Author: nottinghamcreativewritinghub

Press Play: Behind the Making of Our MA Creative Writing Anthology

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JENNIFER RAJASEKAR is an international student from India, who is due to graduate from our MA Creative Writing this winter. In this blog post, she reflects on the experience of being Managing Editor of the cohort’s anthology, Press Play, which was launched at Malt Cross in Nottingham in October.

An anthology can be more than a collection of stories, poems, and scripts. It can be a meeting point for different voices, perspectives, and imaginations, where individual works come together to create something greater than the sum of their parts. For the MA Creative Writing cohort of 2025–26 at Nottingham Trent University, Press Play became exactly that.

As the anthology’s Managing Editor, I had the opportunity to oversee the project from its earliest discussions to its final printed form. What began as an idea shared among classmates gradually developed into a published anthology, culminating in a launch in October that celebrated not only our work but also the community we had built throughout the year.

The experience has been one of the most valuable aspects of my time on the MA. It taught me that bringing a book into the world requires much more than a love of writing. It demands organisation, communication, decision-making, patience, collaboration, and the ability to navigate the unexpected.

The process began with conversations about what we wanted our anthology to represent. Before we could begin collecting submissions to edit, we had several important decisions to make. Would the book have a central theme? If so, what? What would we call it? Would we invite contributions from writers outside our cohort, or feature the work only of our classmates?

These discussions gave everyone an opportunity to contribute ideas, express their preferences, and help shape the direction of the project. We explored different possibilities and voted on the options we felt best represented us as a group.

Eventually, we settled on Press Play, a title that we thought would bring to mind a mixtape: a collection of individual pieces, each with its own character, coming together to create a shared experience. Like a mixtape, the anthology would bring together different creative voices, allowing readers to move between them while discovering the distinctive qualities of each.

With the concept established, we began organising the team. Classmates volunteered for roles based on their interests and strengths, and we divided the editorial work into three categories: fiction, poetry, and script. Two editors were assigned to each genre. We also established teams for proofreading, layout, and other aspects of production. Each person had a role to play, and the success of the anthology depended on how well we worked together.

I was responsible for coordinating these different teams, communicating updates, keeping track of progress, and ensuring that the various stages of production came together. When a small number of editors had to step away from the project, I stepped in as a secondary script editor to help keep the work moving.

Once the teams were in place, we invited our classmates to submit their work and established a deadline for submissions. This marked the beginning of a detailed editorial process that involved several rounds of communication between writers and editors.

Each piece went through an exchange of feedback, corrections, and revisions, editors working with writers to refine submissions while respecting their individual voices and creative intentions. This back-and-forth was an important part of the process: editing was not simply about ‘correcting’ a piece of writing, but about helping it reach its fullest potential without losing what made it distinctive.

After the editorial stages were completed, we began arranging the accepted pieces into the order in which they would appear in the anthology. The manuscript was organised into its final structure before being passed to the proofreaders, who examined the text for errors and inconsistencies.

The next stage involved layout. Seeing the individual pieces move from documents into the pages of a book was an exciting milestone. The cover design was developed alongside the manuscript, and gradually, all the separate elements began to come together as a cohesive publication. I wrote the introduction, dedication, acknowledgements, and other accompanying material that helped frame the anthology as a complete work.

Once the manuscript had been laid out and the covers were ready, we circulated the book for another round of proofreading. We then returned the relevant sections to the authors, giving them an opportunity to check that their work appeared as intended. This was particularly important because the anthology represented the creative efforts of every contributor, and we wanted everyone to feel confident about how their writing was presented. Finally, the completed manuscript was submitted to our course leader for final review and approval.

One of the most valuable aspects of managing Press Play was the opportunity to experience the publishing process beyond the written page. Alongside coordinating the editorial teams, I was responsible for researching printers and obtaining quotes for the physical production of the book. This was an entirely new aspect of the process for me, and it came with its own learning curve.

Initially, I misunderstood the distinction between printers and publishers and found myself contacting publishing houses when what we needed was a printing service! This was a small mistake in the larger scheme of things, but was a useful learning experience. I came to understand the different roles involved in bringing a book to publication and became more confident in navigating the practical side of the industry.

After researching the available options, I shortlisted three printers, and compared their suitability for our project. I then had to select our preferred option and explain the reasoning behind the decision. Once the printer had been finalised, I prepared a funding proposal to secure the money required to produce the anthology from NTU’s Department of Humanities. This involved thinking about the project not only as a creative endeavour but also as something that needed a realistic budget and a clear plan for production.

These responsibilities taught me to approach the anthology from multiple perspectives. As a writer, I was invested in the quality of the work. As an editor, I was concerned with the consistency and presentation of the manuscript. As a project coordinator, I had to consider deadlines, communication, resources, and the practical decisions that would allow the book to become a reality.

As production progressed and the manuscript approached completion, our attention turned towards promotion. We began sharing information about the book across our social media platforms, introducing the project to potential readers and building anticipation for its launch. The anthology was no longer simply a collection of files exchanged between editors and writers. It was becoming something we could hold, read, share, and eventually place on our bookshelves.

And then came the launch of Press Play, which took place on 3 October 2026 at Malt Cross in central Nottingham. It was a day that turned out to be far more meaningful than I had imagined. The room was filled with the friends and families of our classmates, alongside tutors, university staff, and representatives from the printing team. Seeing so many people come together to celebrate the work we had created was a reminder that, although writing can often be a solitary pursuit, its impact can also extend far beyond the writer.

For many of us, this was an opportunity to share our work with the people who had supported us throughout our time on the course. Some fellow students and contributors read their work aloud, which brought another dimension to the anthology, allowing the words on the page to become shared experiences in the room. I also had the opportunity to host the launch. Having spent so much time coordinating the anthology behind the scenes, it was a lovely experience to help bring the celebration together and see the project reach its culmination.

