Tag Archives: creative writing

Alumna and Poet Megan James Publishes her First Work, Womb Fruit

In the latest edition of our Graduate Profile we connect with alumna and poet Megan James. A graduate of our Master’s in Creative Writing, Megan’s work has been featured in The Hellebore, Molly Bloom and Ache magazine, amongst others. She has recently published her first work, Womb Fruit, a long format poem which she began in Paris as her MA dissertation. In this interview Megan tells us more about her experience at our Paris School, the creative process behind Womb Fruit and her current projects.

Where are you from and what originally brought you to Paris?

I grew up in a small town just outside of Oxford. A combination of health and homelife made going to university feel like a distant and unattainable thing until I was an adult. I was working as a Teaching Assistant in a Primary School when I had the realisation that I had so much more to learn myself; I studied to retake my A levels and bagged myself a place to study English at the University of Exeter. I’d always enjoyed playing with language – diaries and poems had been a large part of my coping and processing chronic illness – but at Exeter, I took all the Creative Writing modules possible.

When my degree ended, my writing didn’t. In my final few months, I scoured the internet for creative post-grad options when I found the courses offered at the University of Kent’s Paris School of Arts and Culture. Studying literature had highlighted Paris as a city of art and creativity; when I saw the Creative Writing MA offered at PSAC, I knew I had to make it happen.

What attracted you most about studying at PSAC?

Above all, being able to live, write, work and study in Paris was a dream come true. I wasn’t ready to stop learning, and PSAC offered the opportunity to continue doing just that in the best place for it. The city’s rich history as a place of reaction and revolution fuelled my writing; every cobbled corner had a story to tell, and I wanted to tell it.

The pull of Paris was strengthened by my desire to learn a new language. Living in France forced me to practice in a way that my French GCSE didn’t! Using the language every day was the best way to improve, and the free French classes offered by the PSAC built on these skills and helped me hone them.

What are you currently doing and how did that come about?

My love for learning has come full circle: I am now teaching English at a Secondary School near Oxford. The demands of my job are many, but the satisfaction is constant. My job allows me to continue my own learning journey too. Teaching is learning; learning is teaching – the older I get, the more I value this truth. There is a reciprocity to learning that benefits everyone.

**Could you tell us about Womb Fruit and your writing process?**

At its core, Womb Fruit is an excavation of the myths of womanhood; those we are told and those we tell ourselves. It focuses on the circles and cycles of the body and the processing of trauma.

Womb Fruit is a long-form poem addressed to an unborn daughter, sharing the complicated histories of the inherited and uninherited. Womb Fruit explores themes of pain, illness, and miscarriage, and is woven with female histories of Greek mythology. As a chronically ill person, I’m concerned with the eugenic attitudes of medicine, society and culture regarding a woman’s choice/ability to reproduce, as well as the stigmatisation and pathologising that often comes with living in a sick body.

I wrote Womb Fruit while living in Paris and it was my final project at PSAC: my MA dissertation. Being a poem about womanhood, there was an irony in the writing process feeling like a labour of sorts. The narrative is punctured, confessional, at times chaotic. It is writing as therapy.

You hand-stitched its cover, was this an important complement to the artist process of your writing?

Yes! As well as working with words, I’m also an embroidery artist and have often used this form of expression as a therapeutic process. At first, I’d hoped to stitch the entirety of the poem, however, I settled on another, less time-consuming method. Instead, Womb Fruit is infused with the language of embroidery. I attempted to translate the physical techniques of embroidery – layering, weaving, shading, knotting – into language.

I knew I needed to incorporate this ancient practice of expression into my writing. Sewing is an art form that has stood the test of time; it predates written language. It is also something that has been historically associated with women. I wanted to flip the use of this as a practice to silence women, and instead use sewing as a symbol of permanence, of history, of recording expression by any means available.

Are you working on your next book?

I continue to write (and sew!). My recent writings are concerned with the notion of home. Starting with the age-old dilemma – is home a place or a feeling? – the poetic fragments track the politics of home and homelessness; the body as home; the mind as home; and end with the coming-home of spiritual peace. This work-in-progress is yet untitled, but I look forward to sharing it soon.

Do you think that your studies at PSAC helped with your career or creative endeavours?

Definitely. Continuing my education at MA level gave me the creative space to focus on my writing. My year in Paris was defining; it gave me the perspective and clarity to spend time on my crafts and do so in a place that was constantly inspiring.

