Writing

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 Review. In addition to this, there will be an opportunity to...
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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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In the competitive and fast moving world of art exhibitions and artistic reputations, it is easy to get ignored or forgotten. A number of belated biographies were published last year that bring to the public’s attention some of these artists:
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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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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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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 e
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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 assesso
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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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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
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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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