Two days at Surrey university

 For those of you who don't know, I've just registered as a student at Surrey University. It is based in Guildford which means it's not on the other side of the planet from Wantage! You just need to take the Oxford Bus Company X35 or X36 and go into Beauty (ie the countryside surrounding where I live) then arrive in Didcot. Take a train to Reading and change there. So yes really, not far! I plan to go there about once per month.

It was only my second day of studies yesterday but I was given the chance to read some of my poems, so I said yes of course! I also heard the other students' work which was great.

During the day, there was the Surrey New Writers Festival on campus and my mind (and bank account...) got blown away! I do admit that apart from Amy Key I didn't know anyone. Wow... came back home, around midnight, my bag full of books and I'm now trying to process all the fantastic comments I heard yesterday. It was the best literary festival I went to because I had the feeling it was made for me! ie it's made for writers and aspiring writers (though I did detect in the crowd two Oxford Librarians who visited for the day). 

The first talk From innocence to experience was with Jenny Mustard and Michael Amherst speaking about their books: What a time to be alive for Jenny and The Boyhood of Cain for Michael. There were great reflections and questions such as:

Desire/love: is it, in both books, about loving someone or loving to be someone? A bit like Ripley and Dickie Greenleaf...

The use of humour in dark moments, Jenny explained it is a Swedish thing to see life as both light and dark, funny and dark in juxtaposition.  

On being bilingual Jenny used Swedish from brain to mouth, but English for brain to finger and only reads in English (I can't quite do that sorry, love French literature too much, as my current re-re-re-reading of La Princesse de Clèves can prove... ). She believes writing in a second language gives her freedom particularly from grammar (I completely agree here!)

 The second talk Writing in the Family where mother and daughter are both writers (and the grandfather was too!) Nell Hudson and Cressida Connolly who both read extracts from their books. As we had a choice between a husband being unfaithful and a scene of gardening snobbery and Cressida read the unfaithful husband scene, I've bought her book called Bad Relations I did not know snobbery extended to gardens but here we are...

Mental health and identity in your novel with author Ela Lee and her book Jaded reflecting on a young mixed-raced woman who has been sexually attacked. I learned a bit more about the life of immigrants' children about them being pushed to be the best and finding yourself being someone your family wants you to be... rather than what you want to be.

Then she spoke about the 'han' concept: a feeling of frustration/anger/regret that is part of Korean culture. Sometimes it helps understand people's reactions by thinking about the centuries of emotional development before them...(I'm still surprised at times at the reaction of the 'English' towards something that would be processed differently as a French national)

Ela, after a question from one student, kindly explained the process of being published in this country. 1 Searching for an agent 2 searching for an agent 3 searching for an agent! ie to only make sure the agent you choose is the one interested in what you have written. She stressed also the importance of truly researching that agent: which book did they publish? what are they looking for? etc.. 

Speculative fictions with Hana Thomas Uose's Who wants to live forever and Lara Williams' The Odyssey

Speculative fictions is a genre I have been a huge fan of, reading USA, French, Russian and a few British authors. I even wrote a novel in that genre (and I'm very proud of say, the first chapter) but I do admit, since COVID, I have not read much nor found a huge interest in writing sci-fi myself. I may, in my project with Surrey university, write some sort of sci-fi poem but that's about it. Well, both authors really tempted me with their books and I bought one of them (I won't say which one as I honestly think both seem great!). 

There was an interesting discussion on planning or not planning your novel

Also, some comments about rage... are both books dealing with rage in a way? (I would think yes, a slow, delicate, beautiful written and driven rage) 

Life writing with Ralf Webb and Amy Key

That was of special interest to me of course as it deals with a subject of interest to my project. And both authors are also poets. Ralf did a reading of an essay he wrote for Granta about going back to his village, he quoted Raymond Williams (who I cannot wait to read for my studies).  The idyllic image we get of the countryside with benevolent farmers and happiness everywhere is a 'country of the mind'. I think I'm going to read a few of Ralf's books and essays as he knows about rural life. Amy, the only author I already knew, read from her book Arrangements in blue, reflecting on her life without romantic love (on a personal level, yes, I should read that one too!)

Reflections on life writing: is there a pact between author and reader about telling the truth? Both authors spoke of the balance between truth and retelling, that, for Amy, you have to be prepared to share some difficult things (and, my comments: it must take courage to do this!) but it is also about creative writing. Ralf spoke of different types of truth: telling facts but also how you curate them. Life writing can also be in poetry: a balance of truth and artifice, craft.

Change of forms: both authors are also poets. Ralf sees poetry as the foundation, and also that poetry is fun, exploratory. Amy was quite frank and admitted she wrote bad poetry for a while (she's not the only one!) but learned her craft with workshops. Ralf is working on writing dramatic monologue in poetry with the I as someone else. To make progress as a poet: workshop as mentioned but also self-publishing, 'zines' aren.a which is a content sharing platform... and of course all groups from the university!

 Writing across forms with Naomi Woods and Susannah Dickey 

Super interesting discussion. Naomi writes novels but sometimes short stories and for a long time was stuck writing the later. Short stories are 'highly engineered', their structure is very formalised contrary to a novel which is less dense in a way. 

Susannah writes poetry but also short stories and novels. For her, poetry is about exploring language, about seeing language as fracture. She only used to 'revel in language' but now gets more of a philosophical inquiry in her poems.   

Daisy Johnson was the last author invited. 

She read an extract from her book The Hotel that brought chill in my blood. The book was previously a BBC4 programme and it sounds like this, in a good way: someone is telling you a ghost story. Note: the audio-version is still available on the BBC app

Other interesting points about writing short-stories, she thinks of them as shape, as patterns.

What a great day! Arrived back in Wantage not long before midnight but it was worth it!