Graeme Armstrong is a Times bestselling author from Airdrie. His teenage years were spent within Scotland’s ‘young team’ gang culture. His debut novel, The Young Team, was published by Picador in 2020 and won the Somerset Maugham Award, the Betty Trask Award and was named Scots Language Book of the Year 2021. He wrote and presented a BBC factual series on Scottish rave culture, BAFTA and RTS Scotland nominated Scotland the Rave (BBC, 2021), and on the evolution of Scottish gang culture, Street Gangs (BBC, 2023) featured on BBC iPlayer. In 2023, he was named one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists, a once-in-a-decade literary honour. The Young Team is currently in development as a major BBC 1 drama, expected late 2026. His new novel Raveheart publishes with 4th Estate in April 2026. It has been optioned for screen by Warp Films (This is England/Adolescence).
Writing the Working-Class Experience
How do you start, and continue, writing from the margins?
How will you define your work and what is your ultimate intention for it? Where do you get ideas and then how do you develop them? What makes a great character, setting and story?
We’ll explore all this and more by seeking out and discussing the best of working class writing and using short accessible exercises to get you writing pieces that you can then develop long after your course.
This course is suitable for those beginning their journey and writers with a project in mind or underway.
Tutors
Graeme Armstrong
Kerry Hudson
Kerry Hudson was born in Aberdeen. Growing up in a succession of council estates, B&Bs and caravan parks provided her with a keen eye for idiosyncratic behaviour, material for life, and a love of travel. Her first novel, Tony Hogan Bought Me an Ice-cream Before he Stole my Ma (Vintage/Penguin, 2012) was shortlisted for eight literary prizes, including The Guardian First Book Award, and won Scottish First Book of the Year. Kerry's second novel, Thirst (Chatto & Windus, 2014) was shortlisted for the Green Carnation Prize, won the prestigious Prix Femina in France and was shortlisted for the European Strega Prize in Italy. Her first work of non-fiction, Lowborn (Vintage/Penguin, 2019) became a Times bestseller and was hailed as “One of the most important books of the year” by The Guardian. A follow-up to Lowborn, Newborn, was published in 2024. Kerry wrote the script for Hannah, broadcast on BBC Four and starring Emma Fryer, as part of Skint, a series of seven 15-minute monologues tackling the subject of poverty in the UK. More recently she was commissioned to write a week-long series of essays for BBC Radio 4, The Kindness of Strangers. Kerry writes for various publications including The New York Times, Guardian, Big Issue, Grazia, and The Herald, where she contributes a travel column. She is an elected fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and in 2022 she was nominated for Columnist of the Year in the Scottish Press Awards.
Guest Reader
Anthony Shapland (Digital)
Anthony Shapland grew up in the Rhymney Valley. He is the co‐founder of g39, Cardiff, where he works. He was part of Literature Wales’ Representing Wales 2022/23 Cohort with mentoring support from Cynan Jones. He was shortlisted for the Rhys Davies Short Story Competition for Foolscap, part of the anthology Cree, published by Parthian (2022). His creative non-fiction essay, Meantime, was commissioned by Inclusive Journalism for the Seren anthology Cymru & I (2023) and he recently contributed to (un)common, an anthology published by Lucent Dreaming (2024). He was selected for the Hay Writers at Work programme in 2023. His fiction, Feathertongue, will be broadcast as part of Radio Four’s Short Works series in autumn 2024. He is represented by Cathryn Summerhayes, Curtis Brown, and his debut novel A Room Above a Shop was published by Granta in 2025.