 11 weeks (27 April to 6 July 2023) we will be experimenting with poetry and prose, working with dialogue and descriptive language, finding sources of inspiration in unexpected places and playing with imagery and figures of speech.

Find joy in readings and live drawing with illustrator Dapo Adeola, as he presents his newly curated book Joyful, Joyful: Stories Celebrating Black Voices.

He’s joined by the other members of a much-loved and inspirational trio, writers Hannah Lee and Maame Blue.

Through interactive readings and live drawing they show how important it is to ensure that the stories of all children are committed, loud and proud, to the page.

Panel discussion celebrating Black love in all its essence from familial, community, friendship, romantic, nature and self with Ayanna Lloyd Banwo‘s When We Were Birds, Jendella Benson‘s Hope and Glory, Lizzie Damilola Blackburn‘s Yinka, Where Is Your Huzband? and Okechukwu Nzelu’s Here Again Now. Chaired by Maame Blue (author of Bad Love).

Join Maame Blue and Abena Karikari as they discuss Maame’s award-winning debut novel Bad Love.