uea creative writing faculty

• School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing
• University of East Anglia
• Faculty of Arts and Humanities
• Website https://www.uea.ac.uk/web/about/school-of-literature-drama-and-creative-writing/research
• Postal address

Organisation profile

Our intellectual character is formed through a unique conjunction of literary criticism, creative writing and literary translation.

We are renowned for our interdisciplinary research and have also established research interests across most periods of English writing, including modern and contemporary writing, medieval and early modern literature, and the long-nineteenth century.

Our reputation in critical and creative writing is based on award-winning works of fiction, poetry and drama, as well as innovative writing across the creative-critical border, such as works of creative non-fiction.

Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years

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Ciara Aaron

Person: Degree of Doctor of Philosophy

Sola Adeyemi

• School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing - Lecturer in Drama

Person: Academic, Teaching & Research

Jill Ainscough

Person: Degree of Master of Arts by Research

• 1 Not started
• 176 Finished

Projects per year

Italian-English workshop at the 2024 online BCLT Summer School

Goode, A. & Large, D.

Pro Helvetia

1/01/24 → 30/11/24

Project : Training

Creating a culture of inclusion: Increasing Diversity and Equity of Access - Creating a culture of inclusion: Increasing Diversity and Equity of Access - IDEA

Reid, B. , Clark, A. , Cornish, C. , Deane, K. , Duvendack, M. , Hodgekins, J. , Horwood, N. , Mondal, A. , O'Connell, M. & Semlyen, J.

Wellcome Trust

1/01/24 → 31/12/25

Project : Research

LTI Korea - Summer School 2024

Literature Translation Institute of Korea

1/01/24 → 31/10/24

Research output

• 723 Article
• 481 Chapter
• 164 Chapter (peer-reviewed)
• 81 Book/Film/Article review
• 72 Performance
• 58 Other contribution
• 37 Entry for encyclopedia/dictionary
• 25 Special issue
• 21 Editorial
• 18 Other chapter contribution
• 9 Comment/debate
• 8 Literature review
• 7 Digital or Visual Products
• 6 Review article
• 6 Exhibition
• 5 Anthology
• 5 Featured article
• 5 Working paper
• 4 Web publication/site
• 3 Conference contribution
• 2 Scholarly edition
• 2 Foreword/postscript
• 2 Conference article
• 1 Exhibition Catalogue
• 1 Other report

Research output per year

1939: Before Darkness Fell

Research output : Contribution to specialist publication › Article

Crash and Burn: Sunjeev Sahota, The Spoiled Heart

Research output : Contribution to specialist publication › Book/Film/Article review

Essayistic Personae and Personhood

Research output : Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter (peer-reviewed) › peer-review

Arts Council Developing Your Creative Practice Grant

Robinson, S. (Recipient), 1 Sep 2021

Prize : Prize (including medals and awards)

Awarded an honorary prize of £5000 in December 2007 by the Freedom of Expression Foundation, Oslo, for work on Norwegian literature and language.

Garton, Janet (Recipient), 2007

BBC Audio Drama Awards 2023

Waters, Steve (Recipient), 19 Mar 2023

Prize : National/international honour

• 100 Participation in conference
• 86 Public lecture/debate/seminar
• 58 Festival/Exhibition/Performance
• 39 Publication editorial role
• 29 Participation in workshop or seminar
• 27 Examination
• 27 N​etwork, W​o​r​k​i​n​g G​r​o​u​p or Professional Association
• 26 Invited talk
• 24 Publication peer-review
• 19 Committee
• 16 P​e​e​r ​r​e​v​i​e​w ​p​a​n​e​l
• 13 Visiting an external academic institution
• 7 Schools engagement
• 7 Social or cultural organisation
• 3 Workshop with external stakeholders/organisations
• 3 Public/government panel or group
• 3 Research and teaching at external organisation
• 1 Internal CPD provision or delivery of course
• 1 E​x​t​e​r​n​a​l ​r​e​s​e​a​r​c​h ​o​r​g​a​n​i​s​a​t​i​o​n
• 1 Industry panel or group
• 1 Visiting Appointment

Activities per year

A Caso dos Poetas

Andrea Holland (Presenter)

Activity : Other activity types › Other

Queer and Feminist Perspectives on Japanese Popular Cultures Symposium

Sarah Jessica Darley (Speaker), Aurélie Petit (Organiser), Megan Catherine Rose (Organiser) & Edmond Ernest dit Alban (Organiser)

Activity : Participating in or organising an event › Participation in conference

The Ethics of Translation

Cecilia Rossi (Speaker)

Activity : Participating in or organising an event › Participation in workshop or seminar

Press/Media

Uea academics receive freedom of the city of london for impactful work.

