Hi lovely students, and hope you well as we hurl towards Halloween. Here in rural Wales, it is wild and windy, but invigorating weather for we writers.

We’ve a bumper video today, featuring three writing exercises, where I invite you to stop the video for 5 minutes and write something, inspired by a bewitching extract. Depending on what you prefer, I reckon these exercises get progressively more difficult. But I appreciate that poets amongst you may find the last one a breeze.

As most of you know I love interactive teaching, so if you’re a Udemy student of mine, you are most encouraged to send your work over on the course q&a or discussion board. Please use #writetobewitch.

And if you like these practical lessons, please let me know, as I’m keen to do more of them if this is the case.

The writers and works we look at are Diana Wynne Jones, Witch Week; Ibram X Kendi, How To Be An Antiracist; and Anne Sexton, Her Kind.

Do hope you enjoy the samples, and have a fun Halloween.