Between the Lines Masterclass: Finding Your Voice with Julia Bell

Voice is often talked about as a mystery - something you either have or you don't. This session argues that voice is not a gift but a practice: it emerges from specificity, from the courage to write from your own embodied experience, and from understanding the difference between what only you can say and what any text could say. We'll use reading and writing exercises to locate and develop each writer's most distinctive register.

Essays shared in this workshop will be:

George Orwell - 'Why I Write'

Joan Didion - 'Why I Write'

Hubert Selby Jnr - 'Why I Write' (Introduction to Last Exit to Brooklyn)

They will be shared in the confirmation email when you book your ticket.

To take part in this live Zoom masterclass, you will need access to the internet at the time and date shown, and be able to receive a joining link by email. This will be sent in your confirmation email alongside the reading materials. Please check your spam if you don't receive this.

This workshop will be recorded for the purpose of sending to ticket holders who can’t make the event, or who miss a portion of the event, or who need the recording as part of their access needs.

If you do not receive an invitation link, or if you have any other questions, please contact us at info@londonlitlab.co.uk

Discount Tickets

There are two half-price places and one free place available on a first come first served basis. Please email info@londonlitlab.co.uk to let us know if you would like one of these spots! 

Your Tutor

Julia Bell is Professor of New Writing at Birkbeck, University of London, and one of the UK's leading creative writing teachers. A novelist, essayist, and poet, she has guided hundreds of writers from first draft to publication over more than twenty-five years. Her new book, Between the Lines (Simon & Schuster, 2026) is a live-action exploration of the psychological, political, and philosophical lessons of the workshop. Her previous book Radical Attention, drew on the philosophy of Simone Weil to make the case for attention as a creative practice in a distracted world. Her memoir in verse, Hymnal, was published by Parthian in 2024. Her work has appeared in The Paris Review, The New Statesman, and The White Review, and has been broadcast on the BBC.Find her on Substack at professorbell.substack.com.