What I remember most, however, is the atmosphere. There was pride in what we had accomplished, and appreciation for the people who had helped us get there. The book represented months of work, but it also represented the time we had spent learning alongside one another, exchanging ideas, offering feedback, and growing as writers. It was a celebration of the work in the anthology, certainly, but it was also a celebration of our cohort itself.

As the launch came to an end, I found myself thinking about what the anthology would mean to us in the years ahead. The MA Creative Writing course brought together people with different interests, experiences, and approaches to writing. Throughout the year, we learned from our tutors, from the work we studied, and from one another. We developed our writing, challenged ourselves creatively, and discovered new ways of approaching our craft.

Being the Managing Editor was a significant responsibility, but it was also a privilege. I am grateful to everyone who contributed their writing, volunteered their time, took on editorial and production roles, offered feedback, and helped bring the project to life. The anthology would not have been possible without the collective effort of our cohort and the support of our tutors and the wider university community.

The launch also carried a bittersweet significance. It was the final day on which so many of us would gather under the same roof, at least until graduation. As we move on to different opportunities, projects, and paths, the everyday experience of being part of this cohort will inevitably become a memory.

But we will have Press Play. Perhaps, years from now, one of us will come across the anthology on a shelf, take it down, and remember the people who contributed to it. Perhaps one day, our individual books will together on each other’s bookshelves. And perhaps, when we look back at where our writing journeys began to take us, this anthology will remind us of the time when we were all learning, creating, and growing together.

Until then, Press Play will remain a record of the voices we brought together, the work we created, and the community we shared. This is Jennifer, signing off as the Managing Editor of Press Play, on behalf of the MA Creative Writing cohort of 2025–26.

Thank you for being part of our story.

Critical Commentary on Critical Commentaries

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JULIE GARDNER, a PhD candidate in Creative Writing at NTU and the author of the pamphlet Remembering (Five Leaves Publications), reviews a book she wishes she’d had when she took the MA Creative Writing.

Karen Stevens and Jonathan Taylor (ed) Creative Writing and the Critical Commentary: Reflection, Influence, Process (Bloomsbury Academic, 2026) £21.99

Anyone studying creative writing at undergraduate or post-graduate level will almost certainly be required to write a critical commentary to accompany each piece of creative work they submit. The first time I was asked to provide one, whilst studying for the MA in Creative Writing at NTU, I wrote a lot about the work of writers who had influenced me but hardly anything about how they had been brought to bear on my own output, so I was (quite rightly) criticised. Resources had been provided, but there were no published anthologies of critical commentaries at the time. If Creative Writing and the Critical Commentary had existed, and I had read it, I think I would have done better. Editors Karen Stevens and Jonathan Taylor have produced a book that, in their words, ‘aims to address that strange pedagogical gap’ and it will, I am sure, soon be on the reading lists for most Creative Writing courses in the UK and beyond.

Stevens and Taylor suggest that the world of creative writing is a mirror-world: ‘You learn to write – or learn to write better – by reflecting on your own work and the work of others. The mirror-world reflects both yourself and your (literary) surroundings, and you learn by studying those reflections, by staring into the mirror.’ I like this image of a writer staring obsessively into a mirror, rather like Snow White’s stepmother. I’m not suggesting writers are evil or vain, but we can be insecure and we need to be willing to look at ourselves (or at least our work) carefully, paying close attention to small details.

Part one, which comprises three chapters jointly written by the editors, is a usefully thought-provoking introduction to the rest of the book. For those in the early stages of a writing career, particularly those following a formal course at university or college, there are useful lists of what might be included in a critical commentary, with questions to consider.

Part Two provides the twelve sample critical commentaries and it is this section that gives legitimacy to the editors claim that ‘there seem to be no other books like this one’. The contributing writers ‘have experience as both published authors and educators in higher education,’ and ‘encompass, in both spheres, all the major forms of writing (prose fiction, creative non-fiction, script writing, poetry and new media)’. Each chapter ends with ‘works cited,’ an extensive and eclectic list for further reading.

I wondered if it would be frustrating to read commentaries without first having access to the creative work, and at times it was. Ideally, I would have liked to have read Steven’s short story ‘Among the Crows’ before I read her discussion around it, but (like all the contributors) she at least provides quotes from the story and information about its content. As I worked my way through subsequent chapters – Stevens’ commentary was the first – I decided that these essays worked perfectly well as discrete pieces. I found that I was applying what I was reading to, and finding inspiration for, my own practice. As a poet, I was especially interested in Shaindel Beers’ essay, ‘Nature and Chance as Poetic Influence’, and Lily Matsumoto’s, ‘Experimental Poetic Autography: Writing the Languaged Self’, but every chapter offered useful insights. I particularly enjoyed David Swann’s ‘commentary -in-flash’ about his novella-in-flash, Season of Bright Sorrow. Kit de Waal also writes about flash fiction, comparing it to parables from the bible: ‘both forms invite readers to engage deeply with the subtext, relying on suggestion and resonance rather than explicit explanation.’  Dan Powell’s contribution, ‘The End Is Never Where You Think’, introduced me to preclosure theory, and included the final two paragraphs of his short story ‘Not the Fall’. I am now eager to read it in its entirety and interested to see how that reading is affected by my prior reading of the commentary.

Anyone who believes that there is a formula for writing a critical commentary will, on reading this book, find that they are mistaken. The twelve essays are all very different in style and tone. What they do have in common is the writers’ willingness to share openly about their own work, and there is generosity in this. These are, in effect, masterclasses. Without doubt the book will be extremely useful to those tasked with writing critical commentaries, but it has much to offer all writers, and indeed many readers.

Stevens and Taylor make a bold claim for critical commentary: ‘If approached with the same thoughtfulness as the creative work, they are not only profoundly helpful to an author, they might also stand as works of art in themselves.’ This book provides evidence to support that claim.

