Current MA Creative Writing student Catherine Simpson did not, alas, win the Mslexia Novel Writing Competition. But getting on the shortlist of twelve from hundreds of entries is no small feat, and earned her an invite to a networking event with agents and editors in London this summer.
Nine writers from the shortlist have formed a blogging collective called The Full Nine Yarns, with Catherine among them. Go here to read her first post and discover how long it takes to defrost a frozen human body. Yes, really.
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Coming to America - Sam Kelly at AWP 2012
Sam will be in the windy city from Wednesday February 28th until Sunday March 4th talking about our innovative MA in Creative Writing, its unique focus on genre fiction, and discussing how we've replaced the traditional workshop with a new and innovative approach to teaching.
Anyone attending the conference who wants to discover more about our acclaimed MA programme can email Sam now - s.kelly@napier.ac.uk - to arrange a chat while she's in Chicago. Find out why The Times newspaper in London called our course "a radical departure" in creative writing.
News about our course is spreading worldwide. In three years we've attracted students from the United States, Malaysia, Australia, Canada, Italy and Finland. Edinburgh Napier is taking applications for the 2012/13 academic year, and we've already offered places to four US students.
If you're not going to be at AWP in Chicago, you can find out more about our course by checking the links on the right hand side of this blog. If you want to apply, click either full-time or part-time, depending on which version of the course will best suit your needs as a student.
Monday, February 6, 2012
Prize-winning writers & editors visit Genre Fiction class
Genre fiction gets ignored or sneered at by most Creative Writing MAs - not Edinburgh Napier. Our course puts genre fiction at the heart of our teaching. In fact, there's an entire module devoted to it.
To make sure our students are up to date with latest developments in this field, we have guest speakers who specialise in writing, publishing and editing genre fiction.
Last week's class welcomed crime writer, agent and publisher Allan Guthrie, who won the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel Of The Year in 2007. This week we have Lee Harris, editor for the much-acclaimed Angry Robot Books line coming to talk science fiction and fantasy.
Next week anthology editor and Dead By Dawn film festival boss Adele Hartley is coming to talk horror with our students, completing our set of four major genres.
If genre fiction isn't your thing, we also offer specialist modules in writing for graphic novels, creative non-fiction and screenwriting. But poetry is not an option.
To make sure our students are up to date with latest developments in this field, we have guest speakers who specialise in writing, publishing and editing genre fiction.
Last week's class welcomed crime writer, agent and publisher Allan Guthrie, who won the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel Of The Year in 2007. This week we have Lee Harris, editor for the much-acclaimed Angry Robot Books line coming to talk science fiction and fantasy.
Next week anthology editor and Dead By Dawn film festival boss Adele Hartley is coming to talk horror with our students, completing our set of four major genres.
If genre fiction isn't your thing, we also offer specialist modules in writing for graphic novels, creative non-fiction and screenwriting. But poetry is not an option.
Edinburgh Napier student one of 12 shortlisted for Mslexia Women's Novel Competition
One of our current students has been shortlisted for the Mslexia 2011 Women's Novel Competition. Catherine Simpson is among a dozen writers in the running for a first prize of £5000, with the winner announced soon.
The competition was open to unpublished female novelists writing fiction in any genre for adults or young adults. The judging panel features Booker-nominated novelist Sarah Waters, literary agent Clare Alexander, and broadcaster Jenni Murray.
It's believed more than 1000 novels were entered, so reaching the top 12 is well worth celebrating. Getting shortlisted is another success for Catherine.
Her short story Mercy Boo Coo was among the winners of Family Legends, a competition run by BBC Radio Scotland and Scottish Book Trust last year.
The story was published in an anthology called Family Legends. Catherine read Mercy Boo Coo aloud and was interviewed by BBC Radio Scotland's Culture Cafe in May. You can read Mercy Boo Coo here.
