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Working with Words is UEA’s annual celebration of careers that have writing and creativity at their heart. This year's Working with Words remains, for the moment, an online even, taking place in April and May.
Alongside the pre-recorded interviews, blogs, and podcasts archived from the 2020 event, 2021 will see fresh recordings with practitioners across the creative industries, and panel discussions and live Q&As between 3 and 7 May.
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Dolly Carter, a second year student reading BA English Literature and Creative Writing, shares her experience of attending - and working on - Working With Words.
As a student participant, I found last year’s events and resources to be invaluable. The panels gave an insight into the day-to-day lives of industry professionals, attaching a personality to job roles and helping in making these career paths both accessible and approachable. The variety of participants meant that a diverse range of roles were covered, encouraging me to think about the more unconventional paths within industries such as marketing and journalism which I had not previously considered.
Having been rather unsure of my career path, I used WWW as an exploratory exercise – a ‘dip your toes in’ if you will. Mixing and matching different resources and exploring them at my own pace, alongside putting names to faces within different industries, helped me to decide upon the career path I thought would work best for me. Finding the journalism panel particularly inspiring and using LinkedIn to expand my network while carrying out further research, I now aspire to pursue a career in journalism and haven’t looked back since.
"Having been rather unsure of my career path, I used WWW as an exploratory exercise – a ‘dip your toes in’ if you will"
As this year’s Working with Words Intern, I am very excited to help in delivering a brand new set of panels, blogs, and resources. Although a tricky time for students embarking on their career paths, I believe WWW can go a long way in helping to ease any qualms. Whether using the event as I did, as an exploratory exercise, or using it to further your plans in terms of specific roles and networking, this is a valuable (and rare) opportunity to work on your development in the midst of the pandemic.
So, as someone whose whole career was determined on the basis of last year’s event, if you are considering a career which involves writing and creativity, I would strongly encourage you to take advantage of the 2021 Working with Words - you never know where it may lead you.