Book Review Competition 2026: The Results

 

Our review blog, Everybody's Reviewing, recently passed one and a half million readers. To celebrate this milestone, the Centre for New Writing in conjunction with Everybody's Reviewing ran a Book Review Competition. Current undergraduate and postgraduate students at the University of Leicester were invited to write short reviews of any book they've recently enjoyed. You can read more about the competition here.

The judging is now complete, and below you can see the results. The judges have awarded one first prize, which is a £50 voucher, one second prize, which is a £25 voucher, and no fewer than four "honorable mentions." All of these excellent reviews will be published on Everybody's Reviewing over the next couple of weeks. 

Congratulations to everyone who entered - it was a very strong field!

First Prize 

Mellissa Flowerdew-Clarke, review of Wilder Girls, by Rory Power

Second Prize

Charlie Black, review of Homage to Catalonia, by George Orwell

Honorable Mentions

Aamani Bommareddy, review of Vicky Angel, by Jacqueline Wilson

Rim Asma Khalifa, review of And the Mountains Echoed, by Khaled Hosseini

Olivia Peachey, review of A Short Stay in Hell, by Steven L. Peck

Anupriya Sisodia, review of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Book Review Competition 2026

Recently, our popular review blog, Everybody’s Reviewing, passed one and a half million readers. To celebrate this milestone, Everybody’s Reviewing and the Centre for New Writing are running a book review competition. 

The competition is open to all current undergraduate and postgraduate students at the University of Leicester. First prize is £50 in Amazon gift vouchers. Second prize is £25 in vouchers. All entries will be considered for publication on the website. 

All you have to do is write a short book review (200-400 words) of a book you’ve read recently and enjoyed. The review should be positive overall, so choose a book you've enjoyed! The book doesn’t have to be new: it can be any work of fiction, creative non-fiction or poetry from any time, by any author. Please include a short (2-line) biography of yourself at the end of the review. 

Please send your entries (no more than one per student) to this email address: everybodysreviewing@gmail.com. You can also use the same email address for any queries you have about the competition. There is no entry fee. 

The deadline for submissions is midday on Wednesday 10 June 2026.

Competition rules are as follows:

1. Reviews should be between 200 and 400 words. All work must be in English. 
2. All entries must be submitted via email to everybodysreviewing@gmail.com.
3. All entries will be considered for publication on the Everybody's Reviewing website. 
4. Entries should not have been previously published.
5. The competition is open to all current undergraduate and postgraduate students at the University of Leicester up till the competition's final submission date.
6. Copyright remains with the author. Entrants give permission to have their work placed on the Everybody’s Reviewing website for an indefinite period.
7. Entries that do not comply with the rules will be disqualified.
8. Decisions of the judge(s) are final and no correspondence will be entered into regarding those decisions.

Good luck! We'll look forward to reading your reviews. 

The MA in Creative Writing at the University of Leicester: What You Can Expect

Our acclaimed MA in Creative Writing is open to applications here. We think it's important to be up-front about what support you and your writing will receive if you embark on the course. So here (below) we've set out as clearly as possible what you can expect from the course, whether you take it full-time or part-time. We believe passionately that Creative Writing can be taught - that it's almost entirely a learnt skill - and that all students who finish this course are, almost inevitably, better writers as a result of the intense study provided by a Master's degree. 

Please do let us know if you have any questions about the MA, by emailing jt265@le.ac.uk. 

What you can expect on the MA in Creative Writing at Leicester:

• Four taught 30-credit semester-long modules: EN 7040 Research Methods in Creative Writing, EN 7041 Styles, EN 7042 Applications, EN 7043 Substances 
• An individually-supervised Dissertation in Creative Writing, from May to September (EN 7044)
• One two-hour workshop per week (usually ten weeks) per 30-credit semester-long taught module (so you have one two-hour workshop per week if you are part-time, two two-hour workshops per week if you are full-time)
• In-depth introductions to two particular forms (e.g. poetry and prose fiction)
• In-depth introductions to two particular themes (these vary year on year, but have included subjects such as Space, Memory, Time, Climate Change, Place, Creative Reading, etc.)
• Workshops on research skills (which might include subjects like using oral histories, archival research, interdisciplinary research, etc.)
• Workshops on aspects of the professional writing world (such as publishing, performance, teaching, etc.)
• Thorough feedback on summative assignments (i.e. formal assessments)
• A supervisor for your Dissertation over Summer, who provides individual supervision and feedback on draft sections
• A personal tutor who oversees your progress, and whom you meet at least twice a semester for an individual tutorial
• Office hours or pre-arranged appointments, in which you can drop in to see tutors (either in person or electronically)
• Detailed handouts, resources and learning materials shared on Blackboard (the virtual learning environment)
• Online electronic reading lists for every module
• Continuous email support

And, on top of these formal aspects of the course, you can also normally expect additional support and resources, such as:

• On-going feedback on formative work-in-progress from peers and staff
• Guest lectures and masterclasses by authors, publishers, editors, agents from outside the university (obviously depending on budget and availability)
• Attendance at other events hosted by the Centre for New Writing, the School of Arts, Media and Communication and the annual Literary Leicester Festival 
• Voluntary attendance at any of the undergraduate lectures in Creative Writing
• Access to online resources, including the Creative Writing at Leicester University Facebook group (on which we post opportunities, jobs, events, news, articles), Everybody’s Reviewing, and the Creative Writing at Leicester blog
• Opportunities to gain experience of participating in a major literary festival (i.e. Literary Leicester)
• Performance opportunities (e.g. at Literary Leicester)
• Postgraduate Creative Writing research seminars
• Connections with professional writing and publishing networks
• Electronic forums on which you can share work with other students
• Advice on publishing, teaching, careers, etc. 
• Participation in a vibrant community of Creative Writing students, graduates, local and national authors.

