Corpus Christi College Jesus College Pembroke College

Corpus Christi College Jesus College Pembroke College

28 March – 3 April 2009

Creative Writing Programme – WRITING FICTION – WRITING POETRY – WRITING FOR YOUNG READERS

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Welcome

to the

Over the centuries the city of Oxford and its great university have nurtured and inspired some of our finest writers and scholars. Sensitive to this long and distinguished tradition, while at the same time living up to its own reputation for enterprise and innovation, The Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival has embarked on an exciting new initiative: the 2008 festival saw the introduction of a five-day college-based residential course offering an opportunity for aspiring fiction-writers to hone their skills under the guidance of eminent authors and other representatives of the literary world. The extraordinary success of this course made it clear that the programme should be extended to give aspiring writers in other genres a similar opportunity. For 2009 the festival will be offering three separate courses: one in fiction, one in poetry and one for those interested in writing for young readers. Future years are likely to see a further expansion of the courses on offer.

Corpus Christi College Library

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Each course provides a series of five two-hour tutor-led workshops, together with a series of ten one-hour talks (masterclasses) given by eminent writers and other significant figures from the literary world. Each course is designed to serve the needs of writers who are interested in working in a small, dedicated group. The working environment is intentionally intimate: the course as a whole will have places for a maximum of 30 participants, while the group will be split into two sub-groups for workshops, each containing a maximum of 15 participants. The whole group will gather together for each talk in the masterclass series.

Welcome

CREATIVE WRITING PROGRAMME The workshops will be led by two knowledgeable tutors who are themselves well-known writers in the field covered by the course, as well as being teachers of proven ability; in addition, the series of masterclasses will allow participants to listen to, and to engage in discussion with, a wide range of other literary practitioners. The courses offer a remarkable opportunity to experience life as a member of a creative community. Living, dining, learning and writing in one of Oxford’s historic colleges, participants will be able to extend their understanding of their craft in the company of like-minded individuals. Each course offers five full teaching days and six nights of College accommodation, including all meals. A special feature for 2009 is the opportunity to sign up for a further short period of College accommodation, at a reasonable additional cost. This will allow participants to continue their writing practice beyond the time-frame of the course itself, or to attend some of the festival’s other events. The festival’s Director of Academic Programmes, responsible for oversight of all courses in the Creative Writing Programme, is Jem Poster, poet, novelist and Professor of Creative Writing at Aberystwyth University. We look forward to welcoming you to a very stimulating and rewarding 5 days in Oxford. Sally Dunsmore Festival Director

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WRITING FICTION

Corpus Christi College

The Course

Jill Dawson

This course is designed for those interested in honing their fiction-writing skills under the guidance of two knowledgeable tutors who are themselves well-known writers of fiction; in addition, the programme of masterclass talks offers insights into the process and practice of fiction-writing, as well as into issues related to publication. The two tutorial groups will each contain a maximum of 15 participants; the group as a whole will consist of a maximum of 30.

Jill Dawson is the author of twelve books, including the novels Fred and Edie (short-listed for the Orange Prize and the Whitbread), Wild Boy and Watch Me Disappear; her most recent novel is The Great Lover (January 2009). She has taught Creative Writing in many institutions throughout the world and was Creative Writing Fellow at the University of East Anglia, where she also held the Royal Literary Fund Fellowship and taught on the MA programme. She received an Honorary Doctorate for her writing in 2006.

The Tutors

“The tutorials, the masterclasses and the location made for an inspirational week and the friendships we all came away with have made it unforgettable” - Melanie Cantor, participant in the 2008 Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival fiction-writing course.

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The beautiful main quad, with its tower, dining hall, library and adjoining chapel were planned and completed under Foxe's guidance. Queen Catherine (of Aragon) was a friend of the College's first President, John Claimond, and would visit him in his College lodgings while her husband, Henry VIII, hunted at nearby Woodstock. Another early visitor was the great humanist scholar, Erasmus, who wrote admiringly of the College's library. Many significant figures have been graduates or fellows of the College, among them the educational reformer Thomas Arnold, the Poet Laureate Robert Bridges, the art historian John Ruskin, the philosopher Isaiah Berlin and the novelist Vikram Seth.

Jem Poster Jem Poster has edited a selection of George Crabbe’s poetry and has written a study 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 Writing at Aberystwyth University, where he directs a range of creative writing programmes from undergraduate to doctoral level.