Darrell Green & Claire Jowitt

1 Media contribution

Press/Media : Press / Media

London Book Fair 2024: How Will AI Change Life for Literary Translators?

Duncan Large

1 item of Media coverage

‘Another door that’s opened’: The Future of Creative Writing in the Age of Technology in UEA Live’s ‘Future and Form’

Written exclusively for UEA Live, by UEA LDC student Katy Mack

Posted on 28 April 2021

The arrival of spring and the clocks changing typically announce a time of year when our thoughts turn to the question of what lies ahead. But this year you would be forgiven for feeling that the future is a slightly murky concept. The future has become increasingly difficult to grasp ­­ — there is a collective sense that our futures are looming large over our heads, sitting at some far-off point in the distance , with our present so strangely stationary. Yet in this present, certain truths have come to light. Both the use of technology and the sale of physical books — once thought to be relegated to the realm of the kindle — have soared. Which is why, from this peculiar and turbulent vantage point we all find ourselves in, ‘Future and Form’ resonates with the current suspension in which we live. Semi-frozen in the present, looking to the past, with a future both unknown and nearly-tangible — sat just beyond on our reach.

The project, supported by Arts Council England, part of UEA Live’s celebration of 50 years of its Creative Writing programme, looks ahead to the next 50 years and asks what the future has in store for literature in the digital age. In response to this question, 6 writers: Ayòbámi Adébáyò, Mona Arshi, Tash Aw, Imogen Hermes Gowar, Mitch Johnson, and James McDermott—all UEA Creative Writing alumni—have been tasked with the challenge to create a series of innovative and interactive works which explore the interface between writing and technology. Each writer has been paired up with creative digital technologists, members of the UEA faculty, as well as cultural and educational organisations across East Anglia, including Norwich Theatre, Norfolk Wildlife Trust and the National Centre for Writing. While most of these projects are still in process—the hope being that many of them will be showcased as part of the Norfolk and Norwich Festival in May—this event was a teaser, giving audiences a sense of how the finished products might look, and sound, in the forthcoming months.

‘Provenance’: Ayòbámi Adébáyò and Mutiny. Photo © Jean McNeil

In considering the prospect of the future, it is striking that many of the writers in ‘Future and Form’ have also turned their focus back into the past. As if the act of looking forwards is inextricably bound up with the urge to look backwards. The projects described by novelists Ayòbámi Adébáyò and Imogen Hermes Gowar are both preoccupied with this backward glance. Adébáyò’s work ‘Provenance’ centres around a sacred object, known as Ibeji amongst the Yoruba of southwest Nigeria. Her piece provides an alternative provenance for the object, challenging what audiences might typically see detailed on a museum caption. This work follows the more intimate story of a family’s history, moving from Nigeria in the 1800s to present-day Norwich. Each section of the work will be narrated on a triptych of screens, with an actor present too. The overarching story of history, Adébáyò’s work seems to intriguingly imply, is punctuated with gaps. History is as much about the stories it neglects to tell as those it does. Her work seeks to expose these counter-narratives, which have been pushed down beneath the surface.

‘Eleanor’: Imogen Hermes Gowar and Mutiny

In Gowar’s offering, too, the past bubbles up through the surface of the present day. ‘Eleanor’, written in collaboration with the Norwich Castle Museum, is a story which has been exhumed from the very bones of the body of Lady Eleanor Talbot. The project is, in part, a response to the human remains recently acquired by the museum and believed to be those of Lady Talbot — whose story history has overlooked. She was the daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury and was alleged to have had a secret marriage to King Edward IV. If this had been the case, then our understanding of the course of history would be dramatically shaken. This question — who this forgotten woman was —   is central to Gower’s project. Audiences will be invited to follow a guided immersive journey around Norwich, played through a mobile device, which incorporates elements of audio and sound where Eleanor tells different versions of her story. In both Gowar’s and Adébáyò’s works, digital technology has been harnessed to resurrect these fictionalised narratives. It has enabled each writer to present the multiple and various ‘fighting truths’, as Gowar puts it, of these buried and neglected lives. Such multiplicity would be difficult to recreate on the page, and Gowar talks engagingly about how the process has illuminated the restriction of the writer’s codex notebook. Both of these works speak with a haunting beauty to the strange multiplicity of the present moment. The way in which the future sits alongside the past and the present, all seeming to co-exist simultaneously within the same four walls which so many of us have been confined to.

