I’ve been considering a Masters degree for some time, and have started and withdrawn from two. I withdrew from one because the materials were atrocious and had never been updated (for example, they referred to gluing photographs into a book to be photocopied — in other words pre-digital photography and pre-digital printing!) I started another, which had what I thought would be a good literature component, but withdrew because it didn’t, and because there was too much ‘woke’ politics, which would have served only to make me terrified of writing anything. One of the lecturers didn’t even have a degree in literature or writing, and none of them were widely published (or published at all) outside of academia.

I gave up the idea of an MA, but a few things have changed my mind, so I’ve decided to try again. One: it seems that having an MA in creative writing gets your work out of the slush pile and at least looked at. Second: I found a Masters in Creative Writing at Maquarie University, where I did some courses for my BA. The standards were very high, and the courses organised and taught well. Third: the need/want to do such a course just won’t stop niggling away at me because I think it will take my writing to a higher level. And fourth: a writer friend has applied for this one as well and his optimism infected me. I’ve put in my application, and will see what happens.

Professor Hanif Kureishi, among others, thinks that most of these courses are a waste of time, but I learned a lot in my BA in Literature and Composition at Griffith University, especially the literature courses, and I also enjoyed it a great deal. A Graduate Certificate I did there in Literary Classics was also very rewarding. I like studying and trying to improve myself.