This module is not currently running in 2024 to 2025.
'The Book Project' contributes to the poetry and prose strands of the BA in English and American Literature and Creative Writing at Stage 3. The objective of ‘The Book Project’ is to give students as close an experience as possible of what it might be like to publish a small book of creative writing in a genre of their choice. The main emphasis will be on producing a body of creative work for the main assessment, with book production using print-on-demand technology, which has become available over the last three years, a book launch and seminar performance making up the rest of the assessment. We will look at the difference between vanity publishing and the long and honourable tradition of self-publishing from William Blake to the small press networks of the late Twentieth and early Twenty-first Centuries. Students will be encouraged to work to a standard of professional publishing. This module aims to enable students to develop their practice of writing through both the study of a range of contemporary examples and practices, and constructive feedback on their own work. Each week, students will be exposed to a wide range of instances of exemplary, contemporary work (as suggested by the indicative reading list). They will be encouraged to read as writers and think like small press publishers, to apply appropriate writing and book production techniques to their own practice and to experiment with voice, form and content. The approach to the exemplary texts will be technical and historical. At every point in the module, priority will be given to students’ own development as writers. It is an assumption of the module that students will already have a basic competence in the writing of poetry and prose from their experience of modules at Stages 1 and 2, including a grasp of essential craft and techniques. The purpose of this module will be to stimulate students towards further development of, and to hone, their already emerging voices and styles in relation to, and through engaging with various literary texts, raising an awareness of publishing practice historically, and contemporary new technologies.
Total contact hours: 30
Private study hours: 270
Total study hours: 300
There are some costs involved in the publication of your book, and an example of costs will be made available on the module's Moodle page.
NB There is no reading list for this module, so costs may be offset by the fact that students will not be required to buy any texts.
Main assessment methods:
Portfolio of 12-15 poems (totalling no fewer than 140 lines) or prose pieces of work totalling at least 6,000 words (70%)
Print-on-demand publication, to be presented at the end of term in the class book launch (20%)
Seminar/workshop performance (10%)
Reassessment methods
Like for Like.
Indicative Reading List:
BLAKE, WILLIAM, (2000) The Complete Illuminated Books, London: Thames and Hudson
BLAKE, WILLIAM, (2013) Songs of Innocence and Experience, London: Create Space
BRANDE, D. (1981) Becoming a Writer New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam
ELIOT, T.S. (1986) The Waste Land: Facsimile Edition, London: Faber and Faber
JOHNSON, B.S. (1999) The Unfortunates, London: Picador
MILLER, DAVID & PRICE, RICHARD, (2006) British Poetry Magazines 1914-2000: A History and Bibliography of Little Magazines, London: Oak Knoll
POUND, EZRA, (1965) A Lume Spento, New York: New Directions
SMITH, A.M (2018) Writers' and Artists’ Yearbook 2019, London: Bloomsbury
STRUNK, W. & WHITE, E.B. (1999) The Elements of Style, London: Pearson
TURNER, B (2017) The Writers’ Handbook 2018, London: Dyson
PROJECT BLAKE http://projectblake.org/
BLURB http://www.blurb.com/home/1/
See the library reading list for this module (Canterbury)
The intended subject specific learning outcomes.
On successfully completing the module students will be able to:
1. demonstrate their capacity for close reading and critical analysis and applied these skills to their practice
2. identify, critically evaluate and interrogate particular literary techniques and publishing practices found in modern and contemporary poetry and prose and made use of them in their book publishing project
3. reflect on the wide range of stylistic practices open to the contemporary writer and develop an understanding of how these relate to their own practice
4. confidently apply advanced poetry and fiction techniques within their work
5. understand through practice the value of drafting, editing and publishing
6. plan and undertake a portfolio of poems or prose which demonstrates a developed sense of their relationship between their work and its audience
The intended generic learning outcomes.
On successfully completing the module students will be able to:
1. demonstrate enhanced creative writing skills and a critical language through problem solving
2. apply that language to their own work, through collective and self-criticism, and develop individual critical acumen
3. develop sympathy with traditions other than those in which they themselves are working
4. demonstrate communication as a key skill, with a capacity to argue a point of view, orally and in written form, with clarity, organisation and cogency
5. demonstrate increased confidence and ability to work in group situations, by working with others
6. demonstrate advanced communicative and collaborative skills, which include intellectual work and finely tuned listening skills
7. demonstrate substantial capacity for independent imaginative and practice-based projects and research, and improving their own learning and performance
8. gather and evaluate a range of materials from diverse contexts, using information and communication technology
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