Creative Writing: Fiction at Goldsmiths University.

Storytelling is at the heart of Creative Writing at Goldsmiths. How we each tell our story is essential to who we are and to what we become. 

Studying Storytelling at Goldsmiths offers a toolbox which, going forward, is of immense practical and creative use.  Storytelling stays with the students, whether they become professional writers or not. It invariably proves useful in the varied fields they subsequently enter.

This year’s cohort from Media and Communication and Media and English produced wonderful, original, and challenging work. Their pieces are set all over the world, and include memoirs, imaginative work, and issue-driven stories.

In the film script: Hudson Degree Zero, Aadit Bhardwaj takes us on a mesmerising journey across the USA.  The character, ‘Hudson’ eventually reunites with long-lost friend, ‘Jeanine’. Along the way there is murder, poetry, on a quest for meaning and fatal finale.

In Aisha Azam’s comedy, a TV pilot: Beasts of Asia, we meet a working-class family just returned from Pakistan.  With energy and high comedy, Azam introduces this colourful family, including a disastrous uncle, a formidable aunt and a next-door-neighbour who just might be as dreadful as his uncle who used to terrorise them. 

Arthur Woolf-Hoyle’s horror film, Daisy Chain, is set in Bermondsey, London.  The location and characters draw on Arthur’s own childhood, resulting in an intimate style of storytelling.  The story grows increasingly uncanny as we are introduced to ‘Oliver’, his mother, his sister and an overly friendly ‘Mrs Stanton’ who preys on his family. 

In Glossaries Isabella Valencia Zapata presents us Colombia through the eyes of ‘the Curator’.  Travelling with this character, the reader encounters marvellous personalities on a bus, in a village, during games. The visionary style means that the reader can almost smell and touch the environment.

Ivy (Xiaoshan) Huang’s Admission and Handover Rules for Ward 302 is eerie and suspense-filled. One room in a Chinese provincial hospital has been taken over by ‘depression’.  ‘Yu Nian’ solves this mystery and finds a way to control the room, but this has grave consequences for her.

Jakub Radowski’sBilly presents the glacial unravelling of a boy coming of age. ‘Billy’ grows up in a house that has a mind of its own  It seems to demand that his family follows its rules -his silent parents and the staff comply, in almost cult-like manner. Slowly ‘Billy’ discovers a secret hidden from him his whole life.

Ruben Dicker’s comedy TV pilot Bumpkin is set in Somerset, as a new generation is competing to be Mayor. The intrigues of the town are set in counterpoint to the despair and hope of a rural community, seen through the eyes of two young people trying to make their own space in their hometown. 

Lucie Schoenefeld set her present-day comedy TV pilot Mostly Fine in London. Two German best friends reunite in London for work, and to study. We follow them on their first day together in series of absurd situations. They discover, that in their time apart, life has pushed them in quite different directions, testing their relationship.

Stardust and Her Rollerblades from Mars is set in Ireland and inspired by a fairytale. Keisha Hubbard describes the life of a teenager, ‘Nala’ whose twin brother is in a coma:  their mother blames her for the loss of her precious son. She a new friend in ‘Nadine’.  They fall in love; she finds her voice and begins to heal.

Vincent Canfora’s TV pilot, After Hours gives us a slice of life in the catering industry, and the stressful daily grind of daily life facing so many young Londoners. We follow ‘Oliver’ as he negotiates water damage, heartbreak, co-workers’ drama, and ungrateful management. 

Written in dream-like prose Mari Adamsopiyeva’sMy Treasure is a fast-paced story about a young Korean woman, ‘Amy’, dealing with the aftermath of her father’s murder.  This driven woman gets her revenge, but she has loses everything in the process.

Zige Liu’sTo Live, follows ‘Zhang’ from poverty through university to success as a stationmaster and in the mining industry.  Written in a crisp, clear style, the reader is encouraged to root for ‘Zhang’ through each twist and turn of the narrative, as he eventually loses everything, except his money.Storytelling is at the heart of Creative Writing at Goldsmiths. How we each tell our story is essential to who we are and to what we become. 

