University creative writing courses are getting it in the neck again – this time from novelist DJ Taylor. In an interview with John Humphrys on Radio Four’s Today programme this morning he declared that universities have become “employment bureaus for novelists.” In a spirited defence, Andrew Cowan, director of creative writing at the University of East Anglia, pointed to the success of a host of distinguished authors, from Kazuo Ishiguro ...keep reading
The one thing that puzzles me about literary festivals is the way they stick several very different writers together under a title like Writers’ Roundtable and wait to see where the discussion goes. That’s what happened at the Oxford Literary Festival last week when the organisers teamed up Samantha Shannon, Jesse Armstrong and Eliza Robertson. They are a highly accomplished trio but as writers have very little in common. Samantha Shannon ...keep reading
The world was a different place when my first novel, Hard Copy, was published back in 1998. The internet was in its infancy, my laptop was the size of a sewing machine and when I sent an email I had to follow dial-up instructions running to two sides of A4 paper. Even then I rarely succeeded. I began writing the book when I enrolled on Manchester University’s MA in novel ...keep reading
Creative writing courses have sprung up all over the place over the last 20 years. I still can’t quite believe this but apparently there are a mind-boggling 10,000 short creative writing courses and classes currently on offer in the UK. Lots of people sneer at the notion that creative writing can be taught but I totally disagree. I was one of the first batch of students to do Manchester University’s MA ...keep reading