Upon reading Hamzeh Ghaderi’s concept of dreams I found myself gripped by the initial idea itself. The opening paragraph had a mixture of questions which I subconsciously have asked myself before I even read the topic. This already had me engaged and curious as to what he knew about the sleep that i did not already know myself. “Has anyone ever tried to control their own dreams? “He proceeds to answer which began to feel like a gotcha moment between a student and a teacher. As a fellow dreamer, I must say there was an element of relatability and unoriginality when I had come to find out through this blog that I’m not the only one who has attempted to plan and prepare my own dreams only to find myself disappointed when my dream was completely nothing to do with what I imagined. I felt that this was a creative way to connect with a reader who decides to take their time to read this blog because it’s a subject that is akin to the majority unless you don’t dream at all. This style of writing feels as though we are in somewhat of a conversation because of the direct questions he used which meant the reader is too part of this discovery about dreams. As I read further, he includes some facts which not only supports his claims but emphasises the importance of sleep since we spend a third of our lives doing it. 

 I found this insightful and nutritious for my brain since we may sometimes neglect something as subconscious as sleep. Hamzeh Ghaderi goes onto speak about the ancestral concept of dreams and how others view dreaming, such as the Ancient Greeks who are renowned for their philosophical views on life and death. I found this to be fascinating as I am someone who takes a deep interest in Greek mythology, the Greek gods and goddesses, but it’s also interesting to someone who takes in interest in fantasy. Furthermore, it seems beneficial to tackle the concept of dreaming from a religious standpoint as it is highly spiritual and has more to do with what we cannot see such as God, angels and heaven or hell. I believe this blog contains has a wide range of information that is highly stimulating however the length could have perhaps been slightly shorter and summarised to keep the reader engaged and even wanting more. Overall, the blog was productive and had facts I’ll remember and share with others. 

Speaker review of Aaron Kent by Samira Alim

Studying creative writing at Westminster has given me the wonderful opportunity to listen to many established speakers who kindly shared their experiences, tips and advice from their own personal journey in the industry with us. It has been extremely interesting to see different points of views and truly grasp how each speaker has worked their way up, taking hold of all the opportunities given to them. To say I have been inspired by their achievements and ambitious drive would be an understatement.

A speaker that stood out to me would have to be Aaron Kent, raised in Cornwall now residing in Wales as an award-winning poet, publisher and activist; to say the least. Coming from a working-class background myself, I found him to be relatable and was quickly impressed with his presence on advocating for working class voices in the industry. He also shared with us some of his most difficult obstacles that he overcame in his personal life which was very motivating.

Aaron’s spark for writing began when he was 16 and was keen on winning a girl over by writing her a poem. Remarkably the poem was sent back to him with some edits made by her boyfriend. Despite him being rejected he was more interested in the feedback and learnt from this event that he really enjoyed writing the poem more than anything. Throughout his years of development from GCSE’s to doing A levels with OCD, to working as a barista and then joining the military it was crucial to him to continue writing poetry however he could.

 He expressed that he wanted people to know that he improved his poetry and writing by reading more widely and reflected on what he liked and disliked and how to make his writing better with this information. Aaron moved onto being a lecturer and took use of the printers at his college to create books. However, he came across an issue of only being able to produce 50 that took him many days to complete and wouldn’t be restoked. This didn’t fit in with Aarons ethos as he doesn’t believe in excluding people due to only selling a set amount, in one format so this would exclude people that live further away geographically and people who may have problems such as with their eyesight for instance. This meant he worked on developing ways for people to access his work in different ways which meant he wouldn’t be excluding others.

It’s clear that Aaron throughout his journey of writing has constantly been revaluating his work to see what he can do to make it better all ways round. I think this is a great lesson to carry forward for everyone especially writers as it can sometimes feel like you’re just stuck in and don’t know how to move forward but the best way to combat this block is keep pushing and finding new ways to keep your work fresh. Hearing his process from start to end of how he came to be a writer and the difficulties he ran into which I briefly touched on showed that he didn’t let it stop him from progressing. This really inspired me and put into perspective that no matter what background you come from or how much knowledge you have on a topic if you keep on at it you can achieve more than you think.

Alexandra Bata Mari

I have listened to a talk by Katie Hale, who is a poet and novelist who is self-published.

During her presentation she talked about how her writing career started; she mentions university experience, arts admins, freelance work, existing connections vs cold applications, she also mentions attending workshops & professional development opportunities and other events she attended.

Katie talked about how all these different opportunities helped her build connections and experiences. She mentioned how she jumped on any opportunity that could help her in some way or form, even if all it got her was a new experience.

During her talk she mentions how she gets funding for her work, and how anyone can get funds for projects of their own. Katie mentions things like; Grants for work related creative projects, and awards for work in progress, she mentions that when looking for these opportunities it is best to look up things around residence, because there are quite a lot of things that could help a free-lance writer out with funds near where they live.

