scratch's blog's blog

For those Talers who currently have submissions out to agents or plan to have in the future: Rejection: Live! Is it fair? Is there any objectivity? Does it bring confidence to the process?

This is from the AQA (formerly known as the Assesments and Qualifications Aliance) website: The Department for Education announced on 10 September 2015 that AS and A-level Creative Writing cannot be redeveloped under government changes to A-levels. That basically means that AS and A levels in creatve writing are to be discontinued. For those interested the full directive is available to read here: Read the announcement If you aren't already...

ABCtales, as many of you will already know, is the go-to writers site for Unbound publishing so this makes very interested reading: How crowdfunding is fuelling the avant garde Exciting times!

HOME no one leaves home unless
 home is the mouth of a shark
 you only run for the border
 when you see the whole city running as well your neighbors running faster than you breath bloody in their throats the boy you went to school with who kissed you dizzy behind the old tin factory is holding a gun bigger than his body you only leave home when home won’t let you stay. no one leaves home unless home chases you fire under feet hot blood in your...

MCW003 The Contemporary Writer: You will be provided with articles and poetry as photocopies or downloadable from the Moodle site. These will be essential reading. Additionally the list of books below are essential reading, and it is recommended that you purchase a copy. Most are available second hand through Amazon, or as kindle formats, or can be purchased from bookshops. The library also stock copies but not enough for each class member...

Thought members would like to read this from the Poet Lauriat: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/dec/20/-sp-dorothy-wordsworths-christmas-birthday-carol-ann-duffy-a-christmas-poem

I don’t mind admitting the concept of ‘poetry projects’ was something that I had only been vaguely aware of and up until last week I had not devoted much thought to what it might mean. I decided to investigate poetry projects and look at the process, production and the outcomes of them. So this last few days I have spent a little time looking into what it might mean. I found, predictably perhaps, that opinions on definition, benefit and worth in...

How To Become A Writer Learn to Listen Learn to Speak Learn to Read Learn to Write When people become writers they define a new reality for themselves. As long as these erstwhile ordinary people continue to write they are writers, if they stop writing, they cease to be writers. The state of not writing compared to the state of writing is the difference between paralysis and mobility. At the outset the proficiency of the writing is irrelevant; a...

A Statement Of Truth And Consciousness: Humanity And The Reclamation Of Self Or A 1000 Year Manifesto For those of you who feel lost, we have a map For those of you who feel directionless, we have a compass For those of you who feel about to fall, we have a net to place between you and the abyss The history of man lacks any and all relevance. Discount it, for it is in-credible. What went before is as water that passed between unknown rocks, in...

Alvarez, A. (2005) The Writer’s Voice. London, Bloomsbury. Al Alvarez is British despite his Spanish surname. He was born in in London in 1929 and was privately educated; first at The Hall School in Hampstead and then at Oundle in Northamptonshire. Predictably, some might say, he went up to Oxford and gained a First in English at the end of his time as an undergraduate of Corpus Christi College. He worked as the poetry editor for The Observer...