It all started two yeas ago like a wish, but this year the plan was made real, with help from University of Canberra as a student in Writing. With permission from my family; I set off to England to experience the mystic and awesome history of Oxford University. The ride from London was like any good Highway ride. But when we arrived in Oxford – driven by my brother Jeff with whom I had stayed while in London – the gothic images of Oxford I had held imaged and English country living, blended together to form one mosaic of fascination mixed with a feeling of being out of place.
For starters the lay out of the town was configured to serve the interests of it’s many tourists groups from around the world. It was as if I had entered a labyrinth and it took us over an hour driving around in circles, trying to find our way to Exeter College. Eventually we parked our car on the outskirts of town and walked to the College.
For three weeks, I lived in Oxford, studying new techniques of writing from some of the most experienced writers in the business. There were budding writers from all over the world, especially form America. But most of us were from Germany, South Africa, India, England, Costa Rica, China, and of course Australia.I enrolled in the Life-Writing and Poetry program and everyday there were Plenary Sessions, where we received lectures from literary agents, writers, and industry specialists.
On weekends we will tour other parts of England to feed our imagination with ideas and be inspired by the English countryside. I choose to visit Kelmscott Manor, the country home of English engraver and craftsman, William Morris. The second weekend I joined my mates to visit the birth place of Winston Churchill, Blenheim Palace and the village of Woodstock. The last weekend I decided to indulge my Tudor sensibilities and went on a tour bus to visit Hampton Court Palace for an entire day. I was enchanted by the experience. It all brought to life the magnificent and philanderers’ life of Henry VIII. Oxford the city, with its museums, libraries, Colleges, walkways, gardens, myths, legendary alumina, and buildings of spires, each with its own story, set against the historic struggles between the town and the colleges inspired many stories and poems in me. The most significant of which is the story of Sir Thomas Bodley, benefactor/founder of the Bodleian Library, whose life I am dreaming of writing about as a fictional bio/historical novel, set in England and Ghana, to be called The Bodleian Conspiracy.
In the end, it is not how long you study and stay at Oxford, but how long Oxford stays with you as you continue to study the craft of creative writing.
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