This year, some festivals are staying online, to prevent having to cancel at a later date. But the established Hexham Festival, established in 2006, is planning to go ahead next month in beautiful Northumberland. We’re delighted that three of our creative writing tutors will be running workshops at the event.
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Huge congratulations to OCA Creative Writing tutor Vicky MacKenzie on this highly prestigious book deal for her novel. Any of her students will agree that she is a wise and wonderful writer as well as a wonderful tutor – so it’s great news to hear of the imminent publication of this fascinating book.
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Wednesday 3rd March 1pm In this workshop we will think about the senses and how a range of sensory images can bring a poem to life. We will consider what a cliché is and discuss some examples of these, focusing on how the images could be more original if reworded. Students will read two and […]
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Those of you who follow our OCA Creative Writing social media – in particular, the @ocawriters Twitter account – may have spotted a few celebratory posts earlier in the year. When we learned the course had achieved 100% student satisfaction in the 2020 NSS survey, we were all absolutely thrilled. ‘NSS’ stands for National Student […]
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If someone were to write a book of ‘Lessons from Lockdown’ – and I am sure they will! – then surely one of the most important is how much we should value the arts. How many of us were comforted during the worst times by reading, music or visual art or by being able to […]
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A long time ago… Back in autumn 2019 – which feels like a galaxy far, far away – OCA first piloted online submissions for the Creative Writing degree. It made sense: writers are used to submitting work electronically, for competitions and to agents or publishers. Very few organisations expect hard copies of writing work these […]
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In these times when we recognise the need to encourage young people to read, it’s important that children see fictional characters they can identify with. Many readers can remember that feeling when the characters they read about may as well be creatures from Mars, for all they had in common. It used to affect young readers who were working class, for example. But while representations of different social backgrounds have improved in children’s fiction, the same can’t yet be said of ethnicity.
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The Creative Writing department is now offering Zoom-based peer hangouts and workshops for students at HE6 (Level 3) on a regular basis.
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Imagine going to the doctor’s and coming out with a prescription – for a good book. It’s really not as daft as it may sound. And what’s more, the notion that our mental wellbeing can be improved by something other than pills is far from new.
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Lockdown in mid-March prompted two responses. First was a recognition that getting outside for parts of the day without bumping into other humans would become a very valuable thing. Second, I had some new time, that used to be spent travelling and trolling the train companies about their poor service, and I could put this to good use by sorting out my embarrassing back garden.
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