The inaugural Univ in the Arts Salon took place on Thursday 27 September at The Groucho Club in London. “Inspiration and the Blank Page” seemed a fitting theme for this inaugural Salon since it pinpoints the challenge at the core of every fresh creative enterprise, no matter its genre or context.

The event took place in the stylish and informal surroundings of the Gennaro Room at the Groucho Club, and involved presentations and interaction with three guest speakers from very different sections of the creative coal-face: film, fiction and creative education.

It will be an annual feature of the College’s recently launched Univ in the Arts programme and is designed to focus exclusively on different aspects of the creative process. The aims of the Salon complement those of Univ in the Arts: namely, to draw on the wealth of talent among Old Members working in the Arts in order to provide a supportive space for discussion and debate across the humanities.

We were delighted to welcome as our guest contributors for this salon Amanda Brookfield (1979, English), Jonathan Hourigan (1979, PPE), and Philly Malicka (2007, English).

Amanda Brookfield (1979, English)

Amanda worked in advertising and as a journalist before becoming an author. We are delighted to welcome her back to College as Visitor in the Creative Arts. Published by Hodder & Stoughton and Penguin, she has written sixteen bestselling and critically acclaimed novels, including Alice Alone, Before I Knew You, The Love Child as well as Relative Love and its sequel The Simple Rules of Love. Her books have been optioned for film and television, and she has been published in the USA as well as widely in Europe. Her latest book, For the Love of a Dog, a memoir and her first work of non-fiction, is to be published in November 2018.

Jonathan Hourigan (1979, PPE)

Jonathan Hourigan left Oxford on a Friday afternoon in 1982 and began working as assistant to Robert Bresson on the 1983 Cannes prize-winning L’Argent on the following Monday.  He is a graduate of the National Film and Television School and a writer, director and Head of Screenwriting at the London Film School.

Philly Malicka (2007, English)

Philly Malicka left Univ in 2010 and moved to Rome, in search of more dreaming spires.  She then went to work in New Delhi to develop her career in publishing, running the Indian operation of Ingram Content Group.  She is currently a student on the Prose Fiction MA at the University of East Anglia and is working on her first novel.

Published: 10 October 2018

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