Corpus Christi College was founded in 1517 by Richard Foxe, Bishop of Winchester and a trusted 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 with this plan, the College would probably have been dissolved in the Reformation of the next generation. Instead, he decided that the College should be a place of Renaissance learning for the education of young men in the humanities and the sciences.

Writing Fiction

Oxford has helped to nurture the talents of many well-known writers of fiction: among the University’s alumni are Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene, Aldous Huxley, William Golding, Kingsley Amis, V. S. Naipaul, Martin Amis and Julian Barnes.

The Masterclass Speakers

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; and critic and editor Professor John Carey, principal reviewer for The Sunday Times and twice Chair of the judges for the Booker Prize.

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WRITING POETRY

Jesus College

The Course

Tiffany Atkinson

This course is designed for those interested in honing their poetry-writing skills under the guidance of two knowledgeable tutors who are themselves acclaimed poets; in addition, the programme of masterclass talks offers insights into the process and practice of poetry-writing, as well as into issues related to publication. The two tutorial groups will each contain a maximum of 15 participants; the group as a whole will consist of a maximum of 30.

Tiffany Atkinson is a lecturer in English and Creative Writing at Aberystwyth University, and she gives regular readings and poetry workshops across England and Wales. She was winner of the Ottakar’s and Faber National Poetry Competition (2000) and the Cardiff Academi International Poetry Competition (2001). Her poems are published widely in journals and anthologies, and her first collection, Kink and Particle (Seren, 2006) was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and winner of the Jerwood Aldeburgh First Collection Award (2007). She is also editor of The Body: A Reader (Palgrave, 2004).

Jesus College, the only Oxford college to date from the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, received its first royal charter on 27 June 1571, as ‘Jesus College in 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’. Jesus College occupies a square in the heart of Oxford, with Turl Street to the east, Market Street 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 additions and alterations. Along Turl Street, south of the east end of the chapel, the entrance front was rebuilt in 1855 in an adaptation of the original, homely Jacobean style, with a gate-tower, a lodge, and impressively detailed chimneys, faced in golden Bath stone.

Writing Poetry

Many famous poets have studied at Oxford University, among them Percy Bysshe Shelley, Matthew Arnold, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Edward Thomas, W. H. Auden, Philip Larkin and the present Poet Laureate, Andrew Motion.

Among the significant figures associated with the college were the metaphysical poet Henry Vaughan, writer and soldier T.E. Lawrence (‘Lawrence of Arabia’), Prime Minister Harold Wilson, novelist William Boyd and poet Dom Moraes.

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. He has published widely on the English Romantic poets, especially William Wordsworth and John Keats, and is the co-founder of the journal European Romantic Review. He is a regular contributor to The Times Literary Supplement and The Observer, and his biography of London’s notorious Newgate Prison, The Gaol (John Murray), was serialised as BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week in July 2008.

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The Masterclass Speakers

Masterclass speakers lined up to address the 2009 programme include Michael Schmidt, poet and editor of PN Review and Carcanet Press; Fiona Sampson, poet and editor of Poetry Review; Matthew Hollis, poet and poetry editor at Faber and Faber; poet, critic and translator David Constantine; David Whyte, poet; Sally Bayley, author and fellow of Jesus College; and poet-critics Bernard O’Donoghue and Craig Raine.

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WRITING FOR YOUNG READERS

The Course

Julie Hearn

This course is designed for those interested in writing for young readers, and will take place under the guidance of two knowledgeable tutors who are themselves acclaimed writers in this field; in addition, the programme of masterclass talks offers insights into the process and practice of writing, as well as into issues related to publication. The main focus will be fiction, but there will be some scope for discussion of poetry. The two tutorial groups will each contain a maximum of 15 participants; the group as a whole will consist of a maximum of 30.

Julie Hearn is the author of five novels for older children – Follow Me Down (2003), The Merrybegot (2005), Ivy (2006), Hazel (2007) and Rowan the Strange (2009). Three of her books have been nominated for the Carnegie Medal and The Merrybegot was shortlisted for the Guardian Children’s Fiction Award. A former journalist, she received an M.St. in women’s studies from Oxford University in 1999. She is a tutor in creative writing for the University of Oxford Department for Continuing Education and has contributed essays on Robert Browning, Radclyffe Hall and Barbara Comyns to the British Writers series published in the U.S.A. by Charles Scribner’s Sons.

