Dr Sarah Burton

The first time I came to Madingley Hall it was spring and daffodils lined the drive and I had the sense that - just as it is for many students - it represented a new beginning for me. I've now been teaching Creative Writing at PACE for 15 years and loved every minute of it. With Jem Poster I created and led the Master's programme from 2013-2018 - together with the Undergraduate Certificate, which launched in the same year, these were the university's first accredited programmes in Creative Writing. I currently teach three online courses for PACE and while I miss the sense of community I always enjoyed in relationships with colleagues and students at Madingley Hall I'm always so impressed by how online students are so generous and supportive of each other and how quickly a group bonds, shares and develops together.      
 

Jem and I would often be asked by students to recommend a book on creative writing and there was never one we found wholly suitable - one might be good for some aspects, another for others, so we decided to write our own! The Book You Need to Read to Write the Book You Want to Write (yes, the title is an iambic heptameter) was published by Cambridge University Press in 2022 and a book of exercises (The Prompts You Need to Help You Write the Book You Want to Write) will follow in December 2025. Much of what is in both those books I learnt by listening to the needs of students in my years of teaching at PACE. So it's given me an education too.