Recent events within the Creative Writing community
10th May 2024
Hello!
It’s been a busy spring semester here at the School of Creative Arts at University of Gloucestershire, and we wanted to keep you up to date with what’s been going on!
If you have any questions about the course or the University, please feel free to get in touch.
In this post:
· The Anthology Launch
· Creative Writing meets the Young Carers
· The Great Debate and The Great Create
· Research Conference
· Student Success
Duncan and the MA students at the launch of our latest creative writing Anthology
Anthology Launch and Sales
Just before Easter we had the launch of the 2023/24 anthology, Unbreakable, put together by the MA team taking the Creative Industries module. This was one of the strongest anthologies yet, with excellent work submitted from across the English subject community, as well as further across the university and from the local community. As we work more closely with other courses in the new School of Creative Arts, we’ve been able to strengthen our ties by including illustrations and photographs from students across the school, too.
This is a great feature of our MA course and the work put in by Isy Caddy (as MD), Tom Bennett (as Chief Editor), James Stone and Paul White pulling together the graphic side, with Paul putting together the final layout as well as Kiri Winder, Tracy Canavan Smith, Manfath Haque, and Jake Harper, Matthew Goodland, and Luke Contino as poetry editors, made for a huge success. The Launch Night in the chapel was very well hosted by Tracy, with speeches from Isy, Tom, and James, too. We’ve now sold around 70 copies of the 100 printed. As usual we’ve been given a spot in the Voice Box tent at the Cheltenham Literature Festival in October. If you want to be involved contact Duncan (ddicks@glos.ac.uk).
Creative Writing Meets the Young Carers
On 2nd April, despite the Easter break, MA student Tom Bennett and third year student Amy Barr joined Duncan to run a creative writing session for a visiting group of young carers on Park Campus. We ran two poetry-based sessions planned for 14 students in each. The young carers ranged from 13-17, so the sessions were very hands on and involved lots of group work. In both cases the room was soon buzzing with interest as we got them to cut two poems up and then produce their own poems by pasting words back onto a sheet of coloured paper.
Tom and Amy toured the room offering advice (and cutting expertise!), which gave the students great support and confidence. Tom and Amy have recently been involved in a mentoring scheme, sponsored by the university where they take on a group of secondary school students who need extra support with their English skills. Do check it out for next year if you’re interested. It’s paid work, and if, like Amy, you’re interested in a teaching career afterwards these sort of events are excellent experience and preparation.
Research Conference
Following a tradition started in 2018 by Duncan Dicks, Larry Cotterill, and Melanie Clemmey, the FCH Research conference was run again in March, extended out to all members of the School and beyond. Arran Stibbe has run the Research Area for the past few years and despite the reorganisation he again offered his great support. The conference was organised by Creative Writing PhD student Carlie Chabot who did a fantastic job, ably supported by Duncan and Arran. We had more submissions than ever, and this year extended it to a two-day conference, with a closing speech by Head of School Angus Pryor.
The Great Debate and The Great Create
In the final week of February, we had visitors from many local schools and offered creative writing sessions for all of them. The University Outreach team arranges these events (a big shout out to Jenna Page and Rachel Fennel for all the hard work they put in) and Duncan and supporting students plan the Creative Writing input and deliver it on the day. A huge thank you to the indefatigable Tom Bennett, Isy Caddy, and James Stone from the MA course for their help and support.
This year we ran two Great Debate sessions on the question ‘Should anyone tell us what we can and can’t write?’. The visitors were really engaged – feedback from the schools afterwards highlighted this as one of the favourite sessions across the day.
Similarly we ran two Great Create events where we devised a hands-on poetry session with multiple exercises, including one of Angela’s metaphor poem exercises (a later Offer Holder Day saw excellent student helper Grace Price doing this exercise with potential students and absolutely wowing them with an ‘I am…’ poem), and the ‘poetry remix’, cutting up one poem and using the text to create another (which we later adapted for the Young Carers visit).
These sessions gained excellent feedback from the schools. This sort of activity, which students are invited to volunteer to help with, really help create interest in future writers.
THAT’S ALL FROM US THIS TIME, SEE YOU AGAIN IN MAY!