Browsing Category:
Vicky MacKenzie
A tale of two residencies – Part 1
Posted: 23/12/19 09:43 |
0 Comments
This year, for the first time in my life, I was awarded an international writing residency. Then, in quick succession, I was awarded another! My life is not usually so glamorous, but this double stroke of good luck meant I spent August at Varuna Writers’ House in the Blue Mountains of Australia, followed by September and October on the shores of the Baltic Sea in south-west Finland. I had a week in-between to do my laundry and get my head together!
Read More
Australian literature
Posted: 03/09/19 09:38 |
6 Comments
I’m guessing that many of you won’t have heard of Eleanor Dark and until I stayed at Varuna I hadn’t either. During my month in Australia I was determined to immerse myself in Australian literature and to start building up a picture of the “Aussie lit scene”.
Read More
Join the new OCA Book Group!
Posted: 02/07/19 09:57 |
1 Comments
The Book Group is running again! Sign up to have a relaxed discussion about books and writing.
Read More
When is a collection of short stories a novel?
Posted: 06/06/19 09:35 |
4 Comments
It might seem obvious whether a book is a novel or a collection of short stories, yet I keep coming across books that seem to straddle both categories. So how can a book be both?
Read More
Join the new OCA Book Group!
Posted: 10/05/19 09:38 |
0 Comments
Do you like books? Do you like tea? Then join the OCA’s new online Book Group
Read More
Writing about other species
Posted: 18/04/19 09:40 |
8 Comments
I’m currently writing a collection of short fiction exploring our relationship with animals. When I tell people this, they often ask me if it’s a book for children, and it’s true that many classics of children’s literature feature animals: Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows (1908), E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web (1952) and Richard Adams’ Watership Down (1972) all spring to mind, and if you search online for animal stories, many of the results are stories for children. But thinking about and appreciating the lives of animals shouldn’t be something we associate only with children.
Read More
Writing about food
Posted: 14/09/18 09:10 |
7 Comments
It’s not surprising that writers often bring food into their stories and poems: the way that a character relates to food can be a shorthand for letting the reader know something significant about their personality or their relationships.
Read More
What is your tutor up to? Chapter 11: Vicky MacKenzie
Posted: 28/03/18 09:51 |
2 Comments
reative Writing tutor Vicky MacKenzie will be getting a dose of her own medicine in June when one of her short stories is critiqued by writer A L Kennedy in front of a live audience. This event will take place at the Byre Theatre in St Andrews on 20th June.
Read More
Reading habits
Posted: 20/04/17 09:27 |
15 Comments
I’m an avid reader and am also fascinated by other people’s reading habits. For the last fifteen years I’ve recorded the title and author of every book I’ve finished (unfinished ones don’t count, it’s one of the odd little rules I have) in a dedicated notebook, and enjoy geekily looking through it sometimes to see what books I’ve read and when.
Read More
What Is Prose Poetry?
Posted: 10/04/17 09:42 |
8 Comments
The name itself is surely a contradiction in terms – how can a poem be ‘prose’, when ‘prose’ is the very word used to describe writing that’s not poetry?
Read More