Creative academic: balancing an English degree with creativity

I was in Year 7 when my English teacher read a poem I had written as a homework assignment for her and told me I was a poet. No, I’m not joking; those were her words. Whether or not they were true (there are times when I believe her and times when I definitely don’t)…

Overcoming writers’ block

Ah, writers' block. The greatest adversary of anyone who has tried to form sentences on a page into some kind of coherent piece of English. Fear not, for I am here with a few tips on how to overcome the monster As I write this, I am also working on Chapter 12 of my work-in-progress…

Why I don’t hate D H Lawrence

A lot of people hate DH Lawrence. More specifically, a lot of 70s feminists hate DH Lawrence. I (although I am admittedly not old enough to have been born in the 1970s!) do not hate DH Lawrence. In fact, I admire him. I would probably be ardently disliked by 70s feminists. Lawrence’s detractors claim that…