The next evening, after two or three exotic somethings called Long Island Iced Teas (nothing to do with tea, I assure you), the grand event started with a four course meal, included in the free event. I found myself sitting between a Ph.D. historian who was to receive third prize for his published non-fiction book on Native Americans, and a guy called Bruce Moody who was to get first prize in the same category. His book is called Will Work for $ or Food and is about his time as a drifter – well, okay a tramp.

To give you more of a flavour of the characters attending I can tell you one man had flown his own plane from Las Vegas into Phoenix for the banquet. And he was just the barman. When I got to know him, this happens to me sometimes, he said: “You’re money’s no good here tonight. All your drinks are on the house. What’ll it be, Scotty? A Scotch?” I nodded wisely and said: “Beam me up.” He laughed.

Because I had come from the most distant corner of the globe, I got the chance to give a speech. I’d seen the Oscars that year, so I managed okay. After thanking everyone, and their granny, and managing not to cry, I spoke about writing being the transference of soul on to paper until somebody coughed. I could see this had awakened him, and so switched to talking about lunch that day in an aptly named, and very popular, bar called ‘Hooters’ (see photo for explanation). This tack took me a bit close to the wind, but it got a laugh.

When I was in Arizona – only several hours short of Hollywood – I had the chance to display and sell my first novel, Whispers of Ghosts, not to mention take a road-trip to the Indian-held mountains to the north to see a psychic who told me I should start writing a non-fiction book on the subject of ‘The Healing of Mass Consciousness’ – and that this book should be channelled.

I intend starting as soon as ‘ma sair heid’ gets better.

New Year or New York?
Changing Voices at Wroxton, a Literary Centre of England. 

Three days into the New Year, I was fortunate enough to attend a ten day writing residency at Wroxton Abbey, near Oxford. This marked the start of a two year MFA (Master of Fine Arts) degree in Creative Writing – an online correspondence course at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey, half an hour’s drive west of Manhattan. This is called a ‘low-residency program’ where students are required to attend only ten days per semester.

Wroxton Abbey, an Augustinian Priory dating back to the twelfth Century, was refurbished around 1600 prior to becoming the family home of Lord North, who became Prime Minister in 1770. This Jacobean mansion was bought by the university in 1965 and was then extensively refurbished and modernised, including the 56 acres of gardens in which it sits.

Although some may disagree, the MFA is considered the terminal degree in Creative Writing and involves extensive reading, writing, discussion, performance, and analysis in the fields of Fiction, Creative Non-fiction, and Poetry, although students may only major in one of these genres.

So, what did we get up to when the year was yet young? Some still nursing festive hangovers, from 9am till 9pm, we wrote, read and discussed each others’ work in groups of between three and five students. In my group, there was one other published novelist, Sandra Opuko-Jackson, whose masterful work, I cannot recommend highly enough. We also considered the small matter of a twenty-five thousand word Master’s thesis due in two years time. This will be my fourth, possibly fifth, novel. A major part of the earlier modules deals with writing and revising submitted work and the importance of this is greatly stressed for writers-to-be.

Each afternoon a graduating student gave a one hour presentation on his or her work and every evening, in the bar – wine flowing as befits such company – there were readings by faculty and guest speakers. For example, one such performance was given by the celebrated poet Ruth Padel (www.ruthpadel.com). Several years ago the guest lecturer was Germaine Greer. The faculty are, themselves, all published and prolific authors and are very well known in the literary world. Writers such as Thomas E  Kennedy, David Grand, Walt Cummings, Jeff Allen, and Terese Svoboda lectured on subjects such as ‘Writing from Difference’, ‘Compression’, ‘Torturing Your Sentences to See if They can Take it’, and the ‘Art and Craft’ of writing, which were listened to by the thirty or so participants.

Afternoons off for visits to London, Oxford, and Stratford-upon-Avon were a popular change from the ‘green-house’ experience of intense study. Meal times were incredibly noisy with different international groups studying also Politics, and Maths.

In this rich environment, inspiration came easily to most writers and everyone found their style and ability stretching, growing, and developing, even changing. Still now, the echo of ‘new voices’ ring in my mind as I recall the Wroxton Experience. I expect most people thought the idea of ‘cocktails before dinner’ as inspirational as the traditional atmosphere of this well-used and beautiful house.

Now the real work begins with assignments, revised work, due to be submitted in February. Online discussions, on the university’s blackboard system, on books read is an expected participation, not to mention on-going annotations from the reading of twenty-five novels.

The next residency is in August in New Jersey (Noo Joisey) when old writing-friends will meet for more lively work in this fascinating and rewarding field.