I am a highly approachable Independent Expert Private English/English Literature Tutor located in Greater Manchester with over twenty years teaching and tutoring experience from Secondary to Postgraduate Degree level.
Are these two of the best opening lines ever written? I find them both irresistible! For how can a reader resist reading on after such greetings? Both narrators sound just… Read More »English Tuition Bolton Manchester: Are these two of the best opening lines ever?
As a child, I loved reading Jules Verne and Robert Louis Stevenson; later, I adored the Indiana Jones’ films. This is a small extract from a longer story. I hope… Read More »Creative Writing Bolton Manchester Bury: The Three Whispers of Nefertiti.
In a recent set of English tuition discussions several students examined the following extracts featuring rather powerful characters. Powerful characterisation forms the heart of a compelling story. Readers need characters… Read More »English Tuition Bolton Manchester: Character Description for GCSE- which is the most compelling?
Anything can inspire a story. Indeed our days are crowded with inspiration for anecdotes and if desired, written stories or poems. In the summer I stayed in a farm house… Read More »GCSE English Tuition Bolton Manchester Bury: Creative Writing- ‘Leaking’.
I have written about this beautifully ‘conjured’ remembrance several years ago on this is site and it still seems one of the best Christmas stories ever writtten- even though it… Read More »English Tuition Bolton: Dylan Thomas and A Child’s Christmas in Wales!
Easy to write on your ‘phone.( Evernote simple). And great fun to be concise (50 words) yet still offer up a glimpse of something with a hint of a tale! … Read More »English Tuition Bolton Manchester: 50 word tales Yard Time.
”I never hated a man enough to give him diamonds back.” (Zsa Zsa Gabor) Our Dreaming mind allows our daily mind to escape its… Read More »Creative writing Bolton Manchester:Dreams and Writing- Zsa Zsa Gabor takes a holiday.
Jane Austen memorably summed up her creative challenge in her characterization of Emma Woodhouse.” I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like.”Austen… Read More »“I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like” Emma by Jane Austen: Endearing Fallibility?
CHAPTER I Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one… Read More »English Tuition: Jane Austen’s Emma Chapter One-perspective exercise.
Spectre ironically opens in Mexico city: it’s the day of the dead and this acts as a metaphor for the whole film For this Bond is preoccupied with the… Read More »English Tuition Bolton Manchester: Review GCSE James Bond ‘Spectre’.
Writing at speed is great fun as ‘one’ never knows what might happen or come out of your keyboard or pen. It is also freeing as you don’t have time… Read More »Creative Writing Bolton: English Tuition Bolton Manchester ‘Damascus’.
A long time ago, I wandered into my weekly lecture at Liverpool University expecting my own English tutor, Steve Newman to talk about Keats’ poetry. I didn’t get Steve, instead… Read More »Creative Writing Bolton Manchester: Creating Character -a LAMIA!
Sometimes we only need a ‘trigger’ point memory to retrieve something we may have ‘lost’ in our past. At the Phoenix Writers’ Group in Horwich Bolton, we often explore different… Read More »Creative Writing Bolton Manchester:’Ribena’ Memory Roving and Trigger Points.
( Last week at Phoenix Writers Horwich Bolton, , we selected postcards of paintings to ‘enter’ and Barbara’s range included the painting above. We were not allowed to turn… Read More »Creative writing tuition Bolton Manchester : Using paintings. (The Ascension)
My son had two two hour sessions with Janet before his Cambridge Pre-U exam (similar to A Level) for his English Literature Prose paper. These were, for practical purposes, done… Read More »Cambridge Pre-U English Tuition Testimonial : Mrs L London.
(I wrote this post a couple of years ago as shyness affects us all at times and when we are undergoing changes such as college or university, then our confidence in speaking to… Read More »How to overcome SHYNESS in THREE ways! English Tuition Bolton Manchester-GCSE/GCE/Undergraduate
Here’s another post about an Edith Wharton ghost story called ‘The Triumph of Night.’ ( Now there’s a masterclass on the effect of a resonant metaphor just in the title of the… Read More »Edith Wharton’s The Triumph of Night Analysis TWO (English Tuition Bolton Manchester)
I think today marks the 187th birthday of Leo Tolstoy- and the extract below describes the first encounter between Anna Karenin and Vronsky in Part One Chapter 18 of Anna… Read More »English Tuition Bolton Manchester: Anna Karenina first glimpse- happy birthday to Tolstoy!
I reread Edith Wharton’s short story ‘The Triumph of Night’ again yesterday, as I remembered finding it frustrating as it was both enjoyable and unsatisfying. Certain aspects of the story… Read More »English Tuition Bolton Manchester: Edith Wharton’s The Triumph of Night Analysis ONE!!
English tuition helps boost confidence in self expression and boosts grades. I charge £25 /Hour for students to GCSE level and now £30 for A level and Undergraduate tuition. I am… Read More »English Tuition Bolton Manchester Bury: Group Tuition Saves money!
Partly inspired by Blake’s wonderful poem The Schoolboy containing the ageless wisdom: How can the bird that is born for joy Sit in a cage and sing? Partly by Stephen… Read More »Creative Writing Bolton Manchester Bury: 50 word tale-Duty ?
I first read Oliver Sacks in 1986 when The Man who mistook his wife for a Hat was published by Picador. I was utterly absorbed by his stories of human… Read More »English Tuition Bolton: Oliver Sacks- The Man who mistook his wife for a hat.
John Mouldy I spied John Mouldy in his celler, Deep down twenty steps of stone; In the dusk he sat a-smiling Smiling there all alone. He read no book, he… Read More »English Tuition Bolton Manchester: Creative Writing-Horror with John Mouldy!
Ray Bradbury knows the importance of wanting. In his story ‘The Picasso summer’ his protagonist George Smith adores Picasso. He ‘loved art more than life itself.’ George dreams of even… Read More »English Tutor/Tuition Bolton Manchester: Ray Bradbury’s Picasso summer! (FOUR)
“Stop!” cried the old man. Douglas pulled up and turned. Mr. Sanderson leaned forward. “How do they feel?” The boy looked down at his feet deep in the rivers,… Read More »English Tuition Bolton Manchester Bury: Ray Bradbury’s Summer of Love THREE!
Reading helps us find out who we might be under cover so to speak! We don’t need to wear borrowed clothes when we read, we can truly imagine those what… Read More »English Tuition Bolton: Ray Bradbury’s Stories and My Summer of Love Two!
A few Christmases ago I treated myself to a copy of Ray Bradbury’s collection of essays about the writing called Zen and the Art of Writing. It remains one of… Read More »English Tuition/turor Bolton Manchester Bury: Ray Bradbury-My Summer of Love!! (ONE)
Villainy The villain is the hero of his or her own story. ..symbiotic relationship with hero… Unity of opposites? Your villain is a dark reflection of your hero’s wants, needs… Read More »English Tuition Bolton Manchester: Creating a Villain- Count Fosco The Woman in White.
What do you give a ghost for breakfast? She’d always arrive with damp hair begging for the top of the milk. Slight Kiwi accent too. How weird after all these… Read More »English Tuition Bolton: Looking for Katherine Mansfield
CLEOPATRA Noblest of men, woo’t die? Hast thou no care of me? shall I abide In this dull world, which in thy absence is No better than a sty?… Read More »Antony and Cleopatra: And there is nothing left remarkable beneath the visiting moon.’
