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Creative Writing


'Tread Softly', read hard thumb

'Tread Softly', read hard

OCA creative writing student Mary Webster, who was awarded a first in her Creative Arts BA honours degree, has just published her first volume of poetry, ‘Tread softly’, in celebration of her achievement. Drawing together the work she completed when studying with the OCA, her poems record her relationship with the natural world and her experience of getting to know Africa, and capture moments of the human life she observes around her.

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Learner Support Scheme launched thumb

Learner Support Scheme launched

We are pleased to announce the launch of an enhanced Learner Support Scheme.   Trustees have set aside a budget of up to £15,000 in each financial year to underpin this important development. The new scheme will ensure the continuation of the existing bursary scheme but add four new components.  These are: help with attending OCA […]

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Assessment laid bare thumb

Assessment laid bare

I often think that being a fly on the wall at assessment events would help students get their heads around how best to present their work for assessment.  We are into our third week of assessment at OCA HQ, and this week we have the painting assessors here.  We always grab them to talk about […]

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Writing in the round thumb

Writing in the round

Dramatists are not the only creative writers to practise their art collaboratively. Public writing is having a renaissance, and laptops and iPads have made writing an accepted sight in public locations. So we don’t know just what is being written against the backdrop of scraping chair legs, clinking glasses and shouting children. Emails? Blog entries? Facebook posts? All of those, no doubt. But why not first drafts of novels, short story plot summaries and revisions to stanzas of narrative poetry too?

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Are you a Romantic? thumb

Are you a Romantic?

Do you ever yearn to get away from it all, to walk by the sea or sit on a mountain-top, to lose yourself in nature? Or to live the simple life, free from the rampant materialism of the modern world? Do you ever fear that science and technology may go too far? If thoughts like […]

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Plots or people? thumb

Plots or people?

Most writers don’t have to think too hard to know whether they find it easier to construct plots or create characters. OCA creative writing tutor Nina Milton calls the two groups of writers plot junkies or characterphiles. What happens when a group of writers at the Ilkley Festival are put on the spot and forced to write for 25 minutes in the guise they find the most challenging?

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I wanted your soft verges but you gave me the hard shoulder thumb

I wanted your soft verges but you gave me the hard shoulder

Back in the 1960s, Penguin Modern Poets brought out a poetry collection called ‘The Mersey Sound’. Its cover design soon became a classic and a generation were introduced to the poetry of Adrian Henri, Roger McGough and Brian Patten. Beat poetry had combined with Pop Music and Liverpool was the place to be. The driving […]

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'Go in late … and get out early'  Mike Harris on scriptwriting thumb

'Go in late … and get out early' Mike Harris on scriptwriting

Mike gives us a fascinating insight into being a scriptwriter, and talks enthusiastically about the new course he has written for OCA’s Creative Writing suite. Note: this is a chunky video  (4 and a half minutes) so give it time to load before you watch it, otherwise it may stutter.

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Redefinitions thumb

Redefinitions

Mike Harris, the author of OCA’s latest creative writing course, Narrative and Dialogue, looks at three common assumptions made by newer writers about their craft. Novelists and writers of narrative poetry have as much need as writers of scripts for stage and screen to work hard on writing dialogue. If you think you know what a writer’s deadline is, it might be time to think again. A conflict doesn’t have to be cataclysmic; for writers of dialogue, it can start with a small domestic dispute.

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