From the early days of Oxford University, Broadgates Hall, now Pembroke College, existed as a hostel for law students. The combined generosity of an Abingdon merchant, Thomas Tesdale, and a Berkshire clergyman, Richard Wightwick, provided the necessary endowment for the transformation of this Hall into Pembroke College, originally intended to supply places at Oxford for boys from Abingdon School. In 1624 King James I signed the letters patent to create the present college, which was named after the third Earl of Pembroke, Lord Chamberlain and Chancellor of the University, who had done much to promote the foundation. The College is concentrated in its traditional site in the centre of Oxford, has graduate facilities in Brewer Street, just behind the College, and a fine new building on the Thames a few minutes’ walk away. The main site is particularly attractive, with buildings from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries. The Chapel Quad, regarded by many as one of Oxford’s best kept secrets, harmoniously integrates architectural styles across five centuries. Among the significant figures associated with the College were philosopher Sir Thomas Browne, essayist and lexicographer Samuel Johnson, poets William Shenstone and Thomas Lovell Beddoes, James Smithson, founder of the Smithsonian Institution, politician Michael Heseltine and scholar and author of Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien.

Writing For Young Readers

Oxford has a remarkable series of connections with writers who have written significantly or principally for young readers: these include Lewis Carroll, Kenneth Grahame, C. S. Lewis, J.R.R Tolkien and Philip Pullman.

Pembroke College

The Tutors Philip Gross Philip Gross is a writer of many parts, from prizewinning adult poet to author of ten teenage novels - most recently Going for Stone, The Lastling and The Storm Garden, all from OUP, and the younger Marginaliens. Earlier books included The Song of Gail and Fludd (Faber), titles in the Point Horror Unleashed series, and the teenage cyberfiction Psylicon Beach (Scholastic). His three collections of children’s poetry include Manifold Manor and The All-Nite Café which won the Signal Award. Since 2004 has been Professor of Creative Writing at Glamorgan University, developing their Writing For Children programme up to postgraduate level.

The Masterclass Speakers

Masterclass speakers lined up to address the 2009 programme include authors Philip Pullman, David Almond, Lee Weatherly, Katherine Langrish and Mary Hoffman; literary agent Catherine Clark; and publisher David Fickling.

Course Administrator for all three courses: Brenda Stevens, former Commercial Director BAFTA and Commerical Development Director at RADA

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BOOKING FORM ADDRESS

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Sunday 29 March – Sunday 5 April 2009 At Christ Church, Oxford

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SPECIAL DIETARY REQUIREMENTS, ACCOMMODATION OR ACCESS NEEDS.

AGE GROUP (PLEASE CIRCLE) 18-29

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COURSE FEES INCLUDE ALL TUITION AND MASTERCLASSES, ACCOMMODATION IN COLLEGE FOR 6 NIGHTS – FULL BOARD (ALL MEALS).

HOW TO BOOK For further information please contact Alex Simmons on 01865 276152 Or email: [email protected] To confirm your booking, please fill in the attached booking form and return by post, enclosing a cheque for £1260 or £1410 (for ensuite accommodation) made out to “The Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival”. Return booking form and cheque to: The Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival c/o 7 Threshers Yard | Kingham | Oxon | OX7 6YF To book online contact www.regonline.co.uk/63355_652330A (Mastercard/Visa/American Express accepted).

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CONFERENCE OXFORD

Inclusive charge per person: £1260 (includes accommodation at course college and full board). Ensuite supplement (per room) £150

CANCELLATION POLICY If you cancel and we are able to fill your place on the course, you will be refunded the full fee. If we are unable to do so due to limited time before the course begins, the organisers reserve the right to retain your fee in full. Times Newspapers Ltd (TNL), Cox & Kings, Blackwell and The Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival (STOLF) directly or via their agents may mail, email, SMS or telephone you with future offers reflecting your preferences. Tick if you do NOT want offers from: TNL STOLF Cox & Kings

All venue and accommodation arrangements for the Creative Writing Programme at three Oxford Colleges made by Conference Oxford. For details on how Conference Oxford can help you to stage major events at colleges and University Departments, please contact:

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Conference Oxford | The Painted Room 118 High Street | Oxford | OX1 4BX Telephone 01865 276190 Website www.conference-oxford.co.uk Email [email protected]

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