‘The Living Book’: Mitch Johnson and Guildhall Live Events

Yet alongside the innovation and promise of these works, there is also a palpable anxiety surrounding the future. In children’s author Mitch Johnson’s youth-focused piece ‘The Living Book’, school children were asked to envisage what the world might look like in the future. They were given two choices: to look forward to the future as an age of great potential and green regeneration, or — in a slightly more foreboding vein — as a time of ruin and destruction at the hands of climate change. While the idea of our futures signposted between the path of hope and that of despair may appear stark, even bleak, to some, this starkness is nonetheless entirely appropriate to the discussions we are currently having as to what a post-Covid world might look like.

‘Senseless’: James McDermott and Guildhall Live Events

Similarly, poet and playwright James McDermott’s play ‘Senseless’ explores the frightening prospect of a global emergency which, in an eerie twist of fate, seems to echo our current circumstances. The play imagines a world where a digital virus has taken hold, stopping people from being able to communicate or express themselves. The challenge this project poses to the playwright is not lost on McDermott. He speaks of the difficultly of writing a play for the digital sphere, set in an imagined age where people cannot be in contact, and yet also performed in the midst of a time where audiences are not physically able to come together in the space of the theatre — one can’t help but wonder how these competing strands play out in the final piece.

‘Shifting Lines’: Mona Arshi and Mutiny

The precarious nature of the future, then, is an issue which comes up again and again in these works. This is particularly the case in poet Mona Arshi’s work ‘Shifting Lines’. Her project is situated in the landscape of the wildlife sanctuary at Cley in North Norfolk. Arshi speaks of this transforming and eroding scenery as having a ‘fragility’, yet this fragility is also counterbalanced by the resilience of the species which have survived there. The encounter between the fragile and the resilient seems to have also been absorbed into the interplay between the lyric poem—also described by Arshi as ‘fragile’—and the technology used to capture the sounds of the landscape. Arshi speaks of being alert to the potential ways in which the poem sits within and alongside the technical aspects of the project, without subsequently being overwhelmed by it. The result is a series of soundscapes which explore the delicate balance of these relationships. We were given a preview of this installation, the audience are able to hear fragments of Arshi’s poems read over a series of sounds which, to my ear, shifted between the sounds of the natural world — footsteps across shingle, water bubbling, and those of the artificial — the crackling of an old TV set. Part of the piece’s power came from the way in which these natural and artificial sounds complemented and, at times, jarred with the poems. The poems themselves are artfully poised within these conflicting tensions, adapting and changing in a ‘creaturely’ manner, as Arshi articulated it, in the space between.

Ultimately, many of these works seemed to muse on what it means to be human, in a natural and digital world which is rapidly changing, expanding, and eroding. This idea of change provided the closing note in the evening’s proceedings. Change is on the horizon for all of us and change — for these writers — means adaption. While technology, unquestionably, provides exciting freedoms and innovations for all the writers on the panel — another tool in the writer’s armoury, there is also something of enduring importance, as McDermott reminds us, about sitting in a dark theatre amongst strangers, with our phones switched off.

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Spotlight: Faculty Board Member Rachel Cohen

Connecting human rights and creative writing..

• Cohen’s writing traces connections between artistic life and politics.
• She started working with the Pozen Center in 2016, helping UChicago community members share “migration stories.” Today she shares tips on the writing process with Pozen students preparing for fieldwork.
• Her first book, published in 1994, was just reissued by the venerable New York Review Books press, and is the subject of an Author’s Guild online seminar series running through December.