MORE THAN JUST WORDS, ITS ENDLESS SKIES

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DR PANYA BANJOKO is a poet, archivist of the Nottingham Black Archive, and a research fellow at the University of Nottingham. She recently completed a PhD at NTU. In this fascinating blog post, she discusses reading, the values it brings to society, and the risks of low literacy.

I can recall stumbling over words and wanting very much to be a fluent reader. My desire to become a reader and being unable to do so weighed heavily on my infant shoulders.  I can’t remember being taught phonics at school, but then as a second-generation child of economic migrants I was subjected to a substandard school with less-than-ideal teachers. Back then, what now seems like a hundred years ago, I thought I’d never master the art of reading: it seemed exclusive, something way out there in the land of unicorns and fairies.

My shortcomings were temporarily bridged by reluctantly leaning on my brother, eighteen months older and wiser than me, who was my golden ticket to deciphering words.  This worked for a short while, until he grew tired of my annoying requests for help, and so the pressure to read independently deepened. Reading for me was attempting to decipher words in a comic book, and I was expected to know how to decode words by magic. We didn’t have books in my home; however, my mother did provide us with weekly subscriptions to a few popular comics, The Beano, The Dandy and Donald and Mickey. This is my first memory of coming face to face with words and I learned to read by remembering them. It was slow, and painstaking, and unbearable, but once I caught on, I began to enjoy the act, and eventually fell in love with it.

Although books was never a feature in my childhood home, I tell everyone willing to listen that I did own one book. It was gifted to me by my godmother, the late Myrtle Thompson, and was a book of prayers; it rhymed and had a predictable structure which made it extremely enjoyable. What I didn’t know then was that the rhymes were teaching my brain how to remember, teaching it about how words fit together, how sentences are structured, and how meaning is conveyed through language. I spent endless hours sitting crossed-legged on my bed reading the prayers in solitude. It felt precious owning a book and I guarded it judiciously in a house filled with rambunctious siblings, lest it should come to harm.

I never saw either of my parents thumbing through the pages of a book, and was surprised when recently sorting through my father’s belongings to find two books that he had owned. The first, The Practical Handyman by James Wheeler, published by Odhams press in 1930, contained within its yellowing pages everything from a list of tools and their uses to instructions for building a glass-roofed veranda. The second, How to Write, Think and Speak Correctly, by the same publisher, and edited by C. E. M. Joad in 1939, held within its equally musty pages tips on the art of thinking, correct speech, good English and good style. What I found even more interesting was an article folded inside the front cover, a newspaper clipping from The Sun dated Monday June 6, 1988. The headline read, ‘Touchy O’Neal storms out after “racist slur” bust up’. The article refers to the Mississippi born singer Alexander O’Neal storming out of a London restaurant after accusing a waiter of being racist. O’Neal, celebrating the success of his newly released single, “The Lovers”, was at the restaurant with the Harlem Globetrotters, when the waiter referred to them as “boys”. So, between the cover of a book designed to teach my father how to become a perfect English gentleman was the stark reality that this might somehow be unattainable for him. My father’s books tell me a lot about him as a first-generation economic migrant from the Caribbean making a life for himself in 1960s Nottingham.  He spent his entire working life down the pit. I can see how he wanted to improve himself, what he thought he needed to do to achieve this, and how he believed the answers to belonging could be found in non-fiction books. I wonder, had he picked up a book of fiction, whether that would have opened up the skies for him.  

I asked my eldest granddaughter, who has just turned 16, to tell me her reading story. She said, “I don’t know how I got there, I just remember reading”, and I gave myself a pat on the back for breaking generational curses. As a mother, I flooded my children with books and instilled an ethos of reading being as important as the air we breathe. Reading was part and parcel of their daily routine growing up, and so it made complete sense that my granddaughter didn’t know how she came to be a reader – she had always been immersed in books. It was as though I was asking her to recall taking her first breath.

Reading runs alongside everything I do now, as an academic, an artist, and the keeper of an archive. Books are my best and only companion on long train journeys or travels abroad. I read Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, penned in 1958, in a secluded spot in Jamaica, and followed it up with William Golding’s Lord of the Flies (1954). While travelling to Paris by train I devoured Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code (2003), and completed it while sitting outside the Louvre in Paris. But reading is more than a travel companion, it has also been my salvation. After a serious breakup I took to bed with a book and stayed there for two weeks reading literary fiction, and when I emerged I felt better, much better. One of my favourite pastimes is sitting in a café with the squiggly notes of jazz music playing in the background, sipping coffee and nibbling lemon drizzle cake, with a book of poetry. I swear that it is the best way to read Langston Hughes’s debut collection The Weary Blues (1926). Without a doubt reading is a wonderful skill to possess and an enjoyable thing to do, yet here we are as a UNESCO City of Literature with so many excellent writers, past and present, including literary greats like Byron, Sillitoe and Lawrence, to literary advocates and activists like George Powe and Leanora (Lee) Arbouin, and we have a serious literacy problem.

Data produced by the National Literacy Trust Nottingham Hub in 2018 shows that nearly 40% of Nottingham children fall short in communication, language and literacy areas of learning in reception year, and the National Literacy Trust’s annual survey on children’s book ownership shows that one in ten children in the UK (in 2024) don’t have a book of their own. Without the educational infrastructure in place, children are likely to suffer with their learning confidence and wellbeing and are much more likely to struggle with their GCSEs and be unemployed by their 30s. The Department for Education in 2023 contended that being unable to read narrows the range of work and life opportunities a person can access. Even more worryingly, in my opinion, is the threat of radicalisation that can occur when people do not have the skills to research facts for themselves. An infamous waning president of a once vibrant but now declining state once said “Smart people don’t like me”, and remarked, “I like dumb people”.  A low-literacy population makes bad decisions and can potentially set us up for problems in the future. We want educated conversations, thoughtful and critical thinkers, and deep listening with dialogue, not citizens following authoritarian leaders blindly.

