our story
In 2015 a budding writer, who was leaving the safety of a staff job to go freelance, asked Heidi to put together an online training course. Something that would help her improve her pitching success rate and secure more freelance writing commissions. Bitchin’ Pitching was born.* Word spread, until demand for online courses necessitated finding a partner in crime.
Up in Yorkshire, Hazel had been busy running her own PR and media training and was about to relaunch her Write Yourself Happy courses for folk who wanted to, well, write themselves happy. She’d also been offering media advice to local businesses and PR companies and after a flurry of over-excitable email exchanges, Muse Flash (a less Marmitey – though we love Marmite – name than Bitchin’ Pitching) took shape.
Having graduated in 1998 with a BA in Media, Communications and Creative Arts, Heidi studied for an MA in Public Communication at the University of Westminster’s School of Media, Arts and Design, whilst working full-time for a media startup. After graduating with distinction in 2004, she went on to teach as a visiting lecturer at Westminster for several years and was subsequently invited to teach on the Arts and Digital Industries programme at the University of East London, specialising in the interface between journalism and PR. Heidi relocated to Northern Ireland in 2007 and has been a self-employed freelance journalist ever since.
Hazel got a distinction for her MA in Linguistics and Language Corpora (no, nobody knows what that is) and dropped out of a FULLY FUNDED PhD a quarter of the way through to write free copy for the Leeds Guide. But, whatever. She almost applies for PhD projects a couple of times a year.
As jobbing journalists with more than two decades of experience between us, we know how hard this industry is to survive in. So we won’t sugarcoat things. But we will open our precious contacts books. You’ll get the distillation of our combined 20-plus years of working at the media coalface. We’re experts in the challenges of meeting unrelenting deadlines and continually coming up with fresh ideas but we still LOVE pitching and enjoy nothing more than sharing our expertise and enthusiasm with students who feel they need a flash of inspiration. Or, as one recent student recently described Muse Flash, “an intravenous shot of adrenaline”.
*Oh, and that original student? She’s now a best-selling author. We can’t take (any) credit but we like to drop that in there.
Read what previous students have said about their Muse Flash experience.