About

  • I’ve been running the Learn to Write Good creative writing classes since 2015, teaching hundreds of students around the country. The courses explore tips and techniques learned from twenty-five years of writing prose, poetry, theatre and music. Classes are relaxed, with a focus on nurturing creativity. Writers of every description have come through the course including rappers, novelists, poets, genre writers, playwrights and journalists.

    The class is open to writers of all disciplines and skill levels, including people with learning disabilities and little or no formal education. I’m dyslexic and largely self-taught, and believe that this is no barrier to becoming a great writer. The courses are also accessible to people with physical disabilities and students are welcome to use adaptive equipment such as voice recognition software or bring a support person or interpreter. If you have any questions feel free to get in touch.

    Each course is six hours long and runs both in person and online. Aside from introducing yourself at the start of the course, people are not expected to share if they don’t want to. People with anxiety are welcome to leave their cameras off during the zoom classes.

  • Dominic Hoey is a poet, author and playwright based in Auckland, New Zealand.

    His two novels, Iceland and Poor People With Money were New Zealand bestsellers. Iceland  was long-listed for the 2018 Ockham Book Award. He’s released four successful poetry collections, including I Thought We’d Be Famous and most recently The Dead Are Always Laughing at Us. 

    In 2021 his short story, 1986, won the Sunday Star times Short Story competition.  

    In 2019 he co-founded Dead Bird Books (DBB), a small press publishing writers who sit on the margins of the New Zealand publishing industry. To date DBB has published 13 books, two of which were shortlisted for an Ockham. They have become a mainstay of the New Zealand independent publishing industry. 

    He was recently awarded an international fellowship to the Varuna residency in Australia where he worked on his new one person show.

    He  has over a decade of experience as a youth worker. He is the co-founder of the Atawhai program, working with teenagers to help them with their mental health and self esteem. 

    Dominic also works with teenagers in the youth justice system, teaching them creative writing to allow them to tell their stories. 

     He has written and performed two critically acclaimed one-man shows; Your Heart Looks Like a Vagina, a dark comedy about living with Autoimmune disease, and 45 Cents An Hour about the realities of being an artist in Aotearoa. Both plays had sell out runs around New Zealand and were met with glowing reviews. 

    In a former life, Dominic released four rap albums and was an MC battle and slam-poetry champion. He’s performed his poetry in Australia, Europe, England, Japan, Canada and America.

    His third novel, 1985, is due out on Penguin in May 2025. 

Course Content

  • This course covers the fundamentals of good writing. Regardless of whether you write prose, poetry, plays or songs, it is vital to have a good base to build your writing practice.

    Content Creation
    What to write about and how to get the ball rolling when you’re feeling blocked.

    Good Work Practises
    When and where to write, how long should you set aside and how to make your workspace feel like somewhere you want to create.

    Finding Your Voice
    Your point of view is your greatest asset as a writer, you’ll learn how to express how the world looks, smells and feels to you.

    Figurative Language
    Learn how to use techniques like metaphor, symbolism and imagery to make your writing more engaging.

    Editing
    Ernest Hemingway said, “the only kind of writing is rewriting.” He also said “the first draft of everything is shit”. With this in mind, we’ll rid your writing of fluff and get to the very heart of it.

    Plus, a whole bunch of other cool bits and pieces to help you grow as a writer and break out of old habits.

  • In this course we go over a number of different poetic techniques. I’ve designed simple exercises that illustrate how they work and ways to apply them to your writing.

    Metaphor and Imagery
    Create images that not only grab the reader but show the subtext of your work.

    Poetic structure
    I go over a number of different structures I use all the time (and a couple I don’t)

    Show Don't Tell
    “Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” — Chekov.

    How do you show people how you feel rather than yelling it in their face and when does it work to ignore this rule?

    Using Line Breaks and Enjambment How to structure your poetry on the page and what the hell is enjambment?

    How to Rhyme
    Before I was a poet and novelist I spent 20 odd years being a rapper, releasing 4 studio albums, performing around the world and wearing stupid hats. I’m way too old for that kind of carry-on, but that doesn’t mean I can’t teach you a bunch of tricks I learned along the way.

    Editing
    Learn how to cut out all the parts that don’t need to be there to get to the gold in your writing.

    And heaps of other cool ideas and techniques to really make your poetry sing.

  • This course is a rundown of all the techniques I use all the time in my work. Students will learn a good base for writing short stories and novels.

    Character
    We look at a number of different ways to create original engaging characters.

    Dialog
    Nothing pulls the reader out of a story quicker than flat-cliched dialog. Learn how to make your characters speak in their own unique voices.

    Structure
    We cover arcs; using the 3 act structure, the Hero's journey and mapping out your story

    Setting
    Where your story takes place is almost as important as who’s telling it, make the setting the main character in any story you’re telling.

    Point of View
    Who is telling your story and how much do they know? We also play with tenses and see how different combinations of tense and point of view affect your writing.

    Editing
    Drafting is one of the most important parts of writing fiction. We’ll explore how to cut out all the junk weighing your story down.