The low literacy rate in Nottingham is disheartening, then, but it is not unsalvageable, and I believe we can harness this year, the National Year of Reading, to toss books around like cabers. This is the moment to push further and engage as many reluctant readers as possible to pick up a book, and to encourage those who understand the benefits of books to gift them to others. And there’s plenty going on in the city to support literacy, including Literacy Champions, and book giveaways such as Nottingham UNESCO City of Literature’s (NUCoL) Big City Reads free book giveaway campaign for young adults, and we need to encourage more children and their parents to step into our fantastic libraries.

As a writer who came to reading in a haphazard way, I’m adding my two pennies into the pot, for what it’s worth. I’m using my recently acquired skills as a poetry filmmaker, courtesy of Arts Council England’s Developing Your Creative Practice (DYCP) grant scheme, which afforded me time to develop my page poetry into digital poetics, to keep the topic of books and reading current. The DYCP has not only allowed me to position my work in different spaces such as the EDITION26 exhibition at Backlit gallery, which featured artists presenting two works made at different points in their practice, and being one of the winners worldwide to have my poem “Table for One, Please” featured on the Poetry Archive Now website, but it has also led to me becoming a StoryArcs Research Fellow undertaking a placement with NUCoL to mark their tenth anniversary. To keep reading and books on the agenda I created two short films as a resource for NUCoL. The first, ‘10 Ways To Read A Book’, asks audiences to think about where they like to read in a fun way. The second, ‘Building A Better World With Words’, mixes archival images from NUCoL’s tenth anniversary with recent data on what the reading landscape looks like in our city. The aim is to make literacy data relatable, accessible and personal. Both films are held together with a bespoke poem penned by me.

Reading is imperative for expanding our horizons, for building our empathy and confidence, and for supporting us on our journeys through life. Reading is more than just words, it is endless skies, and we need more initiatives to engage and support reluctant readers to soar. My first book was gifted to me by my godmother, and it left a lasting impression on me and is perhaps one of the contributory factors that led to me becoming a lifelong lover of poetry and subsequently an award-winning poet. We need to continue to cultivate a generous spirit when it comes to reading in this city, and I take this challenge personally because Nottingham is my city, the place where I was born, where my children were born, and my grandchildren too. I have invested in this city; I want to see Nottingham do well. So, let’s all be advocates for books and encourage more people to engage with reading, especially the younger generation, and let’s start talking more and more and more about books, about reading, about our own stories of how we became readers, and most importantly what we love the most about books.  

Word on the Water: A Floating World of Books

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JENNIFER RAJASEKAR, who is a full-time international student from India on our MA Creative Writing, tells us about one of her favourite places in England.

I have always believed that bookshops hold stories long before we even open a book. Yet nothing prepared me for the moment I discovered a bookshop that quite literally floats on water.

Word on the Water, often affectionately called ‘The London Bookbarge’ is one of the most unusual and beloved independent bookshops in the UK. Housed inside a historic canal boat, it is not simply a place to purchase books, but a living literary space where reading, music, and community really do seem to coexist. The moment I heard about it, I knew I wanted to experience it – not just as a visitor, but as a reader stepping into a story. As someone who studies literature and spends much of her time surrounded by texts and ideas, the thought of a bookshop on water felt almost poetic, like a metaphor made real.

The shop is permanently moored along the peaceful towpath of Regent’s Canal, a short walk from King’s Cross. Situated in the vibrant cultural area near Granary Square and Coal Drops Yard, the barge rests quietly on the water, offering a gentle contrast to the modern architecture and busy streets surrounding it. The address reads simply: Regent’s Canal Towpath, King’s Cross, London N1C 4LW. but it feels like a place removed from the city, a small literary sanctuary.

The vessel, known as Dianti, is a Dutch canal barge built in the 1920s, and had a busy working life long before it eventually found a second life as a travelling bookshop in 2011. Then, for several years, the bookshop had to move every two weeks due to canal regulations. Customers would return to visit, only to find the shop had gone somewhere else. Financial struggles and uncertainty became constant challenges.

In 2015, after public petitions and widespread community support, the shop was finally granted a permanent mooring in its present location. That transformed its future.

My first glimpse of the boat felt like spotting a scene from a storybook: the barge appeared both modest and enchanting. Its painted exterior carried the slightly weathered charm of something well-loved, the bold lettering of its name, Word on the Water, announcing its identity with quiet confidence. It did not look like a conventional shop. It looked like an invitation.

Before embarking, I lingered outside. Books were arranged along the exterior railings in neat, inviting rows, their colourful spines catching the light. It felt less like a commercial display and more like an open conversation between readers. Near the entrance, I noticed the booksellers themselves – warm, approachable people who seemed genuinely delighted to talk about literature.. Beside the boat, a small souvenir section displayed postcards and literary keepsakes.

And then there was the dog, resting near the entrance, quietly observing me as I stepped aboard. Around the boat, green leaves spilled gently from pots, and delicate fairy lights were strung along the railings. I had crossed a threshold into a different world. For a moment, I simply stood there, absorbing the atmosphere, the gentle rocking of the boat, the soft rustle of pages turning, the sense of being surrounded by stories.

From the entrance, a narrow set of steps led into the main interior of the barge. As I carefully made my way down, the space opened into a hall of bookshelves. These are made from reclaimed wood, I learned, and they giving the interior an old, rustic aesthetic.

Barges aren’t big, and books filled every possible surface, stacked vertically and horizontally. The collection was remarkably diverse: classics, contemporary fiction, poetry, children’s books, non-fiction on art, politics, and culture.