Studying Storytelling at Goldsmiths offers a toolbox which, going forward, is of immense practical and creative use.  Storytelling stays with the students, whether they become professional writers or not. It invariably proves useful in the varied fields they subsequently enter.

This year’s cohort from Media and Communication and Media and English produced wonderful, original, and challenging work. Their pieces are set all over the world, and include memoirs, imaginative work, and issue-driven stories.

In the film script: Hudson Degree Zero, Aadit Bhardwaj takes us on a mesmerising journey across the USA.  The character, ‘Hudson’ eventually reunites with long-lost friend, ‘Jeanine’. Along the way there is murder, poetry, on a quest for meaning and fatal finale.

In Aisha Azam’s comedy, a TV pilot: Beasts of Asia, we meet a working-class family just returned from Pakistan.  With energy and high comedy, Azam introduces this colourful family, including a disastrous uncle, a formidable aunt and a next-door-neighbour who just might be as dreadful as his uncle who used to terrorise them. 

Arthur Woolf-Hoyle’s horror film, Daisy Chain, is set in Bermondsey, London.  The location and characters draw on Arthur’s own childhood, resulting in an intimate style of storytelling.  The story grows increasingly uncanny as we are introduced to ‘Oliver’, his mother, his sister and an overly friendly ‘Mrs Stanton’ who preys on his family. 

In Glossaries Isabella Valencia Zapata’s presents us Colombia through the eyes of ‘the Curator’.  Travelling with this character, the reader encounters marvellous personalities on a bus, in a village, during games. The visionary style means that the reader can almost smell and touch the environment.

Ivy (Xiaoshan) Huang’s Admission and Handover Rules for Ward 302 is eerie and suspense-filled. One room in a Chinese provincial hospital has been taken over by ‘depression’.  ‘Yu Nian’ solves this mystery and finds a way to control the room, but this has grave consequences for her.

Jakub Radowski’s Billy presents the glacial unravelling of a boy coming of age. ‘Billy’ grows up in a house that has a mind of its own  It seems to demand that his family follows its rules -his silent parents and the staff comply, in almost cult-like manner. Slowly ‘Billy’ discovers a secret hidden from him his whole life.

Ruben Dicker’s comedy TV pilot Bumpkin is set in Somerset, as a new generation is competing to be Mayor. The intrigues of the town are set in counterpoint to the despair and hope of a rural community, seen through the eyes of two young people trying to make their own space in their hometown. 

Lucie Schoenefeld set her present-day comedy TV pilot Mostly Fine in London. Two German best friends reunite in London for work, and to study. We follow them on their first day together in series of absurd situations. They discover, that in their time apart, life has pushed them in quite different directions, testing their relationship.

Stardust and Her Rollerblades from Mars is set in Ireland and inspired by a fairytale. Keisha Hubbard describes the life of a teenager, ‘Nala’ whose twin brother is in a coma:  their mother blames her for the loss of her precious son. She a new friend in ‘Nadine’.  They fall in love; she finds her voice and begins to heal.

Vincent Canfora’s TV pilot, After Hours gives us a slice of life in the catering industry, and the stressful daily grind of daily life facing so many young Londoners. We follow ‘Oliver’ as he negotiates water damage, heartbreak, co-workers’ drama, and ungrateful management. 

Written in dream-like prose Mari Adamsopiyeva’sMy Treasure is a fast-paced story about a young Korean woman, ‘Amy’, dealing with the aftermath of her father’s murder.  This driven woman gets her revenge, but she has loses everything in the process.

Zige Liu’sTo Live, follows ‘Zhang’ from poverty through university to success as a stationmaster and in the mining industry.  Written in a crisp, clear style, the reader is encouraged to root for ‘Zhang’ through each twist and turn of the narrative, as he eventually loses everything, except his money.

Written by Malene Sheppard Skaerved