Mark Barrowcliffe

Transcription

My name is Laura Bottomley. I took the MFA in Creative Writing. I took my BA in English & American Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Kent, and then I really wanted to work on my writing. So I applied to Kingston to work with writers such as Rachel Cusk and Paul Bailey; and I really enjoyed my MA here and wanted to specialise more so I took the Master of Fine Arts. I really wanted to work on my writing and look beyond the course as well, into a career in writing. The MFA taught me to look, oddly enough, beyond the MFA – to look at my career as a writer beyond the course. So by the end of it I saw it as a beginning rather than an ending; and now I have taken the routine that I learnt, the discipline that I learnt on the course and I apply it to my writing now. I got involved in a lot of other things while I was on the course which I have also furthered. I began reading at nights, such as the Rhythm and Muse, and now I am on the committee for Rhythm and Muse. So I have sort of taken my experiences and furthered them, which is what I really wanted to do. For my dissertation I wrote a novella entitled ‘The People and Spaces’. For that I worked with Rachel Cusk. I have been very lucky to work with some great people at Kingston. For my MA I worked with Walter Donohue from Faber & Faber and they were very generous with their time and extremely helpful. One thing I did learn from them actually is to depend on, vitally, instincts and to foster those, and to depend on myself to know how the writing is going so that I could use that when I graduated. The teaching at Kingston University I think is very supportive. In my BA time we really did depend on our teachers quite a lot, but here at Kingston we were taught how to look again beyond the degree – to look at our careers maturely and to take more of a professional focus really. I didn’t take the BA here so I can’t say for that, but I say to concentrate on your writing the tutoring here is very professional. To read a lot, to write a lot, to write every day – and I have used that in my own practice and I try to impart that to my own students as well. I think the dissertation gave me the most insight into my writing on the MA and the MFA year. I also very much enjoyed the elements of professional writing with Alison Baverstock. I felt that was excellent and made me look at my writing in a sort of writing context really; to look at my writing alongside other published works really. To look at it in terms of a writer coming fresh to the material, that was very helpful. I would definitely recommend Kingston to people wanting to do postgraduate study. It is not just about the degree I think at Kingston, there is an awful lot more on offer. I did take that on, I did KUP (Kingston University Press) bursary; I went to all the extra-curricula lectures and now we have even more of those at Kingston. We have a lot of writers coming in, such as Barry Keith for screenwriting, Clare Allan for prose, Mark Barrowcliffe for prose comedy and ghost writing, and usually there is three or four things a week that students can go to and I would say it is that sort of rich extra-curricula, sort of vibrant culture that I think students would be very, you know, keen to take on. My career goals have only focused down on to what I originally wanted to do which was to write and to lecture. I also look at more project-based ideas now. Since graduating I have looked more into teaching. I write now and I take it much more seriously. I really have focused in on those two ideas as where I want to go; and the more I do, the more I feel I get better at them.