Bath Spa and Beyond! O. R. Sorrel Q&A

O.R. Sorrel accepted their place on the MA in 2020 when, fittingly, the world ended, and everything was interrupted by Covid. But they survived, writing their debut novel Apocalypse Cow and graduating with a distinction. They’ve since won the United Agents New Writing Prize and the Guppy Books Open Submission Competition. Their debut novel Apocalypse Cow has recently been shortlisted for the YA Book Prize.

What brought you to Bath Spa?

My mum, Lu Hersey, did the MA in one of its early years, which is how she came to publish her first book, Deep Water. She never stopped telling me I should do it after my undergrad in Creative Writing (also at Bath Spa) so after a brief detour into living in Canada I did as I was told.

What story did you include in the anthology?

My anthology piece was the opening to Apocalypse Cow to Apocalypse Cow. I'd actually spent the majority of the first year writing a terrible semi-autobiographical novel which my classmates were very polite about, but then I got really stuck with the story and wrote nothing over the winter break, so I decided to write a dumb short story about exploding hedgehogs and horny lesbians to get my flow back. I took the short story in to be workshopped and everyone in the class said I should turn it into a novel and write that instead. They were right, of course!

What was the best piece of advice you received during your time on the MA?

There was so much good advice on the MA, but I'd have to say entering competitions was the best piece I actually followed. There's a huge oversaturation in the book realm so without something to make you stand out, it's almost impossible to break through. It wasn't advice so much as the structure of the course, but also writing workshops are invaluable. I found my little crowd of writers on the MA and we still meet to this day and ask, "Is this crap?"

Did you write anything on the course that you would like to return to one day?

The thing I spent most of my first year writing was absolute dogshite and should never see the light of day, so definitely not that. But I did write something on the undergrad ten years ago that may one day bloom...

Apocalypse Cow is published by Guppy Books. See the shortlist for the YA book prize here