What struck me most about the interior, however, was its atmosphere. Old armchairs invited me to sit and stay awhile. Old carpets covered the wooden floor, adding warmth and texture. A vintage typewriter rested on a shelf, its keys slightly worn, perhaps from having once been used to compose stories. Nearby, I noticed other small relics of the past: an old telephone, decorative ornaments, and carefully placed curiosities that gave the boat the feeling of a miniature museum. The lighting was soft and warm. Every detail contributed to a sense of nostalgia. Time seemed to move – and seemed to have moved – a little slower here.

Eventually, I made my way back toward the upper deck. This part of the boat serves as a small performance space, and contains an open-air stage, on which musicians sometimes perform, writers gather for readings and discussions, and poets share their work at open-mic sessions. Even on this quiet day, it seemed to carry the energy of past performances.  The whole thing felt less like a shop than a community hub where art is shared freely and literature becomes a social experience rather than a solitary one.

Before stepping away, I returned to the small souvenir section and chose a simple card to take with me. It was not an expensive purchase, not a grand object, but it felt meaningful, a tangible reminder of the afternoon I spent in that floating world of words.

LEARNING THE CODE

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Claire Suzanne, a mature part-time student on the BA Creative Writing at NTU, reflects on learning to code as part of her degree, and how it has opened up new kinds of writing for her.

When I found out I would need to learn coding to make an interactive fiction game this academic year, I panicked. Being from the era where we were lucky to have more than one computer in a classroom, and who had not since taken much more interest in computers than necessary, coding certainly was not something I had experienced before. I remember seeing the ‘programmers’ in my old workplace looking at a screen full of symbols and seemingly speaking a different language. I never understood exactly what they were doing, only that somehow it made the website look nice.

Most of my fellow students on the BA Creative Writing are about twenty years younger than me, and I assumed they would all know how to do it, that they had been taught in school. They hadn’t, and I was surprised when a lot of them said they also didn’t know anything about coding. What a relief – I wasn’t going to be the class dinosaur after all! I was paired with another student who was as nervous about the prospect as me, and we set to work understanding how to create a game.

Once I understood the symbols are the computer’s language, and that by learning to code I would be instructing the computer and telling it what I wanted it to do, it all started to make sense. Code was its command. All I would have to do was learn the language and make the orders.

Now, let’s be clear: I won’t be strutting off to Silicon Valley any time soon. But now I understand the basics, the actual coding seems pretty self-explanatory. The concept makes sense!

The game we made has a branching narrative, meaning the user has choices to make, each leading them to different sections of the game, and along the way they can win points – a bit like the old mystery books I grew up with, in which I could create my own versions of a story depending on which pages I turned to.

Once I’d learned the coding language, the next step was to build the narratives. Luckily, we were able to use Twine, interactive fiction software that lays the game out in the form of a flow chart to remind you what leads to where. It can get confusing, though: one error and the whole game can go wrong. It took a lot of concentration to think it through, to work out how to overcome problems and find errors.

There were days when I just wanted to walk away, I’ll admit, yet there were others when I could get stuck right in, solve the problems, and feel satisfied I had achieved something.

In the end, the two of us created our own version of the game, meaning we both learned to code. Then we took elements from both of our games to create a final piece which we completed and presented in December to a client, Nottingham Open Spaces, as part of our ‘Freelancer’ module on the degree.

As someone who came to university with very outdated computer skills, I am extremely proud of myself for learning to do this. If anyone had asked me in my first year whether I would make a game by the end of my degree the answer would’ve been a resounding ‘no’. I wouldn’t have wanted to, either. I was reluctant to upgrade my skills and wanted to learn nothing more than how to improve my writing so I could hide away in my home office and write fiction. But now I have learnt there is so much more to the writing world than I’d known about previously, and there is no reason forty-year-olds who have run from computing and who want to write can’t also have up-to-date digital skills.

The game was based on children visiting Wollaton Park, so I got to test it out on my seven-year-old who enjoyed winning points and getting a reward from the gift shop at the end. She now can’t wait to visit the park for real over the holidays.

The Unconventional-Conventional Process

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John Lewell graduated from NTU’s BA Creative Writing in 2023, with First Class Honours, and is now set to graduate from the MA Creative Writing with Distinction this winter. This blog post is adapted from part of his final assignment for the MA, in which he reflected on his development as a writer.

Searching my heart, mind, and soul, I realise that writing is a journey of discovery— guiding me down paths hidden from the five senses, revealed only through the process, often occurring when I am in a state beyond conscious awareness. Most believe one needs to think to write, but that hinders the flow for me. I drift on a shimmering radio wave, surfing through the universe along streets where memories, emotions, and people mingle, waiting to be picked up, spun around, and woven into a scene. Do I know who this will be, or consider where they will arrive, or when? Nope. As Chris Martin from Coldplay said, ‘Wherever songs come from,’ while looking at the sky and pretending to be all intelligent and artisanal. Good writing, great writing, sensational writing appears. Thinking happens long before the act: in childhood, when you’re about to get your face kicked in; or as a teenager, when you’re scared to tell your friends that you lied about losing your virginity; or when you become a man and realise you’re still that little boy, petrified, waiting for a beating. Mum, Dad, siblings, friends, enemies, hate, love, lust, depression, water, beer, drugs, women, and again love—all spin down the funnel leading here. I don’t believe all can reach this place, or their equivalents of it. 

It helps to know where a comma goes and all that stuff, but words are the destination of this ride. In university, I had to learn all that, and fast, and others inadvertently made me feel small and inadequate with their academic and literary skills. But I noticed something that gave me faith: I loved writing, lusted after it. And not all had that look in their eyes. This is a hunger born of years of intellectual scarcity, a famine of the cerebral. So, I gorged: Lawrence, Bukowski, King, Liu Cixin, Tolkien, Dan Brown, Dahl, Hemingway, Dickens, and so on. I said, looking across a library, ‘I wish I had the mouth and stomach to devour every page’. When I wrote, and by osmosis, I took on traits of these magnificent authors, and I imagined them with the hunger, which made me feel part of a team, a team that never met on pitch or court. Most dead. But I connected with them and watched them write. Suffering and rejoicing. For I believed they knew what it takes, what one goes through to come out the other side, a writer!

