Category: Higher education

  • The PhD supervisor as editor

    When it comes to PhDs in Creative Writing, it may seem obvious to think about the supervisor as a kind of editor. But this role also has relevance for other research subjects.

  • Dreaming with my feet on the ground

    There is a lot of mystique about doing a PhD. Often, that is not helpful; it is support, persistence and planning that matters. But there can be something magical about the doctoral journey.

  • Fighting on two fronts

    There is a recurring tension between disciplines that are practice-led, and those that see themselves as the champions of ‘theory’. The former often find themselves fighting on two fronts.

  • Publishing and the university

    Every year, at the London Book Fair, there are dozens of fascinating talks. But in 2013 there didn’t seem to be any talks about the university’s place in publishing. So I proposed one.

  • The muscular strength that it gave to my jaw

    My father was a sharp-witted, well read man who dropped out of a teaching job at Rutgers to support a growing family. Even in unpromising conditions, however, his learning instinct remained.

  • Synchronised fires

    In a Leipzig teaching exchange, I asked the class to respond to the writing prompt, ‘Things my father or mother never told me’. But this standard exercise has another dimension in a country where half the population was once spying on the other half.

  • Failure Files on tour

    The developmental concept of the ‘good-enough mother’ is applicable to public life. Societies that demand perfection get into trouble because mistakes go uncorrected. But so do those that find awfulness in everything.

  • Knowing what you don’t know

    Creativity is about acting as a shaping consciousness. There is beauty and pleasure if the story leaves spaces for the imagination, and asks questions about what the writer does and does not know.

  • Write a book and get a degree

    For people working on a book, an MA in Creative Writing is something to consider. It provides a structure, deadlines, support and feedback; the kind of sustained professional help that is hard to find.

  • Facts and feelings

    When President Obama sacked General Stanley McChrystal in June because of the military man’s indiscretions, no one was thinking very much about the literary implications.