Would you recommend PSAC to potential students and if so, what would you tell them?

I would recommend studying at the PSAC whole-heartedly. Paris is full of grand buildings with huge, locked doors hiding secrets behind. The PSAC opens those doors, allowing you to access so much more of the city than you would otherwise. From the staff and lecturers to the links and connections to other institutions, you’ll never be short of opportunities. From the open evenings and readings to the organised events and activities, you’ll never be bored.

As perfect as my year in Paris may sound, it wasn’t easy making it happen. The practicalities involved in moving abroad, even temporarily, are challenging. I took out a personal loan to pay for the course fees and worked full-time as an au pair while in Paris; I highly recommend doing something similar if you want affordable living costs during your stay. I had my own apartment to accommodate me, and while the extra workload was intense at times, it made my stay possible.

Even if it seems impossible, and sometimes it might, if you want it bad enough, make it happen.

Merci beaucoup, Megan!

Womb Fruit was published by Litmus Publishing in April 2022. You can learn more about and acquire a copy at this link.

Connect with Megan on Twitter: @MeganHJames or Instagram: @meganhannahjames.

Graduate Profile: Writer Steve Sohmer

In the latest in our Alumni Spotlight series we connect with Steve Sohmer. A person of many talents, from Shakespearean scholar to television producer, Steve pursued a Master’s in Creative Writing at our Paris School, an academic experience which he is currently continuing as a PhD candidate of the School of English at Kent in Canterbury. In this interview we learn more about Steve’s career path, why he chose to study in Paris at PSAC and more about his experience with Kent, both in Paris and Canterbury.

Where are you from and what originally brought you to Paris?

I was born in Savannah, Georgia (US of A), raised in New York, and had been living in Los Angeles (where I squandered my childhood in film and television) before enrolling in the Kent Paris Creative Writing Masters Programme. My son was studying for a Bachelors and Masters at American University of Paris. So, Kent in Paris offered me the twin opportunities of studying in an excellent program while sharing digs in the 7ème with David. It was a splendid year on all counts. Papa was right; Paris is still a moveable feast.

What attracted you most about studying at PSAC?

I’d read a good deal about the PSAC program. And after reading their books, I was impressed by the instructors who would be available to me – particularly Dragan Todorovic and Amy Sackville. I’d urge every prospective creative writing student to read the work of the instructors they’ll study under and work with. Really good writers don’t always prove to be exceptional teachers. But at least you can be confident they know their onions. That’s important. Because as well as tutelage, you’re going to rely on them for that all-important criticism.

What were some of the highlights of your experience?

The classes I sat were, by and large, outstanding. And the pleasures of the classroom were delightfully augmented by the bright and interesting students with whom I shared them. They hailed from New Orleans and Moscow and Ho Chi Minh City. They were sharp and cosmopolitan. The conversations ranged every-which-way. And they had opinions about everything. So, the down-time between and after classes was as lively and thought-provoking as the classes themselves.

What are you currently doing and how did that come about?

The Kent PhD in Creative Writing caught my ear while listening to Dragan Todorovic describe how the programme worked. Then he turned to me and said, “You should think about doing it.” I did. And right now, I’m in the thick of a Kent PhD with Dragan as my primary supervisor and Amy Sackville as overseer. There’s one great thing about this program I would hammer home to anyone who wants to learn to write a novel: Enrolling for the Kent PhD gets you an editor (or two) who will work with you, stick with you, and give you their best for up to four years and even longer. You’ll never-ever enjoy that luxury again, not with any publisher or agent, not in the book publishing environment of this day and age. Not when manuscripts are supposed to arrive camera-ready at the editor’s desk. The era when Thomas Wolfe had Maxwell Perkins as a tenacious and belligerent guiding angel for seven years are long gone. At Kent, for the long run you’ll have an experienced, multi-published author to work with you, advise you, challenge and console you. That is certainly worth the price of admission.

Do you think that your studies at PSAC helped with your career or creative endeavours?

After I published my first novel, I took 20 years off to have a career. Then I went back to the keyboard, wrote of pair of political thrillers, produced one for television, then took another 20-year sabbatical to read Shakespeare at Oxford and write books about him. When I wanted to return to fiction, I was sure those chops would be rusty from disuse. Which is why I enrolled in the PSAC Creative Writing program as a form of literary body-building for a return foray into fiction. I’d say it’s worked out well. If the novel I’m writing is published, I’d say quite well.

Would you recommend PSAC to potential students and if so what would you tell them?

