Master's in Creative Writing

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.

Blog

  • MSt tutor James Hawes at Waterstones, Oxford, 12th April 2018

    The Shortest History of Germany – An Evening with James Hawes in Oxford

    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.
    Ticketed event, £ 5 (discounts available for some).

  • MSt alumna Maya Popa’s “You Always Wished the Animals Would Leave” published

    MSt alumna Maya Popa’s poetry collection You Always Wished the Animals Would Leave has been published by New Michigan Press

    “This is a work of seething precision. In these poems, hope is a meticulous, meditative state—a method of forensic searching and study that is carried with great care across generations. By stitching her raging images together with stillness and poise, Popa asks us to step back from our panic and look: “peeling back the hair, that quiet, necessary artifice, / to reveal a nesting doll of impulses.”

    —Caroline Bird

    “In Maya Catherine Popa’s You Always Wished the Animals Would Leave, feathers are unfulfilled parables, a hen’s eggs turn a vicious red, and a super moon “blooms a tyranny of flowers.” A helix of histories lies threaded to both the present day and the various magics of night. These poems are smart and lush, and at the end of each of them my heart, mind, and ear argue over which was lavished with the most pleasure. I am enchanted by this book, in its thrall, its bright gravity, its terribilitá.”

    —Traci Brimhall

    Buy the collection from  http://www.thediagram.com/nmp/#popa

  • MSt aluma Elena Kaufman’s “Love Bites” to be serialised on The Pigeonhole


    “An intriguing and diverse set of stories
    An earnest and thoughtfully written collection
    Deftly crafted, these stories are bursting with engaging characters.”

    MSt alumna Elena Kaufman’s short story collection Love Bites is to be serialised on The Pigeonhole. From the announcement:

    “Foreigners, drifters, and eccentrics reach out to strangers in their desire to be witnessed, to be connected, and to find safety in a sea of anonymity.

    Love Bites is a collection of thirteen stories set in Europe and North America. They trace foreigners, drifters and eccentrics linked by their need for acknowledgement and belonging. How do these characters survive physically and psychologically on unfamiliar ground whether as tourists, or strangers in new cities or in new situations which jolt them out of the security of the familiar? Recurring themes are of isolation, loss, and a desire for connection when strangers reach out to other strangers for stability.”

    Visit Love Bites on the Pigeonhole to read the first instalment  for free (from 29th March 2018), and find out how to subscribe.

  • MSt tutor Sarah Bakewell awarded a Windham-Campbell prize


    MSt tutor Sarah Bakewell has been awarded a Windham-Campbell prize.

    From the announcement:

    “The Call of a Lifetime
    The director of the Windham-Campbell Prizes recently made the call of a lifetime to eight entirely surprised writers, informing them that they will each be recognized with a $165,000 USD prize to support their writing. Awards will be conferred September 12-14 at an international literary festival at Yale, where the Prizes are based.

    Established in 2013 with a gift from the late Donald Windham in memory of his partner of 40 years, Sandy M. Campbell, the prizes are among the richest and most prestigious literary prizes on earth.

    English language writers from anywhere in the world are eligible. This year’s recipients are: in drama, Lucas Hnath (US) and Suzan-Lori Parks (US); in nonfiction, Sarah Bakewell (UK) and Olivia Laing (UK); in fiction, John Keene (US) and Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi (Uganda/UK); and in poetry, Lorna Goodison (Jamaica) and Cathy Park Hong (US).”

    “Sarah Bakewell unknots complex philosophical thought with verve and wit; her eye for detail and her animated conversation bring readers to inhabit the lives of great philosophers …”

    Go to the prize website to read more

  • MSt tutor John Retallack’s Radio4 dramatisation of J B Priestley’s “The Good Companions” available online

    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 poetry collection, Ling di Long, launch, London, 26 Feb

    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

     

     

  • MSt tutor Jenny Lewis & alumna Romola Parish at Science and Poetry event with St. Hilda’s College, Oxford

    Tickets are now on sale for the third Science and Poetry event at St. Hilda’s College, organised by MSt tutor Jenny Lewis with Sarah Watkinson of St. Hilda’s. The event, on 9 Jun 2018, will feature poets Carrie Etter and Philip Gross and is themed around climate and environmental change. It will include an open mic for poems relating to the theme.
    There will be a free workshop in advance of SciPo 2018, led by alumna Romola Parish and Sarah Watkinson at St Hilda’s College on 17 February, from 10.00-4.00. There will also be an opportunity to enter poems into a competition judged by Jenny Lewis.

  • MSt tutor James Womack longlisted for the 2018 International Dylan Thomas Prize

    MSt tutor James Womack’s On Trust: A Book of Lies (Carcanet Press) has been longlisted for the 2018 International Dylan Thomas Prize. The shortlist, six books, will be announced at the end of March, and the winner on Thursday 10th May 2018.

    Read more about the prize and the longlist.

     

  • MSt tutor Rebecca Abrams discusses “The Jewish Journey”, Blackwell’s, Oxford, 25 Jan 2018

    MSt tutor Rebecca Abrams will be discussing her new book The Jewish Journey  at Blackwells Bookshop in Oxford, on Thu 25 Jan 18, 1– 2pm. The book explores the history of the Jewish people from antiquity to modern times through 22 objects from the Ashmolean Museum

    eventbrite.co.uk/e/for-learning…

  • MSt tutor Alice Jolly’s “Mary Ann Sate, Imbecile” to be published by Unbound

    MSt tutor Alice Jolly’s Mary Ann Sate, Imbecile is to be published by Unbound.

    Read more about it, including an excerpt, on Unbound’s site.

    “Once the initial subscription has been raised then Alice’s share of the profits (50% of every book sold) will go to Emmaus – a charity who support homeless people in Gloucestershire and are part of a federation of 350 organisations in 37 countries around the world”