Spending every day writing, I locked myself away in a concrete-roofed, bare-bricked shed. I liked that it resembled a prison cell, making me feel captured, contained. If King can write thousands of words a day, if Bukowski wrote authentic, structured dialogue, if Liu Cixin writes from the Chinese Revolution to the end of time, then I want to. I respect two types of people above all others: writers and boxers. Both get hit and hurt. But both fight back: regardless of the towering mountain of an opponent before them and even if they don’t beat that beast, Ivan Drago, they will die trying. Bukowski, a pissed and perverted pauper (most of the time), kept a spark, even when homeless and destitute, when getting old without success, because he knew that ‘a spark can set a whole forest alight.’ And that’s why I continued. And believed, not because sane men told me it’s impossible, but because insane writers and fighters showed me it was.

After the writing beats me up, it’s time to give it a proper thrashing back. The best writing deserves a good blitz. And you watch and wince as a beautifully crafted poetic passage is torn from the carcass. Often, it’s a cake with too much sugar, not enough cream, and a poor consistency of chocolate. The cherry sits patiently, and a writer, a true writer, never feels that the cake deserves the cherry to sit on top. Usually, it’s for another chef to arrive. ‘Enough is enough,’ they say, and you listen, and they look at your daft overzealous eyes and place a hand on your shoulder. ‘It’s time to let go.’ And you nod, a tear welling. ‘So put the bloody cherry on the cake,’ they shout. And you do, but you never think that cake is worthy.  

Inconclusive Conclusion! Unconventional in the sense that some seem to have to think long and hard about what they write, and I don’t. Conventional when editing, sort of, because the flow can arrive, and I forget I’m editing, and the editing becomes an extension of the writing process. And so, I must edit another day – because when it takes you, it bloody takes you.

Creativity and the Journalistic Mindset

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MEGAN TURNER, a student on the MA Creative Writing, reflects on her journey towards taking the course after an undergraduate degree at NTU and beginning a career in journalism.

I made a bold move just before I started this MA: I left my day job in the media. My writing had become stripped, stale and quite sad, and I wanted to do something about it.

Accuracy came first, and brevity was very important. All the while, my internal voice could never get louder than a whisper. Journalism trained me to strip myself from the page – to record, report, and then disappear again. It’s a valuable skill, but I wanted to find room again for myself in my writing.

Since stepping out of that industry, I have rediscovered something magical: self-expression that I don’t feel ashamed of sharing. Creative writing doesn’t ask for neutrality. I can ask my gut what it thinks. However, after relying on quotes and sources, day in and day out, the idea of writing exactly what I think felt daunting.

When watching, reading or listening to the news, there is usually one clean version of events, shaped to be understood quickly. In the real world, and in creative writing, there are as many versions as there are characters – and then usually a lot going on beneath the surface too. Points of view shift. Memories are messy. People lie – to each other and to themselves.

However, I have been finding it useful to use some of the quirks of my recent job as material, especially when remembering you’re allowed to imagine beyond what is provable.

The following things are helping me to write creatively – and perhaps they will be of some value to you:

  • Scheduling what I think of as “no-pressure writing windows”, where I am free to write something that might be so awful I never look at it again – because it also might not be. Incomplete is better than non-existent. Consistency, practicing the craft regularly, helps my ideas flow.
  • Asking “What if?” to drive my work and go on a journey with it. Imagination will take over where evidence stops.
  • Switching off my ‘inner editor’, especially during early drafts. Spelling and accuracy checks are important, but stopping my creative flow to get them done does not help.
  • Listening to real people’s speech patterns – how they interrupt, use slang, pause, and so on. I’ve been writing dialogue out loud to hear if it feels like a real person speaking naturally, not just like a soundbite.
  • Writing in multiple forms is tricky, but helpful for finding your voice. I’ve been focusing on very short stories and poetry, but I know pushing myself in different forms, like scripts and prose poetry, is also helping me find styles I suit.
  • Trusting other people’s imaginations. It’s okay to leave gaps, give half-truths and hazy recollections of stories. Creative writing isn’t a journalistic report. I’ve been trying to write with restraint to help readers contribute to how they create meaning.

I do think my journalistic mindset and training is valuable when writing ‘creative’ work. It makes me look closely at people, places and the chaos within daily life, the kinds of things that go unreported. I do miss the rush of working in a newsroom, but I am finding writing for myself, not out of duty, very enjoyable. The feeling of slowly becoming more myself and present on the page for the first time in a long time is electric. A voice I spent years hiding is finally getting louder.

The Comparison Trap

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Outstanding (our word, not hers!) NTU third-year BA Creative Writing student Tilly Hollyhead writes candidly and beautifully about overcoming feelings of inadequacy.

A student with curly hair and glasses smiles while holding a publication titled 'EPOCKE', a Nottingham Trent University student magazine.
Tilly at the launch event for the BA Creative Writing ‘Magazine Publishing: Concept to Dissemination’ module.

After nearly three years at university, I expected I would have shifted the more damaging attitudes that I had towards writing. In particular, I thought that I would have stopped comparing myself to other writers by now. Yet here I am, writing my final blog post on the cusp of graduation, with my attitude still very much the same. And no, this isn’t a post full of doom and gloom. Not at all.

I have always been acquainted with a feeling of inadequacy, a tendency to compare myself detrimentally to others. It started in primary school, my head filled with fantasies and my social skills augmented by what I now wonder might be undiagnosed autism. I had no idea what made me ‘different’. I flip-flopped between thinking there was something wrong with my classmates, and thinking there was something wrong with me, something that stopped me from learning the invisible rules they all seemed to understand. Thankfully, they weren’t the harshest judges in the world.

