I just want to thank you and the tutors for sharing your time, expertise, motivation, and great fun. I’ve felt my writer-self lurching, stretching, and smiling through all kinds of growth over these past 6 weeks. This course has filled gaps that I hadn’t even realized were there from attempts at writing on my own. Thank you for strengthening me for my next steps!

Julia, I cannot tell you how much I appreciate you and how you’ve helped me. You’ve put so much of not just your planning and work but also your very heart and soul into this beautiful endeavor. What a privilege it’s been to learn from you and watch the project continue to flourish! 

May the stars shine upon your face!

This was such a beautiful experience. I have seen all of you more than I have seen anyone since this started. Our town is in full lockdown. For me, it feels like we have become a family of writers. How lucky have we been to have such an awesome group of people.

Thank you to all involved with the creation of this Outstanding Fantasy Writing Course and Project Northmoor Creatives generous spirit. It's really changed things for me in a profoundly positive way and yet all happening like a beautiful and magical dream that you want to continue dreaming in real life. A heartfelt thank you to everyone involved, and for all you created for your Tolkien students and beyond with all your hard work and dedication. I had an absolute blast and thank you!

I really adored these moments with the team & the rest of the group. It felt comforting & inspiring. I'm really sad that it's ending.

It has been a wonderful experience! The tutors and students are amazing and I feel more inspired and confident than I have for a long time.

This has truly been a dream come true! I've been working on this book idea since I was 14 years old, but never felt that I would be successful and was unaware if my idea was worth pursuing - but I kept at it. Now, I feel that - what is essentially my life's work - it not only worth pursuing, but may actually have an audience! I feel as though I have grown so much as a writer in the last few weeks. Thank you for this opportunity - I can't wait to see what else comes from this wonderful project!

Lucy Strange

Bestselling fantasy author Lucy Strange lives in England, in the heart of the Kent Downs. Her novels for children include The Secret of Nightingale Wood (2016; Waterstones Book of the Month) and Our Castle by the Sea (2019; Independent Booksellers’ Book of the Month, nominated for the Carnegie Medal, and shortlisted for the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize 2020). Lucy’s latest novel The Ghost of Gosswater is a gothic mystery set in the Lake District at the turn of the century. Her writing characteristically combines elements of fantasy and magical realism with historical settings.

After studying English Literature at Sheffield University, Lucy trained at the Oxford School of Drama. She went on to work as an actor, singer and storyteller for several years before training as a secondary school English teacher. She has taught creative writing as a guest lecturer at several UK schools and universities, and as part of the Bath Festival. 

Lucy narrates the audiobook versions of her novels for both the UK and the US, winning the 2019 Audie Award in New York, and shortlisted for their 2020 Middle Grade Award.

Jasmine Richards

Jasmine was born in London, grew up in a library, and was the first in her family to go to university. After graduating from Oxford, and following a brief stint at New Scotland Yard, she chose a career in publishing over being the next Sherlock Holmes. She worked for many years in Children’s Publishing in Oxford University Press. Today she is the founder of Storymix. A children’s fiction development studio that creates inclusive stories and nurtures voices from under-represented backgrounds in children’s books.

She combines experience as an author with that of an editor, so has a unique skill set to offer!

Kesia Lupo

Kesia Lupo is the author of We Are Blood and Thunder and We Are Bound by Stars, YA fantasy novels published in 2019 and 2020 by Bloomsbury Children’s Books.

She also works for boutique children’s publisher Chicken House as Senior Editor.

After studying History at Oxford and Creative Writing at Bath Spa, she started her publishing career in Editorial Services at Pan Macmillan and wrote her first novel largely on her lunchbreaks and commute. She now lives in Bristol with her husband.

Diana Pavlac Glyer

Diana is an American author, speaker, and teacher whose work centers on C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and the Inklings. She teaches in the Honors College at Azusa Pacific University in California.

Glyer has published widely, including contributions to dozens of books and periodicals. Her best-known work is The Company They Keep, which describes the interaction and creative influence of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and the Inklings. It features an appendix by scholar David Bratman. Published in 2007, the book overturned assumptions held for more than 30 years. It was recognized as a landmark study. The Company They Keep won the Mythopoeic Scholarship Award (Inklings Studies) and was a finalist for the 2008 Hugo Award for Best Related Work at Denvention 3, the 66th World Science Fiction Convention.

Glyer is also the author of Clay in the Potter's Hands (2011) and Bandersnatch: C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and the Creative Collaboration of the Inklings (2016).Bandersnatch, published in 2016, applies the scholarly work of The Company They Keep to creative writing groups, encouraging them to function collaboratively just as the Inklings did.

Katherine Langrish

Katherine writes children’s fiction and adult non-fiction. West of the Moon is an abridged version of her trilogy, Troll Fell, Troll Mill and Troll Blood which attracted great reviews. Her historical fantasy novel Dark Angels (Shadow Hunt in the US) won a Kirkus starred review: ‘this spooky yet utterly grounded story features pitch perfect prose, suspense and redemption’ and was a Junior Library Group Selection (2010). Her short stories have appeared in several collections. Katherine is the creator of the blog Seven Miles of Steel Thistles– https://steelthistles.blogspot.com – dedicated to fairy tales, folklore and fantasy, and she has published a book of essays of the same name, praised by Professor Jacqueline Simpson in Folklore as ‘elegant, vivid, and witty’. She contributed to First Light, essays for Alan Garner’s 80th birthday compiled by Erica Wagner. Her latest book From Spare Oom to War Drobe: Travels in Narnia with my nine year-old self (April 2021) has been praised by Neil Gaiman: ‘Katherine Langrish … takes us around a place we thought we knew and makes it finer and more interesting than it was before.'

Joseph Loconte

Joseph Loconte, PhD, is the Director of the B. Kenneth Simon Center for American Studies at the Heritage Foundation. He also serves as a Senior Fellow in Christianity and Culture at The King’s College in New York City. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War: How J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis Rediscovered Faith, Friendship, and Heroism in the Cataclysm of 1914-1918 (Harper Collins, 2015) and winner of the 2017 Best Article award from the Tolkien Society for his article How J.R.R. Tolkien Found Mordor on the Western Front.

Mr. Loconte previously served as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the School of Public Policy at Pepperdine University, where he taught on religion and public policy. He was a Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., and from 1999-2006 he held the first chair in religion and civil society as the William E. Simon Fellow at the Heritage Foundation.

Grevel Lindop

Grevel is a man of many talents - poet, travel writer, biographer, editor, salsa dancer and much more!

He has recently completed a major biography, Charles Williams: The Third Inkling (Oxford University Press). Williams was a great poet, writing on Arthurian themes, but he has been largely forgotten. He was also an occultist, a Christian theologian, a dramatist, and the author of seven extraordinary novels – metaphysical thrillers which still have a ‘cult’ following. Grevel’s mission is to revive interest in him and his work.

It has been nominated for The Mythopoeic Society’s Award for Inklings Scholarship.

Before his attention turned to Williams, he wrote a biography of the Romantic era writer, Thomas De Quincey, and edited his works. He has also written a literary guide to the Lake District.