Pozen Faculty Board member Rachel Cohen has long been interested in the interplay between artistic life and politics. Her first book, A Chance Meeting , first published in 1994 and reissued this year by the venerable New York Review Books press, examines American thought from the Civil War to Vietnam through the lens of transformative encounters between writers, artists, and thinkers grappling with the central questions and struggles of their eras, from race to war. As the book’s narrative unspools, it shows how the unpredictable collisions of daily life – professional interactions, artistic striving, political arguments – affect the development of ideas and become the stuff of history. 

It is fitting, then, that Cohen’s involvement with the Pozen Center came about when her own practice as a writer intersected with developments in American political life. “After the presidential election of 2016, it seemed that contemporary migrants were in a particularly vulnerable situation,” she recalls. “I wanted to do something that helped remind people that we all have our migration stories, whether in our immediate histories or in our family histories. Migration is an almost universal part of the human experience, but we easily forget that.” 

Along with colleagues in the creative writing department, where she is Professor of Practice, Cohen created “Migration Stories,” a project designed to help people in the UChicago and South Side communities tell and circulate stories of how their families had come to the city from somewhere else, whether recently or in the distant past. Soon there were Migration Story readings happening around Hyde Park; eventually, multiple chapbooks and an anthology were published. Cohen and her colleagues also designed new courses around the writing of migration and developed an undergraduate research cluster on the topic.

Helping to organize these projects brought Cohen into contact with members of the Pozen Center community who apply the human rights lens to immigration issues. In 2019 she read excerpts from the Migration Stories anthology at a Pozen Center event celebrating the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights . In 2021 she joined the Faculty Board, hoping to strengthen connections between UChicago’s creative writing and human rights communities. 

STRESSING THE VALUE OF PROCESS

Cohen’s essays and books – including a biography of the art connoisseur Bernard Berenson , and a memoir of her experiences reading Jane Austen – have been published by the most prestigious magazines, journals, and publishing houses around. But she sees these publications as just one part of her work as a writer. 

“I’m just as interested in the process as the formal final product,” Cohen says. The proof is available to anyone with an Internet connection. In “notebooks” that Cohen posts on Instagram and other online channels, she documents her writerly engagement with her preoccupations, working through thoughts in a space that’s different – ”a little less hard-edged, a little more homemade,” she says – than, say, the pages of The New Yorker .

This year Cohen will visit the Pozen Center’s new Human Rights Fieldwork course and share with students how keeping a journal during fieldwork can help organize and clarify their thinking; a well-kept journal, she explains, creates an invaluable resource for students when they return from the field and sit down to write more formally about what they learned.

LOOKING AHEAD

During the early months of the Covid pandemic, with many museums closed, Cohen started focusing her critical eye on public art in Chicago, eventually writing a piece for Travel and Leisure about murals and other public artworks on the South Side . Doing this research brought her into contact with the Prison + Neighborhood Arts/Education Project (PNAP), a program that connects artists and scholars with incarcerated students at Stateville Maximum Security Prison; in recent years, incarcerated PNAP students designed murals that outside collaborators – including Cohen – helped paint on walls across the South Side.

Cohen hopes experiences like these will inform her next steps as a Pozen Faculty Board member looking to help students make connections, like those she herself makes in A Chance Meeting , between questions of politics and history and the creative arts. “Creative works are part of how ideas, including ideas about human rights, make their way in the world,” she says. “They also help us look back and make sense of those journeys over time. That’s why I’m so excited to be working with the Pozen Center. It’s a place on campus where those journeys get taken seriously.” 

From May to December of 2024 The Author’s Guild is hosting a monthly series of online talks  inspired by the reissue of A Chance Meeting . The first and the last will be by Cohen, speaking on the general themes in her book book; the six in between will be by prominent writers and critics, each focusing on one of its featured literary figures, and accompanied by a written reflection by Cohen, delivered to attendees by email.

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May 3 workshop to explore ‘cultures of restitution’, spotlight: tom ginsburg, spotlight: mark philip bradley, pedro gerson to chart future of human rights practice at pozen center, chiara galli and william schultz join pozen faculty board.

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CreativeUEA builds on UEA's longstanding history of creativity and innovation - across the arts, sciences, social sciences and enterprise - to explore new areas of interdisciplinary research, learning, action and outreach.

The theme brings together the full spectrum of the University’s creative activities to offer transformative approaches to pressing local and global challenges, drive cultural policy, generate economic growth and reach new audiences.

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