In this session begin to transform your life experiences into powerful, compelling writing. Through guided exercises and inspiring readings, you’ll explore memory, voice, and emotions while crafting vivid scenes from your own life. This is a taster session for a six-week course, Write Your Own Story: Creative Writing for Autobiographers, which is planned for later this year.

The teaching and Q&A portions of the session will be recorded and made available to students ASAP. This will be available through the 14th of August 2026.

Tutor biography:

David Pettigrew is a tutor of over twenty years' experience for the Centre of Lifelong Learning's daytime, evening and weekend creative writing courses, the Creative Writing Mentoring Programme, the Blaze online writing courses and the Classic Book Group. He is also the Centre's Departmental Disability & Guidance Officer.

Alongside his teaching, David is a professional editor working in the Scottish publishing industry. Qualifications include an honours degree in English Literature, masters degrees in Publishing and Creative Writing (with Distinction), and a postgraduate diploma in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education. He is a recipient of a Scottish Arts Council New Writers Bursary award and his short stories have been published in a number of writing anthologies. He also researches and writes non-fiction in the area of Scottish local and social history.

The sessions will be run using Microsoft Teams - a meeting link will be provided to enrolees.