Rekindle your creativity!

Get your creative juices flowing with this 6-week online course for academic and professional writers who want to write playfully, pleasurably, and with panache. Join writing expert Helen Sword and other writers from around the world as we experiment with arts-based techniques for infusing your “serious” writing with creativity, color, and delight.

Next Creativity Catalyst: Aug 23 - Oct 2, 2025.

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What is the Creativity Catalyst?

Across six weeks of writing workshops, experiments, and prompts, Helen will introduce you to 6 core elements of creative practice — story, poetry, drama, moving, making, and metaphor — and guide you through strategies for integrating each of them into your writing processes and products.

 

Weeks 1-6: Weekly Workshops

Every Saturday morning for the 6 weeks of the course, you’ll receive an email with a link to the Creativity Catalyst module for the upcoming week. We recommend that you budget at least 1-2 hours per week (or more if you wish!) to complete your tasks for each module:

  • Week 1: Story

  • Week 2: Poetry

  • Week 3: Drama

  • Week 4: Moving

  • Week 5: Making

  • Week 6: Metaphor

On Wednesday mornings, you’ll receive an email prompting you to reflect on the week’s activities and experiments.

Every week: Gather with writers from around the globe for Live Writing Studio sessions themed to coordinate with each module. Check our guest calendar for the dates and times of the weekly sessions.

Meet your facilitator

Greetings! I’m Helen Sword — a scholar, poet, teacher, and the author of six research-based books on writing and writers, including Stylish Academic Writing (Harvard 2012) and Writing with Pleasure (Princeton 2023).

I’ve spent the past two decades studying when, how, and why academic and professional writers find joy and satisfaction in their writing practice — and when, how, and why they don’t.

My mission is to help you break free from the constraints of conventional academic prose to find your own authorial voice and a more creative way of being. Your words and ideas will come alive — and your readers will thank you!

 

Creativity Catalyst curriculum

1. Tell your story

Identify the characters, setting, and plot of your research narrative — and learn how to write a powerful story that people will want to read.

2. Play with poetry

Explore how poetic language can help you think more creatively, write more vividly, and connect with your readers more effectively.

3. Be dramatic

Use dramatic techniques such as dialogue, scriptwriting, and role-playing to discover the human heart of your story.

4. Move around

Animate your words by animating your body. Transport your writing — and your readers — to new places and spaces.

5. Make stuff

Turn off your digital devices and get out paper and scissors, colored pencils and glue. Let your hands tell you what and how to write.

6. Mix in metaphor

Learn how a compelling metaphor can help you re-story your own emotions about writing and get your readers thinking.

Why you’ll love this course

 
 

Is the Creativity Catalyst right for me?

Whether you aspire to bring more creativity to your personal life, your writing life, or your published writing, the Creativity Catalyst can help you achieve your goals. Join Helen and an international community of writers dedicated to making the world of academic and professional writing a more colorful and creative place by learning how to:

Think more creatively

Experiment with arts-based strategies for thinking and writing more creatively about your research: inventing stories, playing with poetry, role-playing and scriptwriting, writing on the move, thinking visually, mixing metaphors.

live more creatively

Make room in your life for creative pleasures that you may have lost touch with in your busy day-to-day routine: reading stories, listening to poetry, attending to human conversations, moving your body, celebrating color, savoring metaphors.

Write more creatively

Enliven your next article or report by incorporating techniques inspired by creative writers and artists into your formal writing: storytelling, poetry, dialogue, action, visual elements, figurative language.

Frequently Asked Questions

Don't see your question answered here? Contact us for more information.

 

  • The Creativity Catalyst has been designed primarily with academic and professional writers in mind: for example students, faculty, research fellows, lawyers, business writers, and government employees — in other words, anyone whose livelihood includes regular non-creative writing. However, the course materials can be adapted to suit virtually any kind of writing. All writers are welcome!

  • We recommend that you set aside at least 1-2 hours per week for the workshops, experiments, activities, and online discussions, plus an additional 2 hours per week if you plan to attend the Live Writing Studio. Needless to say, the more time you put into the course, the more you will get out of it!

  • Helen will facilitate weekly group discussions as part of her Live Writing Studio, with two sessions available each week. Check our Calendar to find the dates and times of the sessions in your own time zone.

  • We’d love to see you at the Live Writing Studio sessions, but they’re entirely optional. Even if you can’t make it, you’ll still have access to all the resources you’ll need to benefit from the course.

  • Once you’ve enrolled in the Creativity Catalyst, you’ll have lifetime access to the course materials, so you can catch up on any of the modules you’ve missed.

    Former participants are warmly invited to re-do the live course each year. Many of our alumni return year after year!

  • WriteSPACE members get a 10% enrollment discount, and WS Studio members and Catalyst alumni save 20%. To qualify for the WriteSPACE discount, please note that you must commit to maintaining your paid membership throughout the duration of the Catalyst course.

    A limited number of scholarships are available (conditions apply). Most of our scholarships go to members of our WriteSPACE community who have demonstrated a clear dedication to improving their writing but are unable to access institutional funding for this course.

    Residents of New Zealand and Australia may apply for discounted pricing via our Enabling Better Writers Australasia program, whereby the fee is charged in the local currency: AUD or NZD+GST.

    If you would like to be considered for a scholarship or regional discount, please contact us.

  • Helen will facilitate group discussions as part of her Live Writing Studio, and she will monitor the Comments portal throughout the course and provide global feedback each week. For a more personalized coaching experience, we recommend that you consider enrolling in the Stylish Writing Intensive or one of Helen’s in-person writing retreats.

 

Rekindle your creativity!

Next Creativity Catalyst: Aug 23 - Oct 2, 2025.

We’d love to see you there!

Please see our Terms & Conditions here.

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Image: Collage by Helen Sword, with a nod to Hokusai