Various forms of creative writing responses and assignments from BA and MA Creative Writing studied at UWTSD Lampeter.
A short story based on the Chinese creation myth of Pan Gu and the Cosmic egg; also a reflective essay with regards to the assignment.
A short story taking influence from the theme of “movement”. The River follows a water spirit travelling down the first stretch of the Yangtze River, and who has woken from an icy slumber having forgotten its identity.
I was able to use a module in “Creating Culture” to further develop the world and culture of Sirin. This piece was written under the name of “M” who is one of the characters from The Sirin Chronicles, and also author of many in-world books and journals.
Seoul Steps – Travel Writing [extract]
Written as part of the module in ‘Writing Place’, Seoul Steps is a combination of travel writing and memoir. It’s a personal account of my own experiences with travelling to South Korea and Seoul and starts from the moment I stepped off the bus from the quarantine hotel.
The second portfolio piece written for ‘Writing Place’, The Goblin Stone is written in the style of a country journal editorial for a paper. I’m fortunate enough to live eight miles from the goblin stone and have spent a lot of time with it – through all of the seasons, the different weather, day and night, and all of my emotions. It’s a place I have become deeply connected with over my years living in the Lampeter area, and I was really happy to have the opportunity to write about such a magical place.
This monologue was written as part of my portfolio for the module ‘Ancestors, Death and Burial’ and took inspiration from the ancient Near East and Levant people’s practise of re-plastering skulls as part of their funerary rites .
Demons is a poem written in the confessional style. It came about as a response to having to deal with sensitive topics that don’t come with a trigger warning. Rather than trying to explain why topics might need a warning, I chose to write from the position of being triggered late at night and my battle with PTSD and dissociation that happened as a result.
This essay was written as part of a module on activism. We were tasked to consider a movement or activist group that we were passionate about and write about why it was of importance. I chose to focus on the American Library Association (ALA) for this task as their goals are to “enhance learning and ensure access to information for all”, in particular, to campaign against the banning of books and censorship of knowledge – something of which we are all now facing up to around the globe as various authoritarian powers start to take away our freedom of speech and states begin actively banning books.
