Writing the Neuroqueer Self (Feb 2027)

Writing the Neuroqueer Self w/ KR Moorhead

Tuesdays, Feb 9th - Mar 23rd, 6-8pm UK via Zoom

​Ticket Pricing & Info

General Admission represents the true cost of a course place.

Early Bird Tickets represent a 20% discount on GA tickets and there are a limited number available for a limited time. 

Subsidised Tickets are for those who are unable to afford the GA ticket or payment plan. 

One Free Scholarship Ticket is available on the course as standard. This is available on a first-come, first-served basis with no requirement to disclose financial or personal information. 

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PLEASE NOTE: Subsidised and Free Scholarship tickets will become available once a minimum number of Early Bird and General Admission tickets have been booked.

EARLY BIRD*: £210 (25% discount!)

General Admission: £264 (or 3 monthly instalments of £88)

Subsidised**: £174 (or 3 monthly instalments of £58)

*limited availability, for a limited time

**limited availability​​​

Refund & Cancellation Policy:

Ticket refunds and payment plan cancellations can be made up to 14 days before the start of the course. After this, no refunds or cancellations will be made. If you have questions or concerns about this, please contact kr@neuroqueercreative.com before booking.

We reserve the right to cancel the course if we do not meet a minimum number of registrants. In this instance, all tickets will be fully refunded, minus payment processing fees.

Course Info:

Marginalised people are rarely afforded the right to tell their own story. And when they are, they are expected to tell it in ways that maintain the status quo and reinforce dominant cultural narratives. In this course, we’ll attempt to deconstruct dominant concepts of memory, time, structure, and identity within modes of writing that draw from the lived experience of the writer. This includes, but is not limited to, memoir, autobiography, autofiction, personal essay, and fiction.

Over seven weekly 2-hour sessions, we'll cover: the creation of the self through memory & perspective; building counternarratives; blurring the lines between realism and fantasy to allow us to get to the actual ‘truth’ of our lived experiences; and cataloguing our own language and stylistics.

Each session will involve group discussion on a topic and experimentation with a variety of generative writing invitations.

*All reading and writing set between sessions is fully optional

Course Structure:

Session 1 - Navel Gazing as Radical Practice: Febos, Feminism & Counternarrative

In traditional literary spaces, ‘autobiographical’ writing is often looked down on, treated as lesser than the ‘true’ literary form: fiction. Drawing from Melissa Febos’ essay, ‘In Praise of Navel Gazing’, we’ll unearth the radical roots of memoiristic forms of writing and give ourselves permission to tell our own stories. 

Session 2 - Constructing the Self: Memory & Identity

When we write about ourselves, or as ourselves, we are always creating a character on the page. We are piecing together a particular narrative about who we are, using our past experiences as jumping off points for understanding ourselves. In this session we’ll consider how memories are really just stories we tell ourselves, and how we can use these stories to construct an authentic and compelling character voice. 

Session 3 - From the Outside In: Experiments in Narrative Perspective

It is generally accepted that the first person ‘I’ is the natural point of view for personal writing, and that more often than not, memories will be related in the past tense. However, what does it do to our stories to situate them in a different perspective? What might it feel like for a reader to be insinuated into your experiences through the use of the second person ‘you’? What difficult life moments might the distance of third person allow you to engage with? What happens when all events are recounted in the present or future tense?

Session 4 - Breaking the Rules: Neuroqueering Language and Style

Do you ever find that the ‘right’ word for something you experience just doesn’t exist, and so you have to make one up? When writing, do you find yourself eschewing the rules of ‘standard’ English grammar? In this session, we’ll create and collect our own personal vocabularies and stylistics. We’ll look at examples of reclaimed and newly created language, as well as the ways we can bend & break the ‘rules’ of punctuation and sentence structure to fit our linguistic needs. 

Session 5 - F**k the Hero's Journey: Images, Maps, and Alternative Structures

In both fiction and memoir it is often expected that your narrative should fit neatly into pre-ordained structures: Aristotle’s Arc, Freyag’s Triangle, The Hero’s Journey. But aren’t some stories spirals and explosions? Don’t some journeys meander? And what about maps and images that are also stories? Drawing from and reflecting on both Meander, Spiral, Explode by Jane Alison and Blood & Guts in High School by Kathy Aker, we’ll experiment with using alternative patterns, as well as maps and images, to create counternarratives, and deconstruct dominant concepts of structure in storytelling. 

Session 6 - Fiction or Fact?: Breaking the Reader/Writer Contract

When we call our writing ‘memoir’, ‘autobiography’, ‘personal essay’, or any other form of non-fiction, we are entering into a reader/writing contract that essentially says: what comes next is the truth as I know it, expressed to the best of my capability. But what if the truth as you know it is ‘unbelievable’? We’ll discuss Akweke Emezi’s Freshwater, ‘unpalatable’ truths in the publishing industry, and both the freedom and restriction that comes from labeling your lived experience as fiction.

Session 7 - Monsters, Magic and Machines: When Realism Just Won't Cut It

Have you ever felt like an alien, observing humans as an outsider? Have you ever strongly related to an android character, striving to understand what it means to be human? Were you ever convinced you had powers like Matilda? Have you ever found yourself feeling like Alice in Wonderland, the only sane person, in an insane world? Or like Frankenstein’s monster, forever the ‘other’? Reflecting on Kai Cheng Thom’s Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars, we’ll consider how blurring the lines between realism and fantasy, autobiography and invention, fact and fiction, can allow us to get to the actual ‘truth’ of our lived experiences.

Accessibility:

This course aims to be neurodivergent, disabled, chronically ill, and queer centred.

As standard:

-Sessions include live closed captioning

-Sessions are recorded and shared with course members

-All slideshow and reading materials shared directly with members

-All exercise instructions are written out and given verbally

-No pressure to use mics or cameras - students can choose to use the chat function to communicate with the group

-No pressure to share work. 

-All sessions will have a mid point break, but students are encouraged to eat, drink, stim, move about the room, and take breaks as needed.

About the Facilitator:

KR Moorhead (they/them) is an AuDHD and gender defiant writer and educator who has been facilitating creative writing spaces for over 15 years. Before leaving to pursue freelance work that accommodated their neuroqueerness, KR taught Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia from 2009-2023, where they earned an MA in Creative Writing: Prose Fiction in 2007. KR also has a Post Graduate Certificate in Higher Education Practice and a Post Graduate Diploma in Education Practice and Research, and identifies as a 'recovering academic'. KR has facilitated for Writers in Bloom, Beyond Form Creative Writing, Devotion Workshop, Norwich School of Creative Writing, Oxbridge Academic Courses, and the University of Hull, and currently teaches a variety of courses for City Lit. KR's novella, The First Law of Motion, was published in the US by St. Martin's Press in 2009. Originally from the unceded land of the Lenni Lenape people, KR now lives in Norwich, UK with their partner, step-kid, and four cats. KR is the initiator and administrator of NQC.

KR also facilitates Writing While Neurodivergent, Writing Camp, Writing Support Club, and the twice-weekly Creative Space.

If you have questions or issues booking your ticket, please contact KR at kr@neuroqueercreative.com