Micaela Alcaino
Student spotlight details
Micaela is an award-winning book cover designer, who decided to reignite her passion for writing through the Writing Fiction online course. Finding the course simultaneously challenging and inspiring, she has since signed up for the Advanced Creative Writing course.
'Before enrolling in the Writing Fiction course in 2024 at Oxford University, I’d spent over ten years working as a professional book cover designer in the publishing industry. My whole career has revolved around storytelling, but always through visuals rather than words. I used to write a lot when I was younger and over time I started feeling this pull to go back to it, to see if I could reconnect with something I loved doing and maybe discover something new along the way. My sister had originally done another course with Oxford Lifelong Learning and that was what led me to signing up to this course.
'What really inspired me to do this particular course was the chance to learn from experienced tutors and surround myself with people who shared the same love for stories. Right from the first week, my tutor said something that completely changed the way I looked at writing: "Don’t get it right, get it written." That simple phrase stuck with me and has shaped the way I write even now. The first draft doesn’t have to be perfect, it just needs to get written down, then you can edit.
'Each week brought new exercises that pushed me out of my comfort zone. Some weeks we wrote from different perspectives; other times we focused on narrative or character. The week on 'Great Opening Lines' was particularly fun but also tough, but it ended up being one of my favourite challenges, as it really made me think of how to construct an opening line with a good hook.
'The hardest part, honestly, was juggling the course with my job. Finding time to write after a full day of designing book covers wasn’t always easy. But in a strange way, the pressure made it even more rewarding. I surprised myself with what I could come up with when I carved out that creative space.
'One of my favourite parts was the feedback, both from the tutors and from everyone else on the course. I loved seeing the different directions people took with the same brief, and we learned a lot from sharing our thoughts and ideas with each other.
'Since finishing, I’ve been writing a lot more in my free time and have even signed up for the Advanced Creative Writing course starting this September.
'If anyone is thinking about taking a course like this, I’d encourage them to do it. You never know what it might spark creatively, and stepping outside your comfort zone is where the best growth happens.'
