The Writing School: A Memoir

When author Miranda France sets out to teach at a residential writing school in the British countryside, she expects to meet a group of aspiring writers with the usual mix of hope and unrealised ambitions, talents and motivation. What she doesn't expect, as she takes her tutees through a series of exercises designed to help them explore different aspects of their writing, is that a ghost from her own life will join them.

As she thinks about the act of writing and storytelling, Miranda recovers memories concerning her brother's untimely death when she was a teenager, a grief that has profoundly shaped her life. What is to be done with our memories of those we have lost? What is behind the urge to put lives into words? And is it ever right to tell another person's story?

Blending storytelling and memoir, packed full of literary anecdote and insight, The Writing School is a moving and often very funny book about why people write, as well as being a uniquely generous masterclass on the art of writing itself.