The SL Writing School was formed in October 2025 as a response to the need for affordable, in person, creative writing courses, south of the river. Offering an antidote to the data-driven digital age, the aim is to nurture creativity and community through writing and books.
Founded by award-winning author and performer, Karen McLeod, the school's programme will offer courses throughout the year, tutored by professional published London-based writers and performers.
The courses are designed to help you discover what you are interested in writing about – and in which form and genre. The course structures will introduce elements of craft, while equally encouraging experimentation. They will be highly practical (you will get writing from the off) and tutors will offer feedback, encouragement, reading lists, writing tips and a unique & personal insight into their writing lives and, if appropriate the publishing and arts industries.
Instruction given is highly supportive, sometimes playful, and always encouraging to aid everyone in building upon their creative future.
The Founder
Karen McLeod, is a writer, performer and creative writing tutor and writer-in-residence at Bookseller Crow. She has been running writing courses for the last 13 years and teaches writing with the Arvon Foundation, National Centre for Writing in Norwich, Scotland's National Writing Centre and Polari LGBTQ+ salon.
Her debut novel, In Search of the Missing Eyelash, was published by Jonathan Cape and won the Betty Trask Award and was translated widely. In June 2024 it was celebrated as a ‘lesbian classic’ being republished by Muswell Press.
She wrote In Search of the Missing Eyelash in hotel rooms across the globe while working as cabin crew. Coming full circle, her memoir, Lifting Off (Muswell Press, June 2024) is about the years she worked, and subsequently went into free-fall, as cabin crew. It was longlisted for the Polari Prize 2025.
When she's not writing, or talking about writing, or thinking about writing, she can be found treading the creaky boards at theatres, cabaret clubs and pubs as the self-appointed Poet Laureate of Penge, Barbara Brownskirt.