The new creative writing stream starts soon....

Hello readers!

The new academic year beckons like a badly constructed simile and much has to be prepared before the first intake of CW students at UCA. So far, the our numbers are very good and we are expecting twenty-two students across the Media and Creative Writing and the Journalism and Creative Writing courses. I've already been in contact with a number of students and I'm excited when I meet the full cohort in induction week.

This is a fairly new blog that is as much for my students as it is for those outside UCA to see a little of what we are doing. As such, I thought it would be appropriate if I outlined some of the ideas that inform CW at UCA, in terms of arrangement and philosophy.

1. CW at UCA is interdisciplinary. Writing is not something that happens in a vacuum and it requires skills, foci, knowledge, interests and ideas from other areas of study: Philosophy, Media, Fine Arts, Art History, Enlglish Literature, Journalism. The list could go on. This is partly because 'writing' represents something so vast that there is simply not one, or even a few things, that it can mean. Writing is like the preposition 'up'. You can mess it up, put up with it, take it up, pass it up, be up to it, shake it up. You can rise up, keep up, hold up and think up writing. As such, it seems sensible that we firstly accept how it is connected to  many areas of human endeavor and secondly, that this is reflected in how we do writing. That's one of the reasons we have mixed CW with Journalism and Media.

2. We study CW. That is, we do not only write. We read, research, cogitate, critique, reflect, compare, study, listen. At UCA, we have a mixed approach to CW: Lectures, seminars, writing sessions and workshops. We have to learn about literature, art, humanity and ideas before and after we write. CW then is not about writing, but about studying a broad range of subjects in a variety of ways.

3. We are wee. UCA Farnham is a small campus in a fine Surrey town. There is (just about) one of everything here and we are near London, the Surrey Hills and have access to a number of galleries and venues. What I think is most advantageous about this is we are small enough and with that, we stand more chance of getting to know each other, feel a part of a community and feel at home where we are. This though need not be stifling because there is still variety. There are concrete walls, brick walls and granite walls here. There is glass, stained glass and pint glasses. After my own experience in a rather insalubrious London-belt town university, I can certainly say that this is a good thing!

Well, I must away for the time being. I'll be posting again soon and hopefully we shall be seeing students put up their own work within the month.

- Dr Craig Jordan-Baker