Then secondary school came along, and I began comparing myself to new sets of classmates, now with hormones and newly emerging anxiety added to the mix. I tried to do what they did. It all seemed very simple: tuck your jumper in at the bottom, roll up your skirt, find a cute hairstyle, and suddenly you have friends. It will come as no shock to anyone that none of that worked out.

I know that this has little to do with writing, but it’s important that you know that, while I was very much aware of my social flaws, my worries never extended to my use of words. They were original. They were creative. They were untouched by those who seemed so much better than me at some other things, because nobody else in my immediate social circle seemed to be a writer.

The process was sacred, in a way, until I joined NTU to study Creative Writing more formally. My arrival to a new social scene, and my surprising success in garnering a dozen friends in the first week, quickly built up a sense of confidence that I wasn’t aware I could have. Armed with my words, and my maiden attempt at writing a novel, I stepped into my first workshop thinking that everything was right with the world. What I didn’t account for was the fact that there would be so much talent around me. On my left sat one of the best prose writers I have ever known (a description I’m sure she’ll deny), and on my other sat a poet who had in me in awe of what he could do in a genre that I had thought I hated. In comparison, my words were child’s play, my musings those of someone who lacked fundamentals. They were not good enough and, suddenly, the work that I had deemed so sacred was nothing more than slop in my eyes.

As I made clear at the beginning of this post, this was an attitude I have never quite put to bed, even after seeing how much I’ve improved. I now see myself as a decent writer who has done just enough. The praise I give to my work is sparing, at best.

I suppose the logical thing to do now would be to tell you about my advice about how to get over this feeling, which I know is not uncommon, and I will never shy away from sharing whatever insights I think I have. I have more experience now, and much more ahead of me. I would not be myself if I did not try to use that to help others make their journey towards writing a little bit easier. However, nothing has banished these thoughts from your brain.

There will be a few people out there ‘blessed’ with a comparative lack of self-consciousness. The majority of us are not so lucky. I can preach endlessly about how writing is not a race. There is something amazing to be found in conversations between writers. They often bring out a sense of community that restores a bit of faith. You’ll see glimpses of humanity in the feral creatures slumped behind laptop screens or slaving over sheets of paper, through their ability to help others and themselves at once – writers aware of the metaphorical miles upon miles they must travel in pursuit of improvement. In a writing community, like the one I’ve found here, the struggle is made more bearable because other people are going through the same things. A writing community is invaluable, I’ve learned.

And I have two other pieces of advice. The first is something simple: ask yourself if you are trying your best.

And when I write ‘ask yourself’, I do not mean pondering the question for a second before going about your business as if nothing has changed. I mean taking fifteen minutes at the end of the day to sit down. Make a list of your accomplishments if you need to, whatever it will take to look back on your day. Of course, it may be scary. It’s never pleasant to be faced with the possibility that you may not be spending your time in the most productive manner.

Which leads me nicely to my second piece of advice: give yourself three goals that you can work towards.

Notice how neither of these titbits involves other people? I had a revelation when writing my dissertation. I was gritting my teeth, trying to get through April while working shifts at my part-time job, and working hard to an imminent submission deadline. Every day, to avoid getting myself stuck in a spiral, I set a list of four tasks that I would have to complete. There was satisfaction in crossing each one of them off. Before I knew it, my thoughts about how well other people were doing, how some had already submitted their final copies, had escaped my mind. In its place was pride at accomplishments, and I think every writer deserves to experience that. Every day, you take one step forward, get a little closer to achieving your goal: your book or poem or screenplay.

There will be days when the list is not enough, where your goals will seem too small. That’s the beauty of it, though. You can push yourself forward, and try even harder, not because you want to keep pace with others but because you have decided it is time. You control the pace of your journey, no matter how fast the world or the people in it seem to be moving around you.

The comparison trap is easy to fall into, even easier to stay in, and hard to escape. You’ll find that writing is much more enjoyable when you’re only concerned about the words you have put on the page.

RELEASE THE SHACKLES!

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Following our recent post by Laura De Vivo, another final-year BA Creative Writing student, CLAIRE SUZANNE, discusses her own experiences of writing a monologue and watching it in performance.

Claire (second from right) with fellow Creative Writing students (L-R) Laura De Vivo, Alessandra Leone, and Jamie Brown, at Metronome.

Always keen to make the most of opportunities provided by NTU, earlier this year I took part in a monologue writing workshop hosted by Sara Bodinar, a professional scriptwriter. Unlike most students, I attended online, so I didn’t benefit from the full workshop experience. Still, I decided to take on the challenge to write a monologue to be performed in a collaboration between NTU and Nottingham Actors’ Workshop.

Initially, my mind was as blank as my computer screen. I have drafts of novels, short stories and blog pieces cluttering my hard drive, but no monologues. Although we were given instructions – main character, three act structure – the page remained stubbornly blank on that first day. Disheartened, I decided to try again the next day, and managed to force out a story, but when I read it back it sounded sterile. My heart wasn’t in it, and this was immediately clear. It had no depth. It was a repetitive rant. I pressed delete.

With a familiar blank page glaring at me again, and only 24 hours before I was due to meet Sara in person for one-to-one mentoring, I had no choice but to freewrite. I closed the door, removed all background noise, and somehow managed to get into the zone.

I should mention that this is how I draft most of my fiction. I never plan, but I usually have at least some idea of a theme beforehand. This time, I had no idea what would come out: I just let my mind unleash whatever it wanted. What emerged was something I’d never written about before, something deeply personal that I rarely talk about openly. And this is how ‘Nearly Normal’, as I called it, initially came into being.

