Creative Writing

Sally O’Reilly has taught at The Open University, Brunel University and the University of Portsmouth, and holds a PhD in Creative Writing from Brunel University. Her publications include Dark Aemilia (Myriad Editions/Picador US, 2014), which was nominated for the Kirkus Reviews Fiction prize in the US, and How to be a Writer (Piatkus, 2011). She has been shortlisted for the Ian St James short story award and the Cosmopolitan short story prize. She also writes for the Guardian, The Sunday Times, The Conversation, the Evening Standard and New Scientist. Jane Yeh holds degrees in English and Creative Writing from Harvard University, the University of Iowa, Manchester Metropolitan University, and Royal Holloway, University of London. Her publications include Marabou (Carcanet, 2005), which was shortlisted for the Whitbread, Forward and Aldeburgh poetry prizes, and Discipline (Carcanet, 2019), which was a Poetry Book Society recommendation. She has been a mentor for the Ledbury Poetry Critics programme and is a Lecturer in Creative Writing at The Open University.

Contributors

Introduction

Part 1: The creative process

1: Stimulating creativity and imagination

2: Writing what you know

3: Writing what you come to know

Part 2: Writing fiction

4: Character

5: Setting

6: Point of view

7: Showing and telling

8: Structure and time

9: The story and your readers

10: Editing fiction

Part 3: Writing poetry

11: Introduction to poetry

12: Voice and language

13: Poetic structure

14: Rhyme and metre

15: Revising poetry

Part 4: Life writing

16: Starting out

17: Finding a form

18: Using memory

19: Versions of a life

20: Life characters

Part 5: Going public

21: Going public

22: Presenting your work

READINGS

Part 1: The creative process

1.1 from ‘Fires’

1.2 from ‘A Real-life Education’

2.1 ‘Death of a Naturalist’

2.2 from ‘Netherley’

2.3 from ‘Tomorrow is Too Far’

2.4 ‘Memory: The True Key to Real Imagining’

3.1‘The Captain of the 1964 Top of the Form Team’

3.2 from Backtalk: Women Writers Speak Out

Part 2: Writing fiction

4.1 from ‘A Sheltered Woman’

5.1 from ‘The Edge of the Shoal’

6.1 ‘First Journeyman’

6.2 ‘Becky Finch’

6.3 ‘Love Silk Food’

7.1 ‘Going the Last Inch: Some Thoughts on Showing and Telling’

7.2 ‘The Dream’

7.3 ‘Moonlight’

7.4 from ‘Freddy Barrandov Checks … in?’

7.5 from ‘Byron Francis’

7.6 ‘I Could See the Smallest Things’

7.7 ‘Tomorrow is Too Far’

8.1 from The Art of Writing Fiction

8.2 ‘Pigeons at Daybreak’

9.1 ‘Bodies’

9.2 ‘Tattoo’

10.1 ‘Through a Tangle of Branches: Reworking the Poem’

10.2 from ‘Putting Coyolxauhqui Together: A Creative Process’

10.3 from ‘Redrafting and Editing’

10.4 from Steering the Craft

Part 4: Life writing

16.1 from Long Time No See

16.2 from ‘Little Boxes’

17.1 from The Haunting of Alma Fielding

17.2 ‘Red Riviera’

17. 3 ‘Well done, No. 3777!’

18.1 from Giving Up the Ghost: A Memoir

18.2 from Shame on Me: An Anatomy of Race and Belonging

18.3 from Shame on Me: An Anatomy of Race and Belonging

19.1 from The Diary of a Young Girl

19.2 ‘Darkness and Light’

19.3 from Footsteps: Adventures of a Romantic Biographer

19.4 from ‘Time Travel on the St. Lawrence River’

20.1 from Bad Blood

20.2 from Bedsit Disco Queen: How I Grew Up and Tried to Be a Pop Star

20.3 from Foreigners: Three English Lives

Part 5: Going public

21.1 from Tips From a Publisher

21.2 ‘Considering Self-Publishing: A Guide’

22.1 Synopsis for Dark Aemilia

Glossary

Acknowledgements

Index