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    Vildana Neslanović
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    Writing on the Wall

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    writing

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    120 views2 pages

    Writing On The Wall

    Uploaded by

    Vildana Neslanović
    writing

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
    Download as pdf
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    "WRITING ON THE WALL JHE first acknowledgement inside Emma Tes ’s debut novel Hard Copy, published this month by Piatkus is to Richard Francis and Michael Schmidt, ‘Without whom I would have never started writing’. Francis and Schmide were her Tutors on a two-year taught MA in novel writing at the University of Manchester. Emma Lee-Potter is not the first of Francis and Schmidt's students to sign a publishing deal. Since the programme started five years ago, five have already found a commercial outlet for their work — four others also have their work under consideration at agents and publishers. Many of them are starting with reworked versions of their MA thesis — practical vindications of a course that was greeted with disdain by many lecturers, who maintained that creative writing was not academically valid and you could not ~ and should not — teach people to write fiction. ‘For many years; says Francis, ‘I was suspicious of creative writing programmes. I spent a large part of my career as an academic who wrote novels, but I never really connected the two activities very tightly’ On an exchange to the University of Missouri it was taken for granted that as a novelist Francis could ~ and would — teach creative writing as well as American literature, To his surprise, he found it very rewarding, Well, he reflects, you may not be able to teach people to write but you can take people who are capable of writing and provide them with the space and structure within which they have to write. In contrast to the growing number of creative writing programmes around the country, students at Manchester are required to complete an entire novel, rather than a series of short stories. It has been a constant source of friction with the university authorities ~ 60,000 words is a very long thesis, after all. Less controversial but no less vital is the academic content - something often missing from courses elsewhere, notes Schmidt, diplomatically declining to point the finger. The course has four components, the central and most crucial of which are workshops. FFour times a year, students produce 5,000 words of their novel for discussion and criticism. Although intimidating, the sessions were invaluable for Anna Davis, who was among the first intake of students and has since secured a two-book deal with Sceptre. Her superb first novel, The Dinner, is to be published in January. She says: ‘Writers are terribly alone in their work ~ it’s very difficult to get people to read you and give you decent feedback. On a course, you've got a captive audience to give you proper attention.” Learning to put her work on the line and accept criticism prepared her well for the onerous world of agents and editors. Between workshops, students study twelve divergent course texts. They also complete a practical project, such as translating a novel or adapting one for the screen. Finally, there is, a vocational component, when students learn about the publishing industry from the inside, studying contracts, copyright law, profit and loss accounting, writing blurbs and advance information sheets for their novels Schmidt is a publisher himself ~ owner of Carcanet Press and editor of the poetry magazine PN Review. He says: ‘Most novelists tie up their manuscript with a pretty ribbon in the assumption the industry eagerly awaits their work, whereas, of course, the last thing publishers and agents look forward to is a huge slush-pile slithering through their door, If nothing else, the course gives them a degree of scepticism and realistic expectation” Not only does the vocational element teach students how to package their ideas and sell themselves, it also prepares many for a career within the industry itself. After graduation, Anna Davis got a job assisting the managing-

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