Were a kid of mine coming to PSAC to study, I’d give them this advice: Steep yourself in Paris and the literature of France – from Rabelais to Stendhal to Sartre, Camus, Perec, de Beauvoir – even Romaine Gary and Jean Simmons. Think of the year(s) you’ll spend in Paris as an immersion, mind and soul. Infuse yourself with Parisian life and French lit until it oozes out of every pore. Learn to speak French if you’re capable, and speak it to everyone from your instructors to the doorman. At best, it will imbue you with a personal renaissance. If nothing else, the experience will throw the rest of your life into high relief so you’ll can recognize it for what it is and isn’t.

Merci beaucoup, Steve! You can find a list of Steve’s books here (ask for them at your local independent bookshop!). If you would also like to develop your own writer, learn more about our Creative Writing MA in Paris at this link.

Top Historic Literary Cafés of the Left Bank

Since the Age of Enlightenment, cafés became a popular meeting place of intellectuals and writers. This was especially the case over the course of the 20^th century when the waterholes of la Rive Gauche developed legendary statues thanks to the literary greats who graced their tables. Although these literary cafés of the Left Bank no longer attract bohemian scribes like they did in bygone days, they are still worth making a pilgrimage to for current day writers and literary fans.

Le Procope

Considering the oldest café in Paris, this Left Bank institution has been welcoming intellectuals virtually since it opened in 1686. Thanks to the arrival of the Comédie Francaise theatre across the street in 1689, French playwrights, writers and philosophers naturally gravitated here. These include Condorcet, La Harpe, Voltaire, Rousseau and Diderot, who is thought to have worked on his famous Encyclopaedia at the café. More restaurant than café today, the classic establishment still has Voltaire’s favourite table, located on the first floor.

Les Deux Magots. Photo: Cheng-en Cheng / CC

Les Deux Magots

One of the most famous cafés in Paris, if not the world, this classic institution was originally a fabrics and novelty shop which was converted into a café in 1884. It’s growing popularity with Lost Generation writers like Ernest Hemingway and James Joyce led the café to start its own literary prize in 1933. Writers continued to gravitated to it over decades including Bertolt Brecht and Vladimir Nabokov, who mentioned it in his 1955 novel Lolita.

Le Café de Flore

Opened during the café boom of the 1880s, this iconic St-Germain café, and staunch rival of its neighbour Les Deux Magots, acted as the unofficial headquarters of existentialism philosophers Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir for decades. Earlier in the century it was also a favorite of Apollinaire and Salmon, who worked on their arts review, Les Soirées de Paris, at the café. Albert Camus and poet Jacques Prévert could also found inspiration here.

La Closerie Des Lilas

Along with St-Germain, the Montparnasse district was another literary hub of the first half of the 20th century. This historic café, opened in the 1860s, first attracted avant-garde artists before drawing in both French and foreign writers. French poets Paul Verlaine, Charles Baudelaire and Max Jacob could often be found here, pen or glass in hand. In their various eras one might encounter Samuel Beckett, Oscar Wilde, Fitzgerald and Henry Miller at its tables, however, it was Hemingway who frequented the venue the most. It’s said that he read Fitzgerald’s manuscript of The Great Gatsby here, he likely worked on The Sun Also Rises and the café is described in his memoir, A Moveable Feast.

La Rotonde

Another literary haunt of the Montparnasse district, and around the corner from our Paris School, this café used to be so popular that Hemingway wrote in The Sun Also Rises that, “no matter what cafe in Montparnasse you ask a taxi driver to bring you to from the right bank of the river, they always take you to the Rotonde.” In literary circles you could find Fitzgerald, T.S. Eliot and Gertrude Stein here as well as those in the art scene like Picasso, Modigliani and Cocteau. More recently, President Emmanuel Macron chose to celebrate his 2017 Presidential victory here, adding another chapter to the legendary café’s storied history.

Photo courtesy of Café Tournon

Café Tournon

On the other side of the Luxembourg gardens, this unassuming neighbourhood café became a meeting place for the next generation of writers. In the 1950s one could find James Baldwin, Richard Wright, Chester Himes and William Gardner Smith debating around its tables over an afternoon coffee. The café also served as the early base of the staff and writers of the literary magazine The Paris Review.

Looking for inspiration for your own writing in Paris? Advance your craft by undertaking our Master’s in Creative Writing in Paris offered at our campus in the Montparnasse district.

