Since striking a deal for her debut novel, The Versions of Us, in 2014 - one that exceeded her wildest dreams of becoming a novelist, held since the age of five - Laura has sought every opportunity to teach, mentor and generally discuss the craft and practice of writing. You can see her doing this in her 2017 TedX talk at Cambridge University here.

For Laura, teaching creative writing is very much a two-way process: she learns as much from the writers she works with as she hopes they do from her. Together, they consider how to hone and refine the particularities of voice, structure, characterisation and editing in order to make the student’s prose fiction the very best it can be. She is also passionate about helping break down some of the barriers - of background, of assumptions, of fear - that often dissuade talented writers from diverse backgrounds from seeking to publish their work.

Currently, she combines a number of part-time teaching roles. She’s a Senior Lecturer in Fiction at the fantastic Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University (if you’re thinking of taking an MA in Creative Writing, theirs is very much worth considering). She is also a tutor for Curtis Brown Creative (CBC), the UK’s only agency-led writing school, whose deep-diving courses really are invaluable for serious writers, whether taken online or in person. Between June and December 2023, she is leading one of their flagship six-month novel-writing courses. You can also take Laura’s online deep-dive courses on dialogue and plot and story. Full details of CBC’s courses can be found here.

In autumn 2022, Laura ran a creative writing course at the lovely independent bookshop Tales on Market St in Faversham. See this news item for more details, or contact the bookshop directly for details of any future courses.

Laura acts as a writing mentor, too - for CBC, and previously for the fantastic charities Arts Emergency and Spread the Word. In autumn 2022, she also joined the Ruppin Agency Writers’ Studio as a mentor: see her profile page here.

On rare occasions, she will consider working privately with a serious emerging writer. If you’d like to be considered for this, please drop her a line through her contact page.