Welcome to Oxford University’s MSt in Creative Writing blog, a resource for Oxford events, calls for submission, competitions, news and interviews where you can keep in touch with our community of tutors and alumni.
MSt tutor Alice Jolly’s novel Mary Sate, Imbecile will be launched in London on Wednesday 20th June 2018 at Daunt Books. To attend, RSVP to mountvernonstroud@gmail.com.
MSt tutor Amal Chatterjee’s play, Finding José, is one of four in Tamasha’s “Over to You” scratch night on 25th May 2018.
Date: Friday, 25 May 20178, 7:30pm
Venue: Rich Mix, 35-47 Bethnal Green Road, London E1 6LA
From Tamasha’s website:
“We want to scratch the plays a company like ours – a diverse, cutting edge touring theatre company of 27 years – should be producing. …Over the course of three weeks, 70 artists submitted plays to scratch … we have narrowed this down to the four gripping short plays we will present, including:
Finding José by Amal Chatterjee
Graveyard Girlz by Lakesha Arie-Angela
Other Please Explain by Lynsey Martenstyn
The Affairs of Men by Sid Sagar”
The plays will be followed by a Q&A with the writers.
The AfOx insaka is a gathering for sharing ideas and knowledge about Africa-focused research with speakers from diverse and varied academic disciplines. There are two events each term. On Friday of Week 3, and Friday of Week 7. Each event will feature two talks by speakers from different disciplines, followed by questions and discussion. Drinks will be served afterwards.
Friday 11th May, 2018
J C Niala, University of Oxford; “History Hidden in Plain Site’ African Soldiers in WW1 & the seeds of Colonial Resistance”
Peter Horby and Nzelle Delphine Kayem
REGISTER”
A Wordly War: Battle Experiences through the Eyes of African Cultures
by MSt alumna JC Niala
This podcast examines the First World War through the lives of African soldiers and labourers. Based on historical fact, it discusses fictional poetry and letters that could have been written by Africans involved in the war. It looks at WW1 through a global perspective – the interaction of peoples from different parts of the world. What impact that had on their existence and the shifts that it made for better or worse in their perspectives on the world as a whole.
This podcast was the runner-up in the TORCH and Academic IT Services WW1 Research Competition 2016”
MSt alumna Jana Casale’s novel The Girl Who Never Read Noam Chomsky will be published by Knopf on 17th April 2018. Jana will be appearing in Cambridge (MA), Brooklyn, and San Francisco (see below for details)
From the press release:
“What defines a life? In Jana Casale’s stunning debut The Girl Who Never Read Noam Chomsky (Knopf; April 17, 2018), the experience of contemporary womanhood is put under the microscope: from pursuing career goals to trying on bathing suits to meeting your future spouse. Told in supremely relatable vignettes,The Girl Who Never Read Noam Chomsky examines life’s little moments in all their exquisite, ordinary beauty, and speaks to urgent questions women face today – even as it offers the possibility that, in the end, it might all really be okay. Timely and timeless, Casale’s work will resonate with readers of Maggie Shipstead, Rona Jaffe, and Sheila Heti….”
“Readers meet Leda, the ‘girl’ at the steady center of Casale’s sharp debut, during her college years and spend the rest of the novel, which is also the rest of Leda’s life, getting to know her. … [t]here are thousands of things [Leda] does, thinks reads, and writes, which Casale relays with a careful, assured, and light touch – each one veritably thrilling in its ordinariness.” —Booklist, Starred Review
“Elegant, sharply drawn…[A] clear-eyed examination of a woman’s life [done] with abundant humor…Readers will be captivated.” —Publishers Weekly
“A funny, tender and touching illumination of the extraordinary beauty contained in a seemingly everyday life. I can’t stop thinking about this book.” –Julie Buntin, author of Marlena
“The Girl Who Never Read Noam Chomsky is bright with life, emotionally honest and powerfully observant. Jana Casale is a wise and exciting new voice.” –Julia Pierpont, New York Times bestselling author of Among the Ten Thousand Things.”
Jana will be appearing in bookshops:
Wednesday, April 25th | Cambridge, MA
7:00 PM – Harvard Bookstore, 1256 Massachusetts Ave., 02138
Thursday, April 26th | Brooklyn, NY
7:30 PM – Books Are Magic, 225 Smith St., 11231
In Conversation with Karah Preiss of Belletrist & Weike Wang
Saturday, April 28th | San Francisco, CA
Bay Area Book Festival Appearance
The Girl Who Never Read Noam Chomsky : more information and an excerpt.
MSt tutor Jane Draycott is to judge the SciPO 2018 science and poetry competition. First prize, £100, second prize, £75, third prize, £50.
Deadline: 23rd April.
For details of competition and how to enter, go to
https://www.st-hildas.ox.ac.uk/…/scipo-2018-meeting-science…
Thu, 12 Apr 2018, 7 pm. Waterstones, Oxford.
From the Waterstones website:
The brilliant James Hawes will be in store to discuss his work The Shortest History of Germany.
This is our non-fiction choice for April’s Book of the Month and we are very excited to have James in to discuss it!
‘Yes, the Nazis are here, but so too is a history stretching from the Germanic tribes who took on the Roman Empire, right up to Chancellor Angela Merkel… Comprehensive, vivid, and entertaining… if you want to understand a country on which much of the free world is now pinning its hopes, you could do worse than start here.’
Irish Examiner.
MSt tutor John Retallack’s dramatisation of J B Priestley’s “The Good Companions” on BBC Radio 4 is available to listen to online.
From the Radio 4 site: “John Retallack’s dramatisation of J B Priestley’s classic story of a 1929 Concert Party tour charts new adventures for factory worker Jess Oakroyd and newly independant Miss Trant.”
MSt tutor Samantha Wynne-Rhydderch’s new collection, Ling di Long, will be launched on 26 Feb 2018
6.30 – 8.30 pm
The Music Room
49 Great Ormond Street
London WC1N 3HZ
Admission free but please advise of attendance: rackpress@nicholas murray.co.uk