Creative Writing Lecturer Yelena Moskovich Publishes New Book

We are very pleased to share the news of the publication of the new book of Yelena Moskovich, author, playwright and lecturer in our Creative Writing Master’s Programme in Paris. Released on 18 May, 2021, A Door Behind a Door follows Yelena’s debut novel, The Natashas, which received much critical praise, and her second book, Virtuoso, which was longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize.

“Moskovich mystifies with this vivid story of a pair of estranged siblings who immigrated to Milwaukee from the Soviet Union as children in 1991… The dynamic style and psychological depth make this an engaging mind bender.” – Publishers Weekly

A Door Behind a Door tells the story of Olga, an émigré from the former Soviet Union whose stable life in Milwaukee, Wisconsin is overturned after she receives a surprising phone call from a figure of her past. This sparks haunting childhood memories revolving around an unexplained murder, a supernatural stray dog, and the mystery over the disappearance of her brother. As Olga attempts to reconcile with these, she must also evade the underground Midwestern Russian mafia, in pursuit of a series of stabbings.

There are two upcoming opportunities to hear Yelena speak about A Door Behind a Door. On Wednesday, 26 May at 2 pm (Central Time, 10 PM Paris time) Yelena will be discussing her new book with author Kate Zambreno during a Boswell Books virtual event. More on the event and registration at this link. Yelena will also be the guest of the author event during our upcoming Postgraduate Festival. On Friday, 4 June at 6 pm (Paris time), Yelena will be in conversation with our Creative Writing students Emily Nicholson and Neda Popova. Register for this free event here and learn more about the festival on its website.

A Door Behind a Door is available directly from her publisher, Two Dollar Radio, at Shakespeare and Company bookstore in Paris or ask for it at your local independent bookstore.

Lee Ann Brown – Creative Writing Reading Series

Creative Writing Reading Series

Wednesday 22 March 2017

6.30pm at Reid Hall, in the University of Kent in the Kent Paris Seminar Room

4 rue de Chevreuse, Montparnasse, Paris 75006

All welcome.

Lee Ann Brown

“To paraphrase Lee Ann’s version of her own poetic genealogy: enthusiasm is the mother (‘We are the daughters of enthusiasm’), excitement the sister (‘Where are my excitement sisters’). Sappho, Emily Dickinson, and Gertrude Stein are among the many innovative godmothers who grace her work with their influential kisses. As a woman writer myself, I am grateful to Lee Ann for the way she unabashedly connects gender to knowledge. In her poems, knowing is knowing as a woman. Knowledge is pleasure. The life of the mind is refreshingly erotic. What was once deemed too trivial here shines.”

– Elaine Equi

Lee Ann Brown was born in Japan and raised in Charlotte, North Carolina. She is the author of several works, including Other Archer, which also appears in French translation by Stéphane Bouquet as Autre Archère, In the Laurels, Caught, which won the 2012 Fence Modern Poets Series Award, and Polyverse, which won the 1996 New American Poetry Competition, selected by Charles Bernstein. In 1989, she founded Tender Buttons Press, which is dedicated to publishing experimental women’s poetry. She currently divides her time between New York City, where she teaches at St. John’s University, and Marshall, North Carolina.

Laurent Binet – Creative Writing Reading Series

Creative Writing Reading Series

Laurent Binet

Thursday 9 February 2017

6.30pm at Reid Hall, in the Salle de Conférence

4 rue de Chevreuse, Montparnasse, Paris 75006

All welcome.

Award-winner French author Laurent Binet will be reading from and talking about his book ‘The 7^th function of language’ (2015), a story about Roland Barthes and the power of language. Binet’s novel starts with Barthes’ death, and assumes the death is an assassination. In the political and intellectual world of the time, everyone is a suspect…

“A brilliantly erudite comedy that recalls Flaubert’s Parrot and The Name of the Rose—with more than a dash of The Da Vinci Code—The Seventh Function of Language takes us from the cafés of Saint-Germain to the corridors of Cornell University, and into the duels and orgies of the Logos Club, a secret philosophical society that dates to the Roman Empire. Binet has written both a send-up and a wildly exuberant celebration of the French intellectual tradition.” – Macmillan Publishers

Laurent Binet was born in Paris. His first novel, ‘HHhH’, was named one of the fifty best books of 2015 by The New York Times and received the Prix Goncourt du Premier Roman. He is a professor at the University of Paris III, where he lectures on French literature.