 Writing it was like therapy, unleashing inner frustration. When I met Sara in person, I sat on the opposite side of the table, shoved the printout towards her, and looked away in pure embarrassment for showing a stranger something so personal on our first meeting. Then: ‘I love it’, she said, smiling.

Of course, early drafts are never perfect, and work still had to be done, but her feedback was extremely encouraging. Not only did she tell me it was funny and flowed well, but she also told me it was very ‘current’. Little did I know I’d written about a subject that, after a lifetime of being dismissed, people were finally beginning to talk about.

Then she gave me the ultimate task: she challenged me to convey an entire neurodivergence in one page. So I went back to freewriting, and one hour later it was done. As simple as that. Dare I say it was easy? I think so, for once. The words had clearly been desperate to escape for years, and flew out like bats from a cave at dusk.

I sent it back for the actors to audition, received a congratulations e-mail from Sara, then heard nothing more until 23 April when it was performed by a wonderful actress at Nottingham Contemporary.

Luckily for me, my monologue was the first to be announced, so I didn’t have to endure a nervous wait. That didn’t make it any easier to hear my innermost thoughts being read out to a room full of strangers, though. I could barely look, and sat with my head in my hands, looking out between my fingers. But the actress clearly understood the part and did a brilliant job, and it was great to have validation when my amazing friend and partner in writing, Laura De Vivo, said ‘That’s you through and through!’

Freewriting (or not planning), a technique developed originally by Dorothea Brande, is endorsed by many writers I admire, such as Stephen King – and now also by me, a little writing enthusiast with big dreams. I feel my creativity has be unlocked. If I plan too much, I get a mental block: logic intervenes, and creativity is suppressed. Not thinking consciously enables me to tap into that little piece of creative paradise and allow the words to tumble out, like being a little tipsy and suddenly having an increased propensity to socialise! It’s like my imagination is locked in a different section of my brain, chilling with my confidence and social skills. My imagination, though, hasn’t been given a life sentence; my imagination can be released, and the key to it is freewriting.

Opportunities can follow one another, too. Since I began drafting this very blog post, I have been asked to read the monologue at the WRAP anthology launch on 21st May. Now, I’m certainly no actress, and reading on stage still terrifies me. But what is life without challenges? Bring it on!

STAGE STARVED

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In this piece, NTU BA Creative Writing final year student LAURA DE VIVO discusses her growing interest in writing for performance, and what she learned from developing her monologue, Starved, and watching an actor perform it.

When I came to university to study for a creative writing degree, I hadn’t expected to gain a love for theatre. Nonetheless, in my first year I answered a call from Message in a Bottle Monologues for five-minute pieces on the theme of darkness. I was honoured to receive a spot and my piece, ‘The Demon in my Head’, a personification of my medical condition, found a voice. Then I sat mesmerised on the front row the night it was performed, in awe of the actor, and the fact that he was speaking words I’d written. I almost couldn’t watch, but it received such a positive response that by the time I left the theatre I was hooked on writing for performance.

So, earlier this year, when the opportunity to take part in a monologue workshop and have a one-to-one with the playwright Sara Bodinar came up, I couldn’t turn it down, despite my third-year workload. It was the chance I’d waited for to bring Collette Dubois to life: she had lived quietly for years on my hard drive, waiting for embodiment. Everyone at the workshop approved of her, and that was all the encouragement I needed.  

Collette is a vampire, and unrelatable in many ways, yet she faces a decision we can all understand: what would you sacrifice for love, and how do you battle with its turmoil?

I could barely hold myself still on the tram home, desperate to find my laptop and write – to lift her from the pages of a short story and give her new life, ironic considering she’s been dead for two hundred years.

During my one-to-one with Bodinar, I came to understand more fully that a monologue is a story, it often has three acts, needs foreshadowing and flashback, and is not just a rant by a character at an audience. After our meeting, I finalised the piece, sent it in, and crossed my fingers. I would not see it again until the night of the performance at Nottingham Contemporary. I tried my best to forget about it.

The evening soon arrived and, along with my family, I joined the other writers and supporters. Not knowing the actor who would play Collette, I was unable to give advice on how I felt she should be portrayed. This was an important lesson: was my skill as a writer good enough to ensure her character would shine through without my further intervention? Time would tell.

I rarely do anything without Claire Suzanne, a friend on the BA Creative Writing. Her piece, ‘Nearly Normal’, was the first to be announced. As the actress moved about the stage I could hear Claire in every word: hers was a personal piece. I had approached the task very differently.

More monologues followed. I waited, my hands becoming clammy, and the room felt like it was close to boiling point. Finally, I saw a beautiful woman with sweeping red hair and a claret dress, and I knew in my blood that that was her. The poor man tasked with being a dead body (my piece required it) was also a giveaway, and I laughed knowing what was in store for him. This was toned down from my original script, and for good reason: I’m sure he’d not signed up to be given bruises.

Ria, as I learned she was called, gave a brilliant depiction of a ‘starved’ predatory monster, though not quite how I had imagined her. This meant I had some work to do if Collette was to be portrayed how I had her in my head – though it was also a thrill to see an actor bring her creativity to my creation. It was an honour to have another piece performed, and this has cemented my desire to push my writing career towards the theatre.

After each performance, the writer responsible was revealed to the audience and actors, but we all had to wait until it was over to meet each other. Ria is a wonderful lady and actress and the connection we made was encouraging.

Laura (left) with Ria.

As an aspirational playwright, I find this type of opportunity important. It provides an outlet to help push my words out into the world, and gave me immediate answers regarding what works and what doesn’t.

You also do not know who may be attending events like this, of course, and it only takes one chance meeting to give an idea legs. NTU has been great help and support throughout my BA, and I would not have been exposed to these opportunities without it. As I move towards my MA Creative Writing at NTU, I will be looking for further chances to write for performance.