Given how often I’ve been posting here recently, I’m sure you can understand my need to start a new blog. In fact the reasons for the new blog and for my comparative silence are somewhat linked. For the past nine months or so, I’ve been fully engaged with the MA in Creative Writing at UEA, which has demanded a scary amount of work.
I’ve now almost finished the contact part of the MA. I have distinctly mixed feelings about this. I’ve loved writing and studying alongside some astonishingly talented writers. I’ll miss being challenged to come up with better work, to learn from my many mistakes, and to learn even more from the craft of others. At the same time, I’m looking forward to applying all this study and practice, and to writing more about writing here. (And I have to earn some money. Please pay me to write words or code for you–more about that in another post).
I’ve also been accepted onto the the PhD programme at UEA. Part of my thesis will be a novel, but part of it will be a critical work that will examine the relationships between publishing, the market, and story. In other words how the publishing medium (scroll, paperback, periodical, ebook) has influenced or will influence the form of the stories we tell. I’ve set up Book Shape to pull together links to articles on this subject, to review critical work in the area, and hopefully to get some comments from smart people.
Meanwhile I’ll continue to post more eclectic stuff about books, writing, and general literary geekery here.