She also mentioned residencies while writing away from home; Katie mentioned categories that exist and what to look out for when trying to avoid scams. There are residencies that pay, there are ones that don’t pay but are funded as support in kind, and there are the ones that you must pay for even when they say that you don’t.

Katie also has mentioned ways to make a living other than being a novel writer/ poet, things like; writing articles/features and journalism, reviewing, copywriting, work in the publishing industry like proofreading/ editing, other works in the creative sector like project management, even work that has nothing to do with writing like working as a barista or bookseller.

She talked more about how to earn a living as a writer; her first point was to say yes to opportunities because that’s the way you get experience. Her second point was to make sure you get recognition and payment for what you do as a writer of any kind. Her third point was to work out what works for you and what doesn’t. Her fourth point was to attend workshops and events (mentioned to look for low-income options). The fifth point she mentioned was to work out what you need and to apply for it. The sixth point was prioritising writing, to make sure that writing comes first then hobbies, since writing is what you do for a job. The seventh point she talked about was to sign up to newsletters, and the last one was to join the society of authors, to get more opportunities.

I found her shared experiences useful because I have found self-publishing interesting, and wondered how a writer’s life is like when they are not contracted to a publisher. Her tips on doing many different creative projects and joining as many creative opportunities as possible.

Marianne McBrearty

Yen Ooi, is an author, poet and games writer who spoke about her personal journey as a writer and establishing her works in the world of publishing. Yen was living in Tokyo working as a Music Tour manager when she decided to have a change of career and fulfil her dreams of becoming a writer. 

Yen explored online communities for writers. From these connections she understood that she wasn’t alone with emerging writer’s anxiety. She enrolled on short online creative writing courses, where she was able to develop blog writing and share short stories. When she returned to London, she joined the MA course in English Literature at University of Westminster, although she had never studied in English before. 

        Yen’s first collaboration was with Transmedia, which is storytelling through various mediums. They had developed a game similar to PokemonGo, where the user would hunt for zombies out on the street using their mobile phone. The game wasn’t the success they were looking for, however the project taught her about timing and the importance of when to release a piece of work. She then moved onto Earth, a hard science fiction transmedia project, which was a short film and game, and was develop her script writing. This didn’t provide her with an income, however she learned the world of Transmedia, which is now only done by experienced and established writers. 

Yen entered a piece of poetry in ‘For Love and Poetry; A book Twelve Years in the Making’ by Kristian Jeff. Following that she released a novella called ‘SUN, Queens of Earth’ by a small independent publisher Spectacle Media Publishing Group. The company was a small business where Yen was able to connect with all the staff and learn the different roles within a publishing house. Following the release of her book, the publishing house went into financial difficulties and closed. Rather than give up, Yen was able to withdraw herself from their contract and decided to self publish her book. She took inspiration from Orna Ross ‘The Alliance of Independent Author’ to understand the publisher’s responsibilities. When self-publishing SUN, she went on to publish an anthology collection of her short stories and poems. She often uses her anthology as a portfolio, sending it as a CV to sample her work, which only costs her £2 per book to do so. 

When reading ‘The Woman who Thought She was a Planet’ by Vandana Singh, inspired her to think about her own Chinese culture and engage that within her writing. She started to develop Chinese Literature, towards the Chinese science fiction genre. This led her to connecting with other Chinese writers through social media, and became a member of Bubble Tea Writers, a twitter group for South East Asian Writers. 

After taking some time out to start a family, Yin is back working on her second non-fiction, writing a thesis and novel for her PHD, she currently teaches at University of Westminster, works as a technical writer for a large language model and she is developing a narrative consultancy. She has future plans to build her games portfolio, narrative developments, edit her novel and put together her poetry collection. 

Yen was an inspirational to understand the challenges that a writer faces when projects fail due to costs, timing not being quite right, or publishing houses closing, that to keep developing and discovering to pursue your dreams. 

by Isabel Mukasa

During Week 3 in Semester 2, a group comprised of other students and myself was introduced to narrative director and writer Yen Ooi, who interweaved her life story with advice which would help us with what to do if we wanted to be engaged with writing in the future.

While it was surprising to learn of Yen being an alumni student at the University of Westminster, the realisation she had of becoming a writer in the long term after doing a Masters in English Literature highlighted to me the importance of finding out what one can discover after branching out. In addition, her experiences with the publishing industry and what she learnt from networking further emphasised how going out of your comfort zone can arise from collaborating with others for example.

As someone with an immense love for video games and the people behind their development, I found Yen’s experience with being a game developer extremely powerful as she guided us through the behind-the-scenes process in creating Road to Guangdong. As a result of Yen expressing the difficulties she faced such as teaching herself a complex type of code, I developed a greater appreciation for what can happen when different skills come together.

Despite the speaker event being short, I felt as if I went on a journey with Yen; her concluding tips such as effectively using procrastination to going back to projects and trusting the process being helpful with what I want to achieve for my own work.