The competition was open to unpublished female novelists writing fiction in any genre for adults or young adults. The judging panel features Booker-nominated novelist Sarah Waters, literary agent Clare Alexander, and broadcaster Jenni Murray.
It's believed more than 1000 novels were entered, so reaching the top 12 is well worth celebrating. Getting shortlisted is another success for Catherine.
Her short story Mercy Boo Coo was among the winners of Family Legends, a competition run by BBC Radio Scotland and Scottish Book Trust last year.
The story was published in an anthology called Family Legends. Catherine read Mercy Boo Coo aloud and was interviewed by BBC Radio Scotland's Culture Cafe in May. You can read Mercy Boo Coo here.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
New trimester - new guests, new challenges
Trimester two is already underway for this academic year on the MA Creative Writing course at Edinburgh Napier University. That brings a lot of new challenges for our current cohort, but also the prospect of fresh faces in this trimester's bevvy of guest speakers.
This week we welcome writer Jane Purcell to talk about abridging and adapting the work of other scribes. Jane used to work at Random House Children's Books, but now spends a lot of her time crafting scripts for radio, where abridgment and adaptation are commonplace. [You can read more at her blog Freelance Mum and her Twitter feed.]
Jane will be talking to the cohort for a module with the rather cumbersome name Narrative Practice - Vocational Skillset. Essentially, this module looks at key skills for working with other people's narratives - their stories, their characters, their prose. These skills can earn writers money while polishing their own magnum opus.
As well as abridgement and adaptation, the module also looks at writing for pre-created worlds, ghost-writing [with another guest speaker, Richard Havers], fiction editing, reviewing [with our reader-in-residence Stuart Kelly], and the vital art of networking.
For the dark arts of networking we'll be welcoming back Adrian Mead, whose session on building your own unique platform as a writer was nicknamed Adrian Mead's Fight Club by the class last year. You can see Adrian in action in these video podcasts hosted by the Scottish Book Trust.
[We highly recommend Adrian's book Makng It As a Screenwriter, which contains masses of sensible advice for all writers, not just screenwriters. It's available as an e-book, with all proceeds going to the charity Childline.]
All of that's packed into a single module this trimester. Check back soon for details of what's happening in the other three modules we teaching students between now and April!
This week we welcome writer Jane Purcell to talk about abridging and adapting the work of other scribes. Jane used to work at Random House Children's Books, but now spends a lot of her time crafting scripts for radio, where abridgment and adaptation are commonplace. [You can read more at her blog Freelance Mum and her Twitter feed.]
Jane will be talking to the cohort for a module with the rather cumbersome name Narrative Practice - Vocational Skillset. Essentially, this module looks at key skills for working with other people's narratives - their stories, their characters, their prose. These skills can earn writers money while polishing their own magnum opus.
As well as abridgement and adaptation, the module also looks at writing for pre-created worlds, ghost-writing [with another guest speaker, Richard Havers], fiction editing, reviewing [with our reader-in-residence Stuart Kelly], and the vital art of networking.
For the dark arts of networking we'll be welcoming back Adrian Mead, whose session on building your own unique platform as a writer was nicknamed Adrian Mead's Fight Club by the class last year. You can see Adrian in action in these video podcasts hosted by the Scottish Book Trust.
[We highly recommend Adrian's book Makng It As a Screenwriter, which contains masses of sensible advice for all writers, not just screenwriters. It's available as an e-book, with all proceeds going to the charity Childline.]
All of that's packed into a single module this trimester. Check back soon for details of what's happening in the other three modules we teaching students between now and April!
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
MA Creative Writing student longlisted for £5000 prize in Mslexia novel contest
The competition was open to unpublished female novelists writing fiction in any genre for adults or young adults. The judging panel is novelist Sarah Waters, literary agent Clare Alexander and broadcaster Jenni Murray.
Getting longlisted is another success for Catherine. Her short story Mercy Boo Coo was among the winners of Family Legends, a competition run by BBC Radio Scotland and the Scottish Book Trust earlier this year.