Fariba Hachtroudi: Creative Writing Reading Series

Thursday 26 January 2017

6.30pm at Reid Hall in the Grande Salle. All welcome.

4 rue de Chevreuse, Montparnasse, Paris 75006 (métro: Vavin)

Fariba Hachtroudi

Fariba Hachtroudi is a French-Iranian novelist, polemicist and political campaigner. Born in 1951, Fariba is the daughter of the prominent dissident Mohsen Hachtroudi and has continued her father’s struggle for freedom of expression and religious tolerance in Iran. She has written extensively on feminism and Islam, including the prize-winning Iran — Rivers of Blood. Her novels are informed by her political thought and personal experience, and explore themes of exile, torture and dissent. She will be speaking about her extraordinary life and her brilliant new novel, The Man Who Snapped His Fingers, in which the dictator of an unnamed Middle-Eastern country goes to horrifying lengths in order to control the population.

Click here to read more about other speakers in our Spring ’17 Creative Writing Reading Series

Spring Term: Creative Reading Writing Series

Creative Writing Reading Series

Spring Term 2017

All readings are at 6.30pm at Reid Hall

4 rue de Chevreuse, Montparnasse, Paris 75006 (métro: Vavin)

26 January 2017 Fariba Hachtroudi Grande Salle

9 February 2017 Laurent Binet Salle de Conférence

23 February 2017 David Szalay Maison Verte

22 March 2017 Lee Ann Brown Salle de Conférence

— free and open to all —

Creative Writing Reading Series – Jon Thompson

As part of the Autumn Term Creative Writing Reading Series

University of Kent Paris School of Arts and Culture

Proudly presents Jon Thompson reading from his new poetry work Strange Country

Fascinated by strangeness that’s made in the U.S.A – its beliefs and organization, its affinity for violence and its elusive relationship with the past – Strange Country (Shearsman 2016) lyrically addresses itself to defining American landscapes/dreamscapes, and to their unaccountable beauty.

“In Strange Country Jon Thompson addresses the voices, amongst others, of ‘the traffic of fear’, and bids their speakers join the living…The accomplishment of Strange Country begins with the exact measure of its line and its discovered idiom in the face of what may well be termed the present contradictions of a strange country…Here we find the places of a shared identity where history is disguised, lost, or made into fun for all the family. This is a discovery conveyed in a poetry which not only discloses new meanings for these American places, but also bears the darker episodes of a history usually processed off the screen and page.” – Kelvin Corcoran

Jon Thompson is a Professor of English at North Carolina State University where he teaches courses in twentieth-century/contemporary American and British literature. He maintains a particular interest in contemporary poetry and poetics. His current work comes out of his career as a poet, critic and editor. He is the founding editor of the international online journal Free Verse: A Journal of Contemporary Poetry & Poetics, launched in 2001 and also the editor of the single-author poetry series, Free Verse Editions, launched in 2005.

Thursday 17 November 2016

6.30pm at Reid Hall, Grande Salle

4 rue de Chevreuse, Montparnasse, Paris 75006 (Métro: Vavin)

RSVP to paris@kent.ac.uk or to the Facebook Event

Creative Writing Reading Series – David Herd

As part of the Autumn Term Creative Writing Reading Series

University of Kent Paris School of Arts and Culture

Proudly presents David Herd reading from his new poetry work Through

A new book of poetry by internationally acclaimed poet David Herd addresses the language that surrounds the reception of people seeking asylum in the UK. Considering the risks that such official hostility poses to human intimacy, Through sets out to register broken affections, to re-explore possibilities of solidarity and trust. Countering the enclosures of public discourse, the poems embrace instead ‘a language in transition’, one in which meaning is multiple, ‘echoing into place a genuine and subsisting relationship’. David Herd is Professor of Modern Literature at the University of Kent and co-organiser of the Refugee Tales project.

“What are we going through? How do we get through this? How saturated are we, through and through, with feelings and political sensibilities in interior exile from our time and place? All these questions and more are evoked in David Herd’s subtle and resistantly intelligent work – lyrical and critical at once. Refugees and refusals, refuge and Law, conscience and critique, Agencies and agency, politics and poetics all combine in a pensive work of singular poethical force.” Rachel Blau DuPlessis

Thursday 20 October 2016

6.30pm at Reid Hall, Salle de Conférence

4 rue de Chevreuse, Montparnasse, Paris 75006 (Métro: Vavin)

RSVP to paris@kent.ac.uk or to the Facebook Event