We sat down with third year Creative and Professional Writing student, Jenny Larsen, about her time on the course and at St Mary's.
Jenny moved to London for university from Norway, and is active in campus life.
We chatted to Jenny about her experience as a student at St Mary's, as well as what her top book recommendations would be.
What made you choose Creative Writing at St Mary’s?
I knew I wanted to study Creative Writing, but I'm from Norway and it isn’t really offered as a degree there. I wanted to move away from home and go to an English-speaking country, and England was the closest one.
In high school I attended a study fair and I got to talking to this guy from St Mary’s. He was really good at talking about the course and about creative writing in general, which really sold it to me.
How did you find it moving abroad for university?
I would say it was hard, but at the same time I felt really welcomed by the lecturers and the whole St Mary's community.
I lived on campus which was a great place to live when I moved, as I got to know a lot of other people in the houses and who were studying similar subjects to me.
How have you found your lecturers and the course itself?
I love my lecturers. They're really great. You can tell that they know what they're talking about, and that they're also really excited and passionate about it. That’s what makes the students so excited and engaged at St Mary’s, and I think that's really important.
One of my favourite modules has been Introduction to Narrative, where we learnt how to form a narrative and then wrote our own story. We had workshops where we read each other's work and gave comments to help each other improve. That was both fun and really helpful.
A lot of writers can be scared of putting their work out there, and while it was only a small step getting to share our work with the class, it was a nice thing to do.
What are you doing your dissertation on?
I’m writing the first 10,000 words of a fantasy novel, so it's really just the opening rather than the whole thing.
It’s a story that I've had in my head for a really long time and doing the dissertation gives me the chance to put it on paper and hopefully make it into a publishable novel some day.
We get help from our lecturers on the dissertation, so it's a good opportunity to write the whole thing anyway, and then get some constructive feedback.
How have you found your time at St Mary’s in general?
I really liked living on campus, especially first year, as it was a great way to make friends and everyone is in the same boat. The SU put on a lot of fun activities like karaoke night, so it was nice living so close to that.
I’m part of the creative writing society and am an editor on the Saints magazine. Working on the magazine was really fun and I've met a lot of people working on that who I'm really close friends with now.
I'm also in the strength club, which I discovered during a Simmie Girls Can event during my first year. In my second year I did a try-out and really enjoyed it. I decided to join and I'm still doing it in my final year.
What book recommendations would you give to anyone starting the Creative Writing course?
For creative writing, I would definitely say Stephen King’s memoir called On Writing. It's his journey through writing and is really interesting.
Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky is also good!