My name is Heidi James, and I am here at Kingston studying for my PhD in creative writing.
If I were to recommend Kingston for creative writing in particular, it would be because
there is the incredible amount of support you get.
You are in a creative community and that is very clear to you from the moment you start.
You are not isolated and alone – and of course writing is a very solipsistic practice
really so it is very important I think to have those connections with other writers.
So that support I think is useful for you as a person but also as a writer so that’s
key.
But also just the incredible variety of activities that go on here – the different things you
can get involved in – and there are opportunities to read, to have your work published here.
You can really test what you are doing and where you are going, and I think those things
are fundamental.
I chose to come to Kingston for a very specific reason and I think that was really due to
the absolute commitment to the creative process; and the combination of that with the intellectual
enquiry and academic rigour that is particular about Kingston University.
It is not just a creative writing course, but it is also about your academic research
too; and I thought that we very important for me and what I was trying to achieve.
Here as well there is such a great range of staff that are teaching various different
genres.
So if you are coming to study for… or want to write a detective novel there is someone
here to help you.
If you want to write traditional literature there is someone here to help you or, for
me, if you are writing more experimental forms again there is the support; so it ticked all
my boxes.
My PhD is a combination of both an academic and research part which is around about 20,000
words, which has been surprisingly enjoyable; and also a novel – it consists of a novel
too so creative and research.
So it has been really interesting to combine the research and the practice itself.
What I have tried to do with my PhD is to ensure that the practical and the theoretical
combine.
So in a way it is not that the theory sits on top or is carried by the practice – that
they intermesh and interweave and very much interact with one another.
So the boundaries are loosened as it were, they are sort of more permeable.
So the research directly feeds into what I am attempting in my creative practice.
So it is self-fulfilling, it’s a self-fuelling process I hope.
Research is absolutely fundamental to your creative practice.
It has certainly helped me as a writer.
It has inspired me in so many ways that I would never have thought possible.
Just by using my usual creative practices it has completely pushed me in another direction.
It is fantastic actually, that combination.
What I really enjoy here at Kingston besides my academic work and my creative practice,
is the incredible range of extra-curricula activities that go on.
There are seminars, talks given, various lectures.
I have had the luck to meet with journalists, philosophers, Agamben’s coming here to speak
– so it’s fantastic.
It’s not just a narrow niche of creative writing, it’s so wide – the scope it is
fantastic.
So it has helped me as a person as well as just in my little field.
When I finish my PhD and I am no longer a student (which I am not looking forward to!)
I am hoping that I will continue with my academic career.
I have been very lucky, very lucky, that I have been supported here at Kingston and I
have had lots of, or been given, some teaching experience.
I am hoping that I will continue with an academic career and continue to publish.
I am already a writer so I am hoping that I go from strength to strength.
I started writing or I have been interested in words since I was around about three.
I remember very specifically hearing my grandmother and my aunt, who are of Italian extraction,
having a conversation and I remember being very, very aware that they were not saying
what was really going on; and this love of words and how our world is structured by the
words we use was started then really.
So I have always written and been very interested in writing.
I was a ballet dancer but went on to be an actress but I continued to write; and I had
a huge role offered to me that would have changed my life and I turned it down because
I knew I would never be taken seriously as a writer.
It would be ‘soapstar writes sexy novel’.
It wasn’t going to happen!
So I turned that down and knew absolutely that writing was what I was doing for the
rest of my life and so, luckily for me, I have had lots of wonderful opportunities and
have got my work…
you know, it is going well, it’s going very well.
My first novel is currently being made into a film that has been translated into various
languages so I am very lucky.