The story was published in an anthology called Family Legends. Catherine read Mercy Boo Coo aloud and was interviewed by BBC Radio Scotland's Culture Cafe in May. You can read her winning entry here.
The Process: applying to our course
The MA Creative Writing course at Edinburgh Napier University prides itself on innovation, taking a fresh approach to the teaching of creative writing. That extends to the way we examine applicants to our course.
Demands for places is high, with far more people turned away than accepted. We take a maximum of 24 students each year, to ensure the best quality student experience. As a result, there's no annual cut-off date for applications - once we're full, we're full.
Our process starts with the application form. We look for evidence that would-be students are already actively pursuing a career in creative writing. How? They could be taking short courses in writing, or studying via the Open University programme.
Publication history also counts in an applicant's favour. Past and present students have included published authors looking to change direction, established non-fiction authors, and writers with several short stories publications to their credit.
Most students have a degree, but it isn't essential - nor does it have to be in English. Psychology, history and medieval literature are among degrees held by past or present students. We recognise a range of qualifications.
Perhaps the most crucial element of the application form is your personal statement. It's our first chance to assess your ability to write, and a chance to demonstrate your passion for our course. We recommend researching what we do before you apply!
If your application seems promising, we invite you to submit a sample of your creative writing. However, we don't just accept any old thing. Why not? Because you could have been polishing your portfolio piece for years.
Instead we set a specific challenge. We provide a choice of opening sentences, and invite you to write a 1000-word short story in the style of your choice. We give you two weeks for this challenge, even give you a choice of delivery deadlines.
We've just received the first fruits from this new method and the results are promising. This process enables us to assess like with like, rather than comparing journalism with chapters from novels or extracts from plays.
The process replicates the writing challenges students face on our course. If you can't write a 1000-word short story in two weeks, you'll never survive on our course [let alone life as a professional writer].
If your story impresses us, you'll be through the final stage: a tough interview done face-to-face [or by telephone for international applicants]. We tell you the result within 24 hours, so you can start planning.
That's our process, that's how we pick our student cohort. It's an exacting method but - we believe - the best way to find writers who'll thrive on our course. Interested? Click one of the links top right!
Demands for places is high, with far more people turned away than accepted. We take a maximum of 24 students each year, to ensure the best quality student experience. As a result, there's no annual cut-off date for applications - once we're full, we're full.
Our process starts with the application form. We look for evidence that would-be students are already actively pursuing a career in creative writing. How? They could be taking short courses in writing, or studying via the Open University programme.
Publication history also counts in an applicant's favour. Past and present students have included published authors looking to change direction, established non-fiction authors, and writers with several short stories publications to their credit.
Most students have a degree, but it isn't essential - nor does it have to be in English. Psychology, history and medieval literature are among degrees held by past or present students. We recognise a range of qualifications.
Perhaps the most crucial element of the application form is your personal statement. It's our first chance to assess your ability to write, and a chance to demonstrate your passion for our course. We recommend researching what we do before you apply!
If your application seems promising, we invite you to submit a sample of your creative writing. However, we don't just accept any old thing. Why not? Because you could have been polishing your portfolio piece for years.
Instead we set a specific challenge. We provide a choice of opening sentences, and invite you to write a 1000-word short story in the style of your choice. We give you two weeks for this challenge, even give you a choice of delivery deadlines.
We've just received the first fruits from this new method and the results are promising. This process enables us to assess like with like, rather than comparing journalism with chapters from novels or extracts from plays.
The process replicates the writing challenges students face on our course. If you can't write a 1000-word short story in two weeks, you'll never survive on our course [let alone life as a professional writer].
If your story impresses us, you'll be through the final stage: a tough interview done face-to-face [or by telephone for international applicants]. We tell you the result within 24 hours, so you can start planning.
That's our process, that's how we pick our student cohort. It's an exacting method but - we believe - the best way to find writers who'll thrive on our course. Interested? Click one of the links top right!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)