Writing for Children
Learn how to craft beautiful stories for children.
The Author Academy children’s course is a live, six-week programme for writers who have an idea, outline, or first draft, and need clear, practical guidance to shape it for manuscript review.
The course focuses on picture books, chapter books and young adult fiction.
This course accepts 15 students per cohort.
What you’ll get:
You’ll learn how to:
Each week combines live teaching with resource packs and straightforward exercises you can apply in your own time. In the final two weeks, you’ll join round-table sessions with HarperCollins authors, asking questions and hearing directly about their writing and publishing journeys.
Your tutor:
Anna Wilson
Fiction TutorAnna Wilson read Modern Languages at Cambridge University. She has been an editor for Macmillan, HarperCollins, Puffin, and Bloomsbury. Anna has written over 60 books for children of all ages. Her latest is a non-fiction title, A Story of the Seasons (Nosy Crow and the National Trust).
Her picture book Grandpa and the Kingfisher (Nosy Crow) was shortlisted for the 2023 Wainwright Nature Prize. She wrote the novelisations for the second and third Paddington movies (HarperCollins). Her memoir for adult readers: A Place for Everything – My Mother, Autism and Me (HQ, HarperCollins) was reviewed as “a seminal work in this area” by the world expert in autism in women, Professor Tony Attwood.
As well as writing, Anna has extensive experience in teaching creative writing. She is a Royal Literary Fund Fellow, an Arvon tutor, and a coach for the London Writers’ Salon.”
Writing for Children course structure
Books by Author Academy alumni
