An expert insight into the transformative power of storytelling, together with practical advice on how to make your writing come alive. 

The way we use language to tell stories reveals a lot about who we are and what matters to us. In Between the Lines, Julia Bell draws on almost thirty years of teaching to take us inside the writing workshop, where students from all over the world meet to share and discuss their work. She finds that in this space a kind of alchemy occurs, where paying real attention to one another and what we have to say – the ultimate challenge in our atomised, ‘always on’ society – becomes a profound emotional education. 

Weaving philosophy, psychology and politics together with stories from the workshop, and featuring wise, practical advice on how to go about writing, this generous and thought-provoking book is about the transformative practice of noticing and slowing down. It shows how bad writing teaches us good things, how creativity helps us to see and be seen, and how reading and writing together fosters connection, tolerance, more expansive ways of thinking, richer access to language, new perspectives – and a better understanding of ourselves and others.

‘What appears to be a guide to creative writing is actually a brilliant manual for how to exist in groups, to handle painful material, to grow together. Could anything be more necessary or inspiring?’ Olivia Laing

'Julia Bell has an extraordinary capacity to open up difficult subjects, to illuminate and unknot. What appears to be a guide to creative writing is actually a brilliant manual for how to exist in groups, to handle painful material, to grow together. Could anything be more necessary or inspiring?'   -- Olivia Laing
‘That most marvellous of things, a brilliant book that is both accessible and deep, funny and serious, informative without being patronising and a joy to read.  For writers, readers, thinkers and teachers, for everyone interested in group dynamics and getting the best out of people, for all of us trying to be better, here’s the book you’ve been waiting for. I loved it’  -- Kit de Waal
‘Very moving, comically delicious, and absolutely compelling. Every learner and teacher of creative writing should read Between the Lines. . . it is destined to be a classic’  -- Horatio Clare
‘Between the Lines is about so much more than writing craft. It is a meditation on how we live now, and the impact technology has on our creative lives. It is generous, intelligent, full of wisdom and insight. An essential guide for anyone interested in writing, but also living a self reflective life. A book that everyone should have on their bookshelf’  -- Lily Dunn

Julia Bell is a Reader in Creative Writing at Birkbeck, University of London. She is the author of three novels, a poetry collection and the acclaimed essay Radical Attention (Peninsula Press), and her work has been published in the TLS, the New Statesman, The Paris Review, and Prospect, as well as broadcast on the BBC. She has given talks and workshops across the UK and internationally for the British Council.