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Is the exam system in the UK doing more harm than good?
[This is a piece I wrote for UEA’s Student Newspaper, Concrete] Whether it’s answers hidden in the labels of water bottles or pencil cases, exam boards and invigilators are notorious for cracking down hard on cheating. With the introduction of smartphones into our daily lives, cheating has never been harder to monitor, and a recent…
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How young people are suffering due to the cost of living crisis
[This is a piece I wrote for UEA’s Student Newspaper, Concrete] Rising prices of petrol and the weekly food shop might not be the kind of news young people would immediately rush to read, but as the cost of living crisis continues to affect households around the country, young people’s attitudes have arguably shifted. It…
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Blackout [Poem]
I don’t sing this way all day. I wait a while until the world falls asleep and imagine I’m swimming through houses underwater, the doors unlocked and unafraid. Eyes closed, humming lyrics to songs you’ve played that feel so far away. I hear your song, but it never hits the same. Because it used to…
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howl 2021
The best minds of my generation were torn apart by anxiety-inducing social media platforms. People who, desperate to show how many followers they had, desperate for fulfilment in a world based on visuals, a world that revolves around how you look and not what you think, a world in which politicians refuse to pay for…
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Paper Garden [short story]
PAPER GARDEN by Eve Attwood I paint a daffodil onto the ceiling on Wednesday when I hear it raining outside. The roof window here remains blocked off so that you cannot open it, nor can the light escape through it. It is repeatedly hit with the tip-tapping of rain, the water pelting it in a…
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School Essay on ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ (Jan 2020)
Essay question: In what ways, and with what dramatic effects, does Shakespeare present deceit in Much Ado About Nothing? Deceit is perceived within Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing as having the power to be used both for villainy and alternatively, to create a sense of harmony. On the surface, it may be easy to assume…
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School Essay on ‘Richard II’ (May 2020)
Essay question: Paying close attention to language, tone and action, discuss the following passage (from Act II.I), showing its significance to the play as a whole. Within Act II, Scene I of Richard II, Shakespeare draws our attention to the confrontation between John of Gaunt and King Richard through his use of language, tone and…
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Tea for Two
Roses and lilies and buttercups, flowers of love, flowers of – He was thinking too much. Again. He was making everything into a metaphor, everything into something beautiful, an illusion. He partly knew and yet he didn’t at the same time; his head had become full of fog and he, the weary traveller, unable to…
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Writing in the style of Virginia Woolf
She thought she was standing too near to the end of the platform. A few paces back she thought, don’t want to fall in, fall through the gaps, be swallowed up by the tracks entirely. No, she thought, better to take a few steps back. The train pulled in, making a sound as if it…
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life lines
You’re seeing and then you’re crying,smiling and then you’re laughing;Innocent and hopeful, beautiful and vulnerable.You’re walking and stumbling,dancing and prancing;All smiles and daydreams, all day long.You’re jumping and climbing,Not looking back now;Still a way to go but getting closer, one step at a time.You’re questioning and wandering,Looking beyond the surface;Being alone isn’t so tricky any…