Institute of Continuing Education (ICE)
Submitted by Josh Hatley on Wed, 08/05/2019 - 16:00
It’s always a pleasure to welcome ICE alumni back into our community to share their successes, so we’re delighted that Sara Collins, author of The Confessions of Frannie Langton, will be with us for the evening on 1 April, and we hope you’ll join us too.
Sara completed her Masters of Studies in Creative Writing here in 2016 and during the two years she studied part-time, her work earned her the Michael Holroyd Prize for Recreative Writing and a shortlisting for the prestigious Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize. In her second year dissertation she introduced Frannie Langton to the world and this stunning piece of writing helped her secure a distinction.
Sara commented: “The MSt in Creative Writing gave me the confidence I needed to finish my debut novel. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have had the courage to submit my then unfinished novel to the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize, which led to an offer of representation from my agent.” Sara’s novel is now about to be published by Viking Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House."
The Confessions of Frannie Langton is the gothic story of a young Jamaican plantation slave who is taken to 1800s London to live as servant to an eminent philosopher, where she becomes accused of a double murder. It’s a highly anticipated release, with The Observer listing Sara as one of the hottest-tipped debut writers of 2019. Indeed, such is the worldwide demand for The Confessions of Frannie Langton, that Sara is already working on the scheduled TV adaptation – no doubt using skills she learned in the writing for performance module of the MSt.
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This article was originally published as part of the 2019 Lent term edition of Inside ICE.