Author: Alison

On reading Bakhtin

On reading Bakhtin

On a confined afternoon our writer sits at the kitchen table with a flower placed strategically in front of her. She has decided that today’s task is to describe the flower in a manner that will enable her readers to see the flower through her eyes. To visualise it. Maybe even catch a hint of…

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not my voice who is speaking: ‘A Song From Tiahuanapu’

not my voice who is speaking: ‘A Song From Tiahuanapu’

In the context of the recent conference ‘Short Fiction as Humble Fiction’, organised by the Paul Valéry research centre EMMA and the European Network for Short Fiction Research, a short story writing competition in English, An opportunity for new voices,  was organised for foreign language students. Invited to be one of the jury members I…

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Foreign tongues: what’s it like to write in another language?

Foreign tongues: what’s it like to write in another language?

In a sorry week that heard the German president of the EU quoting George Eliot to the departing British and a prominent German politician reassuring them with the French words au revoir not adieu, it seemed apt to have French EFL creative writing students reflect upon how they sound in the foreign language. This semester’s…

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Doolally

Doolally

Happy New Year to you all: fellow teachers, students, writers, friends, family, random internet readers, anonymous followers, … For your pleasure, this short story is a mischievous take on / a feminist rewriting of James Thurber’s ‘The Unicorn in the Garden’ A big thank you to my friend James Wright for the cover illustration. Kindle…

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Having a Smooch with some Online Writing Tools

Having a Smooch with some Online Writing Tools

Whilst spending many hours in front of my computer writing, teaching and creating online courses, I must confess to never having given all that much thought to online writing tools and their pedagogical use. The systematic creation of a rubric in my blended or online courses entitled ‘Useful Links’, providing links to useful English language…

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