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The Five People you will meet as a Beginning Writer

When I heard that there were actual university courses for English literature and Creative Writing, I nearly leapt out of my own skin. Five years later, what was once a personal hobby is now the basis of a bachelor’s degree, even if it didn’t land me an instant job. After a brief, eye-opening stint in retail last year, I decided to go back and pursue a Masters Degree exclusively in Creative Writing. While I am far from becoming a bestselling author, it has nonetheless left me with a feeling of being ‘experienced,’ (if not necessarily the reality!) and this year saw my first publication. I have been conjuring up stories since I was five years old, and being around other aspiring writers has taught me that, even though all our experiences are different, there are a few key elements we have in common. With the advent of blogging and websites such as Fanstory and Deviantart, as well as various writers' forums online, getting your work noticed has never been easier. Many of us, myse
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Disney's 'Dinosaur' - is it worth watching?

Image from Wikipedia Good morrow readers, I am the Lady in the Hat, and today I'm going to talk about dinosaurs. Now, I don't know anything about you lovely people, but I absolutely love dinosaurs. I'm forever looking up new discoveries on the news, searching articles on Google Scholar, or poring over the beautiful fossils from China which preserve details such as feathers and skin colour. I look at the birds outside my window and marvel at how strange and wonderful it is, that these creatures are cousins to Tyrannosaurus rex and Velociraptor. So yes, I might be a tiny bit obsessed, and I'm afraid this obsession started young. As a child, I can remember seeing the trailer for Dinosaur just before Toy Story 2, and you'd better believe that it blew my seven-year-old mind. However, after watching it, I can remember being quite disappointed. For one thing, I found the whole storyline rather dark and depressing, and even as a kid I found it uninteresting and

'Disenchantment' - is it worth watching?

Once upon a time in a far-away, not-especially magical kingdom suffering under austerity, a Lady in a Hat logged onto her Facebook account to converse with friends and catch up on the latest top quality shitposts. As she was scrolling through her news-feed of baby pictures, friends' humble-brag holiday photos and dank birb memes, she came across an advertisement for a new animated show on Netflix. With its distinct character designs and animation, this Lady at once knew that she was looking at Matt Groening's latest animated offering. So as soon as this new show was released, she dutifully watched all twelve episodes, and having mulled over her thoughts, she penned them thus... Good morrow, readers. I am the Lady in the Hat, offering erudite analysis of fantasy, sci-fi and whatever it is the Internet likes to advertise to me. For my first review, I thought I would do Disenchantment - Matt Groening's new animated show currently streaming on Netflix. I am a huge fan of (

How to Write a Short Story (in Six Steps)

I would like to thank my friend Cecilia Bryant for this gorgeous illustration. On the 5th of May, 2018, a childhood dream of mine came true. I received an email from the  British Fantasy Society,  informing me that my short story 'Worm'    - the story of a water-dragon’s fateful encounter with a human being - was going to be published in the December edition of their fiction journal, Horizons. This was a one-in-a-million event, as most authors do not get accepted on their first submission, and I can only thank my tutors, family and fellow writers, as without their support, feedback and encouragement, none of this would have been possible. This achievement has renewed my confidence in my writing abilities, and therefore, as a graduate of Creative Writing and keen lover of stories, I thought I would share some of the insights I have learned over the years of study. I have chosen to focus on the short story as opposed to novels because (a) I believe it is a very underra