This week at HCX, we were lucky enough to get to talk to the fabulously talented Flora Carr, an aspiring writer who has already taken the journalism world by storm. As Exepose’s Features Editor and winner of several global press competitions, Flora has already proved that she is one to watch. Stylish, intelligent and creative; there is no doubt that we will be seeing Flora’s name in national papers and magazines up and down the country in the years to come.
Did you always know that you wanted to be a writer?
I always thought I’d end up going into academia or creative writing – whilst at school I was part of the Writing Squad, a mentor and workshop scheme for young Northern writers. However, when I joined Exeposé in first year I found myself writing more and more articles, particularly features.
And now you’re the Features Editor! What is that like?
Being the Features Editor was always my ambition, and in an ideal world I’ll keep on writing and editing features for my career.
Well we think you’re a fab features editor! Now we’ve also heard that you’ve won a few big writing competitions. Tell us a bit more about them.
I’ve won a couple of travel writing competitions as well as Vogue Talent Contest 2015 and ELLE Talent Contest 2014. Winning Vogue Talent was incredible, not least because part of the prize was a month long internship at the magazine headquarters in London. The competition required you to write two articles and submit pitches to Vogue. The article published in the October issue was on Trinidadian culture (I stayed with one of my best friends in Trinidad a couple of summers ago).
Wow that sounds incredible! We are particularly jealous of you getting to work at Vogue, you must have met some incredible people and writers! Who would you say is your journalism muse?
My journalism muse is Gay Talese. He combined elegant literary prose with the then more conventional journalistic style. ‘Frank Sinatra Has a Cold’ has to be my favourite article by him.
Now we know you’ve written many fantastic articles, but if you had to pick, which would you say was your personal favourite to write?
Of the articles I’ve written, some of my favourite pieces have been investigations for the paper, including one on the lack of female ECU presidents in Redbrick universities and one on elitism in Exeter.
Well they all sound very impressive to us! Lastly we were wondering if you had any advice for aspiring writers out there?
I don’t feel I can give much advice to “aspiring writers” because I too am an aspiring writer – this industry is so tough, you just have to keep plugging on. Just find what you’re good at and do it.