We Are OCA » Writing

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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Dickens’ London study visit

Elizabeth — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 07:36:50 +0000

We are beginning our programme of study visits for creative writing students with a Dickens’ double bill on Friday 24 May. In the morning, a walking tour starting on the fringe of the City near The Strand which will bring…

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Lives on the page

Elizabeth — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 07:11:01 +0000

The second of our guest blog posts by independent publisher Slightly Foxed is about a biography of the real Mrs Miniver, Jan Struther. Written by her granddaughter Ysenda Maxtone Graham and shortlisted for the Whitbread Biography of the Year Award…

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Threads entwined

Elizabeth — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 15:45:53 +0000

Earlier this month, OCA creative writing student Matthew J. Fisher’s short story Ma’s Kit made it to the shortlist in the Wordhut.com 7th Short Story Competition. The story is published on his website, which, along with his blog, went live last week. Matt…

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Cup cakes are over, hello macarons

Elizabeth — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 15:40:11 +0000

150,000 new books are published each year. Nonetheless, a new writer looking for a publisher will find it an uphill struggle to find one who will even glance at their manuscript. Amber Pearson, freelance book reviewer and former fiction editor…

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