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The Backstory

Writer's picture: SarahSarah

Updated: Oct 17, 2018

Welcome to the blog part of my research website. I’ll be posting about a variety of topics, thoughts, views, opinions, books-I’m-reading, etc. within the fields of creative writing, digital culture and young adult literature - and anywhere where these interests overlap. I aim to combine academic research with industry news, trends and things of writerly and bookish interest. So whether you’re an academic, student or a pure YA fanatic you may well find something of interest here.


I'll start with a bit of personal backstory and fill you on my research story so far.

My research is practice based and centres around practices of narrative making in a variety of media. My background is in film-making, film programming, film production training and film exhibition. This experience informs my writing in ways that I am still discovering, but currently has led to an exploration of the use of screenplay within my fiction writing - expanding the notion of what a novel is to include multimodal forms of narration, reflective of our digital lives.


For the past 8 years I have turned my attention to creative writing and have a number of WIPs. These include two one-offs novels and a series for Young Adults, a series aimed for 8-12 year old readers and one novel for adults. These have mostly all been temporarily shelved as I focus on completing my PhD novel - the first in the series for Young Adults. This story follows blogger and film student Taylor Millar as she struggles to do the right thing in a world lived between the gaps of online and offline worlds. Reeling from the fallout of a anti-bullying video that goes viral Taylor stumbles upon a girl who has been murdered in her home town. Unsure how to respond she embarks upon an urgent search for the dead girl's true identity. In the search to find her killer Taylor must also clear the name of an old friend falsely accused of the murder, and in the process make up for her own past mistakes.


I am currently two thirds through this part time PhD in Creative Writing where I'm focussing on the first of these books that engage readers in themes of digital culture and narrative making.

Exploring my own writing and the practice of putting my stories down has shown me that that we are hard wired to tell stories. As John Yorke Creator of the BBC Writer's Academy states in his book on story Into The Woods, how you tell those stories and why are deeply connected. This connection forms the axis of my writing praxis.


I’ll be posting some more information about the PhD WIP as well as some of the critical thinking I am conducting around the creative writing. So please sign up for updates to follow my progress ...and enjoy some wholesome digital soup nutrition with your usual social media diet... / : )


Works cited:

Yorke, John. Into the Woods, How Stories Work and Why We Tell Them. Penguin. 2013

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