It's not always the case that writers have to produce draft after draft of a short story, as OCA creative writing student Guy Barriscale found when he wrote his prize-winning story 'Jamesy' in just one sitting. Prompted by an incident in this childhood, the story came to him fully formed when he saw an...
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Author Archive
Non-writing
Short story writers take note!
The Royal Society of Literature (RSL) has just announced that submissions for the thirteenth V.S. Pritchett Memorial Prize are now open. There is a prize of £1,000, and the winning entry will be published in Prospect and the RSL Revie
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Copycats
Last week's Wikipedia blackout and journalist Johann Hari's decision not to return to 'The Independent' put plagiarism in the news. But plagiarism, imitation, forgery, flattery, call it what you will, the discipline of writing in the voice of another writer is a good way to find your own voice.
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The Last Word
OCA creative writing tutors pick their literary highlights for 2011, reflecting on what the writers they choose have to teach students of creative writing. The range is wide: this year's Man Booker winner, performance poetry in Wales, short fiction, the Poet Laureate's new collection, poems from the Outback....
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‘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...
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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. ...
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The right place
OCA’s new creative writing tutor, the novelist and dramatist Beatrice Colin, argues that university is not the best place to learn to be a writer, and makes the case for creative writing to be taught alongside painting and photography. But does s
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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...
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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...
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Two days
One day, Elizabeth reads David Nicolls' novel 'One day'. The next, she goes to see the film of the book. It's an experiment in comparison she's been meaning to indulge in for years: fiction versus film.
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