Christine Watson, a recent graduate of that much admired creative writing school at UEA, has been nominated for one of the "most prestigious and popular literary prizes", the Costa Prize.
She's in fine company: Julian Barnes, Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy, and Claire Tomalin to name a few.
Today, she shared her thoughts on Radio 4's Today programme joined by one of the UK's most well known writers Ian McEwan. The programme was itself reflecting on how the University of East Anglia had come to produce a crop of eminent writers in the last 40 years.
I was talking to my Masters students about UEA only two days ago, explaining how my best book to date is Kazuo Ishiguro's Remains of the Day, and that I believe you can't teach how to write.
This point was made far more eloquently by the presenter James Naughtie and Christine. It's about the structure of writing, being immersed within a faculty where people were in love with writers, that spurns you on.
She said one of the best pieces of advice passed on by a lecturer was write for the audience.
UEA's writing
UEA's writing course which I once read about in an Observer article many years back seemed all the more remarkable because as McEwan. put it tutorials were often held in a pub with fleeting talks with Bradbury - one of the founders.
Here's my next piece of writing McKewan would say to whicht the response would be, right where's the next?
Watson's interview at 8.18 a.m is a must listen by anyone who wants to excel in any creative field, where assets are readily available, and lecturers set about providing structure and advice for what to do next?
If you want to write as a journalist, you should blog everyday if you can, not because I might say so, but because you want to be a writer. You must attempt to develop a critical insight into what you do. Read Noel Carroll, read lost of books.
And, that ultimately it's always about the audience. That's a piece of advice I give myself everyday.
