MSt students Anna Seidel & Caroline King advocate for interdisciplinary convergence with their platform The Napkin Poetry Review

Though the pandemic has posed many challenges for students, it has also bred virtual community building leading to innovative ideas and creative ventures.

One such virtual project brought to life by MSt student Anna Seidel and alumna Caroline King is The Napkin Poetry Review: a unique platform advocating for interdsciplinary convergence, polymathic thinking and the power of poetic language in communicating these ideals. In just over a year, their project has grown into a community attracting c.2,000 online readers and destination for consultation and artistic collaboration surrounding poetry and its science as well as how to break down barriers between academic disciplines.

This past summer, co-founders Anna Seidel and Caroline King were asked to develop an artistic installation and poetic design concept to be presented globally for Louis Vuitton as part of their “visionaries” initiative to celebrate the 200th birthday of Mr. Vuitton himself.
Beyond the unique visual design of the journal, the pair also pursue questions around the science and power of poetry as a mental framework and thinking tool. This exploration has been fueled by conversations with scientists, artists, and innovators like Amanda Gorman, Dana Gioia, Dr. Marcelo Gleiser, Dr. Eugene Wassiliwisky, and Alexi Lubomirski to learn more about how they’ve studied poetry and incorporated it into their daily lives.

If you are a cross-disciplinary academic, visual artist, poet or cultural organization and want to exchange, you can reach The Napkin Poetry Review at: napkinpoetryreview@gmail.com

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MSt alumna Katherine MacInnes publishes new book, Snow Widows

Snow Widows mines never-before-seen archive material to reconstruct the lives of five women – wives, mothers and sisters of the men participating in Robert Falcon Scott’s polar expedition – MSt alumna Katherine MacInnes offers a fresh and utterly different perspective on the race to the South Pole.

Sara Wheeler in The Spectator writes that MacInnes, ‘has produced an elegant, densely textured work, like a tapestry … Snow Widows is a welcome contribution to polar studies and to the popular new genre examining the women left behind. They were only left behind in a geographical sense, after all; their inner lives were as richly complicated – as well as perhaps as unknowable – as those of their frozen-bearded menfolk.

More information here.

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MSt tutor Barney Norris’s play, The Wellspring, touring UK venues in 2022

This timely and intimate work from MSt tutor and award-winning playwright Barney Norris (The Remains Of The Day) and his father, the internationally acclaimed pianist and broadcaster David Owen Norris, examines that age-old story of a boy and his dad, and how they can relate to one another, in every sense of the word.

An intimate, autobiographical exploration of their relationship, The Wellspring, takes us inside the complex and shifting dynamic between this particular father and son, exploring the
people and stories that shape us.

Directed by Jude Christian, their performances are accompanied by exquisite music performed by David.

More details here.

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MSt tutor James Hawes’s book, Brilliant Isles, now available

A companion book to the landmark BBC2 television documentary series to be broadcast from April to June 2022, Brilliant Isles tells the turbulent story of British creativity through 80 stunning works or art, music, literature and architecture.

 

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Watch MSt tutor Rebecca Abrams discuss her play The Meeting Room

MSt tutor Rebecca Abrams took part in an event in early March concerning the Arts and Restorative Justice, talking about how she researched and wrote her play The Meeting Room.

The session can be watched here, and here is a link to the blog Rebecca wrote which explains a bit more, both about the playwrighting process and her passion for and belief in the restorative justice process.

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MSt tutor, poet and novelist Helen Mort, to speak about her forthcoming book in Oxford on 15 February

In the Oxford Centre for Life Writing Weinrebe Lecture, Helen Mort will discuss her forthcoming book, A Line Above the Sky, which melds memoir and nature writing to ask why humans are drawn to danger, and how we can find freedom in pushing our limits. It is a visceral love letter to losing oneself in physicality, whether climbing a mountain or bringing a child into the world, and an unforgettable celebration of womanhood in all its forms.

You can book for the lecture here, and find more information about the book here

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MSt tutor Dr Belinda Jack on R4’s In Our Time

On 27 January MSt tutor Dr Belinda Jack was a guest on Radio 4’s In Our Time, discussing the novels and life of Colette, whose Claudine series was first published under her husband’s name. 

You can listen again to the episode here
 

 

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MSt alumnus Constantine Blintzios’s novel published with Kernpunkt Press

MSt alumnus C.A. Blintkios’ novel The Smoke is Me, Burning is now available for pre-sale with Kernpunkt Press.

Jonathan McAloon, journalist for the BBCThe Guardian, and TLS, says of the book that it is “a sort of scrapbook of place magic. Almost told by ecology itself, The Smoke is Me, Burning has a reliable cyclical power that is often the mark of good art.”

More information here.

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MSt students win prizes in Nobel Laureate-founded Oxford-BNU Creative Writing Award

First prize in the inaugural Oxford-BNU Creative Writing Award was awarded to MSt student Megan Chester, for her work ‘Girl, Woman, River.’

Megan said, this ‘came as a wonderful surprise and a timely encouragement! I believe that there is a place for women in sports literature, and it is affirming to now know that others agree with me.’

High Commendations were also awarded to MSt students Emma Latham for ‘The Anatomical Venus,’ and Joanne Szilagyi for ‘An Invented Account of the Near-Death, Life and Death of Leslie Kong.’

Speaking collectively for the judges, chair Boyd Tonkin praised the competition shortlist for fiction which ‘roamed so freely around different genres, voices and registers.’ The authors, he said ‘were bold. They were inventive. They took risks. They bent rules. They showed that fiction, even short fiction, really is a garden where a hundred flowers can bloom.’

More information here.

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MSt alumna Laura Theis wins first prize in the EAL Oxford Brookes International Poetry Competition 2021

MSt alumna Laura Theis has won first prize in the Oxford Brookes International Poetry Competition 2021, in the category for poets who speak English as an Additional Language. 

The prize, awarded by The Poetry Centre at Oxford Brookes, was judged this year by award-winning poet Will Harris. Laura’s was one of two top prizes of £1,000 in a competition that seeks to celebrate the great diversity of poetry being written in English all over the world.

An online awards ceremony will take place on Tuesday 7 December from 6.30-7.30pm GMT. To read Laura’s winning entry and to register for the ceremony, click here

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