Kickstart your creativity!

Do you long to infuse your “serious” writing with more creativity, color, and flair? Get your creative juices flowing with the Creativity Catalyst, a 6-week course designed by renowned author, educator, and creativity expert Dr. Helen Sword.

Join a global community of academic and professional writers exploring arts-based techniques for living, thinking, and writing more creatively.
Discover your creative strengths as you experiment with different writing genres, forms, and styles.
Develop a deeply pleasurable writing practice that draws on your own intellectual passions and creative skills.
Receive supportive weekly guidance and feedback from Helen and your fellow writers.

Next Creativity Catalyst: Aug 31 - Oct 10, 2024

Why join the Creativity Catalyst?

Each weekly module explores a core element of creative practice — story, poetry, drama, moving, making, metaphor — and guides you in developing sustainable strategies for integrating them into your writing processes and products. Throughout the 6 weeks of the course, you’ll have access to:

Themed workshop videos, prompts, and resources designed to stimulate your creative energy and invigorate your writing life.
A private online portal for exchanging ideas, work pieces, and helpful links, with supportive and constructive feedback from Helen and your Catalyst colleagues.
Weekly Live Writing Studio sessions with creative exercises and craft-focused coaching based around the theme of that week’s Creativity Catalyst module. See our guest Calendar to find the times and dates of the weekly sessions.

What past participants loved most

fresh thinking

I really valued seeing other participants' work, it was very inspiring. I also valued being pushed to think about my research in a different way! Overall a really excellent experience, I am still using the prompts regularly in my work! The Creativity Catalyst felt like a cocoon, it refashioned my thinking and writing.

(Stephanie Swanson, PhD candidate in Art History, Australia)

new techniques

The Creativity Catalyst was one of my highlights this summer [2022]. I got so much inspiration through experimenting with new techniques. Constructive feedback from the moderators and the supportive writing community helped me leave my comfort zone, integrate new elements in my writing, and get my writing out.

(Eva Bulgrin, Lecturer in Educational Science, Germany)

renewed energy

The Creativity Catalyst brought me a sense of joy, playfulness, humanity and a warm connection to other writers around the world. Now I have a renewed sense of purpose in my writing that is helping me distribute my energy in better proportions amongst my projects.

(Anita Campbell, Senior Lecturer in Mathematics, South Africa)

Is the Creativity Catalyst right for me?

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:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 discussions in Weeks 1-6. 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 sessions, but they’re entirely optional. If you can’t make it, you’ll still have access to all the resources you’ll need to benefit from the course.
WriteSPACE members get a 10% discount (save $55), and WS Studio members get a 20% discount (save $110). You can find the discount code in the Lounge in your membership area. To qualify for the discount, please note that you must commit to maintaining your paid membership throughout the duration of the Catalyst course.
Catalyst Alumni qualify for a 20% discount. Please contact us for the discount code.
A limited number of scholarships are available for this course (conditions apply). If you would like to be considered for a scholarship, please contact us.
Helen will facilitate weekly group discussions as part of her Live Writing Studio, and she will monitor the Comments portal throughout the course and provide global feedback to all participants 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.

Get creative!

Join our Creative Catalyst community and find out how to bring more creativity and joy into your personal life, your writing life, and your published writing.