Wednesday 29 March 2017

Creative Writing Lecturer's Translation Longlisted for the Best Translated Book Award 2017




The Thief of Talant, the first translation into English of Pierre Reverdy’s Le Voleur de Talan, has been longlisted for the prestigious Best Translated Book Award for Poetry 2017.

For further information, click here. 
 
Dr Ian Seed is delighted to be nominated for the BTBA. He believes that translation is one of the best ways to learn the craft of creative writing. It challenges us to consider the ways in which we can shape language for best effect.

Monday 27 March 2017

Creative Writing Students Get Writing and Publishing Tips from Prize-Winning Poet, William Stephenson



Creative Writing students on the Writing Poetry for Publication module were treated to a seminar with prize-winning poet, William Stephenson.

William told the story of his own road to publication through poetry competitions, literary magazines and pamphlets. He read from his collections and took questions from the students, before going on to give a number of top tips:

  •          magazines are a good place to start: do your research first (there is an excellent selection of magazines in the University of Chester library), and then send out your best work to those magazines which are most suitable to your style of writing, making sure that you read the magazine’s submission guidelines carefully;
  •          keep track of the places where you send your work with a table or spreadsheet;
  •         expect a ratio of several rejections for every acceptance – do not be discouraged by rejections: persist;
  •          in terms of putting together a collection, get feedback from your peers, use your best poems, then decide on an order linked to theme;
  •          when it comes to writing be adventurous with language – you must go beyond the merely ‘poetic’;
  •         don’t be afraid to make use of other kinds of language, such as scientific and technical terminology, which reflects the world we live in;
  •          internal rhyme and half-rhyme can help build tension and momentum, and can be subtly more effective than end-rhyme;
  •          don’t be afraid of writing garbage; you may have to write plenty of this in order to eventually find a voice which is original and interesting (this is better than trying to be ‘original’ for the sake of it);


William’s poems have appeared in Envoi, Iota, Magma, Orbis, The North and The Rialto.  His first collection Travellers and Avatars was shortlisted for the Live Canon First Collection Prize and will appear in 2017.  His pamphlets are Rain Dancers in the Data Cloud (Templar, 2012) and Source Code (Ravenglass, 2013).


The seminar was organised by Dr Ian Seed.

Monday 6 March 2017

Dr Ashley Chantler and Dr Peter Blair to give talk at the Bath Flash Fiction Festival


 
As editors of  Flash: The International Short-Story Magazine, Ashley and Peter will be giving a talk and Q&A session at this year's Flash Fiction Festival, giving tips on how to submit your Flashes.
 
This will be at the first literary festival in the UK entirely devoted to Flash Fiction and welcomes novice and experienced writers who want to learn more about flash fiction.
 
Happening on the weekend of National Flash Fiction Day UK 2017, the first festival will be taking place in Bath, at the New Oriel Hall.  The programme runs from Saturday 24th to Sunday 25th of June, and more information can be found on the Festival website here: