Corpus Christi College Jesus College Pembroke College 28 March – 3 April 2009 Creative Writing Programme – WRITING FICTION – WRITING POETRY – WRITING FOR YOUNG READERS www.sundaytimes-oxfordliteraryfestival.co.uk to the Welcome Welcome CREATIVE WRITING PROGRAMME Over the centuries the city of Oxford The workshops will be led by two and its great university have nurtured knowledgeable tutors who are themselves and inspired some of our finest writers well-known writers in the field covered and scholars. Sensitive to this long and by the course, as well as being teachers distinguished tradition, while at the same of proven ability; in addition, the series of time living up to its own reputation for masterclasses will allow participants to enterprise and innovation, The Sunday listen to, and to engage in discussion with, Times Oxford Literary Festival has a wide range of other literary practitioners. embarked on an exciting new initiative: The courses offer a remarkable opportunity the 2008 festival saw the introduction to experience life as a member of a creative of a five-day college-based residential community. Living, dining, learning and course offering an opportunity for aspiring writing in one of Oxford’s historic colleges, fiction-writers to hone their skills under participants will be able to extend their the guidance of eminent authors and other understanding of their craft in the company representatives of the literary world. of like-minded individuals. The extraordinary success of this course Each course offers five full teaching days made it clear that the programme should and six nights of College accommodation, be extended to give aspiring writers in including all meals. A special feature other genres a similar opportunity. For for 2009 is the opportunity to sign up 2009 the festival will be offering three for a further short period of College separate courses: one in fiction, one in accommodation, at a reasonable additional poetry and one for those interested in cost. This will allow participants to continue writing for young readers. Future years their writing practice beyond the time-frame are likely to see a further expansion of of the course itself, or to attend some of the the courses on offer. festival’s other events. Each course provides a series of five The festival’s Director of Academic two-hour tutor-led workshops, together Programmes, responsible for oversight with a series of ten one-hour talks of all courses in the Creative Writing (masterclasses) given by eminent writers Programme, is Jem Poster, poet, novelist and other significant figures from the and Professor of Creative Writing at literary world. Each course is designed Aberystwyth University. to serve the needs of writers who are interested in working in a small, dedicated We look forward to welcoming you to a group. The working environment is very stimulating and rewarding 5 days intentionally intimate: the course as a whole in Oxford. will have places for a maximum of 30 Sally Dunsmore participants, while the group will be split Festival Director into two sub-groups for workshops, each containing a maximum of 15 participants. The whole group will gather together for Corpus Christi College Library each talk in the masterclass series. WRITING FICTION Corpus Christi College Writing Fiction Writing Oxford has helped to nurture the talents of many well-known writers of fiction: Corpus Christi College was founded in 1517 by among the University’s alumni are Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene, Aldous Huxley, Richard Foxe, Bishop of Winchester and a trusted William Golding, Kingsley Amis, V. S. Naipaul, Martin Amis and Julian Barnes. diplomatic and political adviser to King Henry VII. Bishop Foxe had originally intended the College for the training of monks; if he had followed through The Course Jill Dawson with this plan, the College would probably have been dissolved in the Reformation of the next generation. Instead, he decided that the College Jill Dawson is the author of twelve books, This course is designed for those interested should be a place of Renaissance learning for the including the novels Fred and Edie (short-listed education of young men in the humanities and in honing their fiction-writing skills under the for the Orange Prize and the Whitbread), Wild the sciences. guidance of two knowledgeable tutors who are Boy and Watch Me Disappear; her most recent themselves well-known writers of fiction; in novel is The Great Lover (January 2009). She The beautiful main quad, with its tower, dining addition, the programme of masterclass talks has taught Creative Writing in many institutions hall, library and adjoining chapel were planned offers insights into the process and practice of throughout the world and was Creative Writing and completed under Foxe's guidance. Queen fiction-writing, as well as into issues related to Fellow at the University of East Anglia, where she Catherine (of Aragon) was a friend of the College's publication. The two tutorial groups will each also held the Royal Literary Fund Fellowship and first President, John Claimond, and would visit him contain a maximum of 15 participants; the group taught on the MA programme. She received an in his College lodgings while her husband, Henry as a whole will consist of a maximum of 30. Honorary Doctorate for her writing in 2006. VIII, hunted at nearby Woodstock. Another early visitor was the great humanist scholar, Erasmus, The Tutors who wrote admiringly of the College's library. Many significant figures have been graduates or Jem Poster fellows of the College, among them the educational reformer Thomas Arnold, the Poet Laureate Robert Bridges, the art historian John Ruskin, Jem Poster has edited a selection of the philosopher Isaiah Berlin and the novelist George Crabbe’s poetry and has written a study Vikram Seth. of the poetry of the 1930s; he is also the author of a collection of poetry, Brought to Light, and a past winner of the Cardiff International Poetry Competition. His two novels, Courting Shadows and Rifling Paradise, were published in 2002 and 2006 respectively. A former Fellow of Kellogg College, Oxford, he now holds the Chair of Creative The Masterclass Speakers Writing at Aberystwyth University, where he directs a range of creative writing programmes from undergraduate to doctoral level. Masterclass speakers lined up to address the 2009 programme include the eminent writer of detective fiction, P D James; award-winning novelists Helen Dunmore and Sarah Hall; London literary agent Luigi Bonomi, founder-director of the LBA agency; poet, biographer and travel writer Grevel Lindop; novelist Joanne Harris, author of the bestselling Chocolat; “The tutorials, the masterclasses and the location made for an inspirational week and critic and editor and the friendships we all came away Professor John Carey, principal with have made it unforgettable” reviewer for The Sunday Times - Melanie Cantor, participant in the 2008 and twice Chair of the judges Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival for the Booker Prize. fiction-writing course. WRITING POETRY Jesus College Writing Poetry Writing Many famous poets have studied at Oxford University, among them Percy Bysshe Jesus College, the only Oxford college to date from the reign of Queen Shelley, Matthew Arnold, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Edward Thomas, W. H. Auden, Elizabeth I, received its first royal charter on 27 June 1571, as ‘Jesus College in Philip Larkin and the present Poet Laureate, Andrew Motion. the University of Oxford of Queen Elizabeth’s Foundation’. The charter stated that it would be a ‘college of learning in the sciences of philosophy, the moral arts, and knowledge of the Hebrew, Greek and Latin languages, with the eventual aim of professing sacred Theology’. The Course Tiffany Atkinson Jesus College occupies a square in the heart of Oxford, with Turl Street to the east, Market Street Tiffany Atkinson is a lecturer in English and to the south, Ship Street to the north, and a block of Cornmarket Street shop premises to the west. Most of the buildings in the Front and Second Quadrangles are seventeenth-century, with some later This course is designed for those interested Creative Writing at Aberystwyth University, and additions and alterations. Along Turl Street, south of the east end of the chapel, the entrance front she gives regular readings and poetry workshops in honing their poetry-writing skills under the was rebuilt in 1855 in an adaptation of the original, homely Jacobean style, with a gate-tower, a lodge, across England and Wales. She was winner of the guidance of two knowledgeable tutors who are and impressively detailed chimneys, faced in golden Bath stone. themselves acclaimed poets; in addition, the Ottakar’s and Faber National Poetry Competition programme of masterclass talks offers insights (2000) and the Cardiff Academi International Poetry Among the significant figures associated with the college were the metaphysical poet Henry Vaughan, into the process and practice of poetry-writing, Competition (2001). Her poems are published writer and soldier T.E. Lawrence (‘Lawrence of Arabia’), Prime Minister Harold Wilson, novelist as well as into issues related to publication. The widely in journals and anthologies, and her first William Boyd and poet Dom Moraes. two tutorial groups will each contain a maximum collection, Kink and Particle (Seren, 2006) was a of 15 participants; the group as a whole will Poetry Book Society Recommendation and winner consist of a maximum of 30. of the Jerwood Aldeburgh First Collection Award (2007). She is also editor of The Body: A Reader (Palgrave, 2004). The Tutors Kelly Grovier Poet, life-writer and literary critic, Kelly Grovier was educated at the University of California, Los Angeles before coming to Christ Church, Oxford University on a British Marshall Scholarship to study for his doctorate. His first collection of poems, A Lens in the Palm, was published by Carcanet Press in 2008.