.Sarah Jackson recently completed a PhD in Creative and Critical Writing at The University of Sussex and lectures in English and Creative Writing at Nottingham Trent University. Her poetry is featured in the new Bloodaxe anthology, Voice Recognition: 21 Poets for the 21st Century, and her pamphlet, Milk (Pighog), was shortlisted for the inaugural Michael Marks Award in 2009. She is currently working on a series of poems inspired by submarines.

I first came to Cove Park on the Fielding Programme for three weeks in April 2008. I was in the middle of my PhD, drowning in teaching and research, and yearned for time and space away from work pressures to focus on my writing. The Fielding Programme provided this, and much more. The accommodation is unique, the scenery is stunning, and the company of other writers is inspiring.  Polly is an excellent mentor, knowing exactly when to encourage and when to question a word or a line. It is with her guidance, alongside the friendly welcome by all the staff at Cove Park, that the Fielding Programme provides writers with the support to develop their work in significant new ways. This first trip helped me to find the focus and direction for my poetry that I needed, and I made huge progress, returning to Cove in 2009 for a further two-week residency, funded by the Arts Council.

Having completed my second residency in November 2009, it’s clear that the Fielding Programme offers something a bit different. I think it’s a combination between silence and conversation, brought together on a remote hilltop overlooking a loch. There is plenty of time to be alone and write, and yet there are always friendly faces about; you can be pretty sure that there’ll be someone else who fancies a walk, a chat, or a trip to the Knockderry for a pint. And, for me, it was often somewhere between the conversation and the silence that I discovered the spark of a new image, a new poem. This combination is, in many ways, a challenging experience because sometimes it makes you face up to some of the problems you are having with your writing – but it’s challenging in the best possible way, and each trip, I’ve come away with exciting new work, and with renewed energy to keep writing.