Welcome post

Dear Reader,

Hello, and a very warm welcome to the blog of The Russet Collective — we are so pleased to have you here. This will be an interactive space for all things literature, language, and learning, covering a broad range of topics that will be relevant and engaging for students of all ages and academic levels. We invite readers to participate in discussions and give their opinions in the comments at the bottom of each post, prompted by the questions asked and the arguments posed. It is always interesting to see different reactions and interpretations.

As it only seems right to begin with a short introduction to your blog host, I will start with a little background information on me, and will then go on to explain the form and structure the blog shall take.

My name is Leah, and I graduated with a bachelor's degree from the University of Oxford in 2024, studying French and Spanish at St Edmund Hall, with additional modules in Catalan Literature and French Linguistics. I have been tutoring now for more than seven years, and am very passionate about encouraging students to develop independent thinking — and more specifically their attitudes towards, and analysis of, literature of all forms and styles.

As well as running sessions as a tutor for The Russet Collective, I thought it might be rather enjoyable — for me as much as for the reader — to engage with literature and current affairs in the literary world that sit outside the syllabus exam texts. Set texts can often lead to disengagement: it is only natural that when you are forced to read specific books, disinterest or procrastination start to culminate. Instead, I intend for the blog to motivate students to pick up a book and read for fun.

Not only will we delve into the works of English-language authors — that is, those who choose to write in English whether it is their native language or not — but also translated fiction and non-fiction, and literature originally written in French and Spanish. All quotations will have both the original and the translation, and I will add links to interesting articles and further reading should you wish to explore what we are discussing in more depth.

The structure: four posts a month, one a week

Weeks 1 and 3

We will cover the life and works of different poets, condensed into fortnightly posts in the first and third week of the month. Week 1 will examine biographical details of significance in the poet's life, the historical and geopolitical context of the time of writing, and the literary influences that motivated or inspired their poetry. The second will delve deep into the analysis of one particular poem, in response to a question or statement posed at the beginning of the article. This will be alternated with posts on theatre and playwrights every other month.

Week 2

The second week of the month will be a dedicated miscellaneous post: revision strategies; tips and advice for Oxbridge mock interviews; reading lists of secondary literary criticism; whatever our readers are requesting. One week it may be translation theory, and the next exam technique. Our aim is to cover an array of issues and subjects that we hope students will find not only useful but also interesting.

Week 4 — Book Club

Finally, the last week of the month will be for The Russet Collective's Book Club, which will explore and address the principal themes and ideas conveyed in our chosen novel, as well as popular or particularly noteworthy academic perspectives. The idea is that readers will be able to vote in a poll for the following month's book, and that any questions or comments can be submitted a week in advance of that month's post, so that we have sufficient time to curate an article which responds directly to the curiosities and interests of our readers.

TRC Book Club is dedicated to reading and reviewing novels of all genres, styles and lengths — though they will be mostly post-1800s, and more often than not classics — and we welcome specific recommendations of your favourite books for our monthly read. Our first novel shall be the very celebrated To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, which will be uploaded in the final week of September. We will be looking specifically at sources of division and conflict within the novel, so do keep that in mind when reading, or rereading, the text.

A note on the bibliography

There will be a bibliography at the bottom of every post detailing all the secondary literature and resources quoted. If you find any of the topics discussed particularly interesting, I do urge you to do some further reading of your own, and to dig a little deeper into different perspectives and interpretations of the subject.

We cannot wait to create a diverse blog focused on literature that encourages active participation from our readers.

Until next time,

Leah