We Are OCA » Writing

‘Reading’ video poetry

Elizabeth — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 14:51:57 +0000

Video poetry originates in experimental films, but is based on the given text of a poem. OCA creative writing tutor Csilla Toldy’s interest in the art form has grown from her work as a poet and film-maker. In this blog post,…

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Public libraries: for writers as well as readers

Elizabeth — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 13:38:18 +0000

Last week, Malorie Blackman, the author of the Noughts and Crosses teen novels, was named as the new Children’s Laureate. Her call to ‘get more children reading and make reading irresistible in all its forms’ comes at a time when…

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Dickens’ London study visit

Elizabeth — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 14:46:48 +0000

A walk by the River Thames in the morning down the alleyways and round the corners that inspired the novels of the Victorian writer Charles Dickens. An afternoon getting to know the house in Bloomsbury that was the first marital…

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Sean O’Hagan on writing about Photography

Jesse — Wed, 22 May 2013 15:26:50 +0000

In the process of working on the new Photography Level 3 professional practice module, I contacted the Guardian and Observer’s correspondent on photography, Sean O’Hagan, to ask him about how came to make a living out of writing about photography…

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Portia and Desdemona – Venetian cousins

Elizabeth — Tue, 21 May 2013 14:51:20 +0000

The writer John Toft is best known as a novelist. His depictions of his native Staffordshire, published in the 1970s and ‘80s, are cited in The Oxford Companion to English Literature as examples of the regional novel, which describe people and landscapes of…

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Rider with Horses and Dog: A Writing Competition

Chris Arthur — Tue, 07 May 2013 15:14:39 +0000

I often imagine a thought-bubble above the head of the rider in this picture. He could be thinking all sorts of things: “Almost home”; “How will I break the news to her?”; “Maybe I should stop here for the night”;…

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Study visit: Buxton Festival – historical fiction and opera

Elizabeth — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 15:11:25 +0000

For the third of our creative writing study visits this spring and summer, we are heading to the handsome Derbyshire spa town of Buxton in the Peak District for the Buxton Festival on Saturday 6 July. An important date in opera and…

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Meet the tutors: Joanna Ezekiel

Alison — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 10:20:57 +0000

We went to York to interview Joanna Ezekiel, Creative Writing tutor (and former OCA student) in her home in York. Here we see her surrounded by the tools of her trade – a table in a window, a notebook and…

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Study visit: Chawton and Jane Austen’s Tricks

Elizabeth — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 07:34:13 +0000

For the second of our three summer creative writing study visits, we head to Hampshire on Saturday 29 June to visit Jane Austen’s House Museum at Chawton in Hampshire. It was here that the novelist wrote ‘Mansfield Park’, ‘Emma’ and ‘Persuasion’,…

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OCA at Arvon’s Lumb Bank in the snow

Chris Arthur — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 14:56:14 +0000

In the last week of March, six creative writing students swapped OCA’s usual distance-learning approach for an intensive residential course at Lumb Bank in West Yorkshire, one of the Arvon Foundation’s writing centres. Braving snowy conditions – Lumb Bank staff…

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