Creative Writing in Space

As of September, 2026, the University of Leicester is introducing a new MA programme in Space and Society. Grounded in the arts, humanities, and social sciences, this unique interdisciplinary MA will critically examine how humans have imagined, experienced, and interacted with space across time. It will challenge students to think creatively and analytically about the cultural, political, and ethical dimensions of the new space age. The course will be taught under the aegis of the pioneering Leverhulme Centre for Humanity and Space - a ground-breaking research hub where space exploration meets the arts and humanities. 

The Centre for New Writing at the University of Leicester is involved in both the Leverhulme Centre for Humanity and Space, and the new MA in Space and Society. As part of the new programme, we will be offering an optional module called Creative Writing in Space. This exciting interdisciplinary module will be shared between the MA in Creative Writing and the MA in Space and Society, and will be available to students on both programmes. It will be taught by Dr Jonathan Taylor from Creative Writing and Dr Cheryl Hurkett from Genetic and Genome Biology. You can read more about this new module below. Email jt265@le.ac.uk if you want further information!

ABOUT EN 7923 CREATIVE WRITING IN SPACE

This module sends your Creative Writing into space, on a quest to find new worlds, new concepts, new metaphors – to boldly go where no Creative Writing module has gone before. We believe that the universe is simultaneously a scientific phenomenon and a beautiful work of art – a poem, or a (very long) story. We want you to explore cosmological concepts, the tales told by physicists, the metaphors of popular science, and to produce writing that takes on these concepts, tales, metaphors, that extrapolates futures, pasts and alien worlds from them, or that explodes them, pushing their metaphorical implications towards some kind of absurd singularity. 

On the module, you’ll write speculative fiction, scientific poetry, creative non-fiction, or maybe even just realist fiction that draws on the imagery of space in order to explore human psychology – transferring outer space to inner space, as it were. Ultimately, this is how Creative Writing can talk back to Space Studies: if, on the one hand, the module is about how Creative Writing can draw on scientific concepts, on the other, it is also about what science can learn from the very human stories told by poets, novelists, memoirists. 

No previous experience of Creative Writing is necessary to take this module. The module is shared between students on the MA in Space and Society and students on the MA in Creative Writing programmes at the University of Leicester. 

Christmas News 2025

Our last News post was back in August. You can read it here. Since then, lots has been happening in the Centre for New Writing at the University of Leicester, so here is an update on student and staff news. Congratulations and thanks to everyone who helps make this such a vibrant community of writers. It really is a very special thing to be part of. And wishing everyone a very happy Christmas and New Year!

General News

Congratulations to all the MA Creative Writing students who successfully completed their course in September - a huge achievement!

We've held various guest lectures and public workshop over the last three months. These include a visit from Mr Shay, Leicester's first ever Poet Laureate (you can read more about his role here), a masterclass by Prof Kit de Waal ("Research Tips for Writers"), and a talk by Marco Volpe from Creative Computing on "Computational Storytelling." 

In December, we held a Christmas Creative Writing Research Seminar, open to all, in which PhD students Kathy Hoyle and Beth Gaylard gave excellent talks about their research. There were also some mince pies.  

Our review blog, Everybody's Reviewing, has now had well over one million readers. Thank to you everyone - our reviewers, interviewers, authors, editors and readers - involved. This blog, Creative Writing at Leicester, has now had well over half a million readers. Again, thanks to everyone involved!

Student and Staff News

Congratulations to PhD Creative Writing student Laura Besley whose story "Like a memory, or maybe only a dream" has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and whose story "We cannot know the dreams of absent fathers" won third prize in the Leicester Writes Short Story Prize 2025! Read more here and here, respectively. Laura's story "Love (A Journey)" has been published by Fictive Dream here. Laura's story "These Days, You're Kinda Okay" is published in Literary Namjooning here. 

Congratulations to MA Creative Writing graduate Constantine on the publication of his new book of short stories, Tales of the Charnwood. You can read more here. 

The Mad Road by PhD Creative Writing graduate Laurie Cusack has been reviewed in The Letter Press Project here. Laurie drafted The Mad Road as part of his PhD at Leicester. 

Congratulations to MA Creative Writing graduate Sam Dawson, whose story "Since the Fish Started Screaming" was shortlisted for the Aurora Short Fiction Prize 2025. Read more here. Sam's story "Dolly" was also longlisted for the Leicester Writes Short Story Prize. 

Congratulations to Kit de Waal, Professor of Creative Writing, who has been appointed a Fellow of the Society of Authors. Read more here. 

New Walk Editions, which is co-edited by Honorary Fellow in Creative Writing Nick Everett, has recently published two new pamphlets: The Morlocks by Mark Ford, and  À la Carte by Sean O'Brien. Read more on the publisher's website here. 

Tracey Foster, MA Creative Writing graduate, has had three of her haiku published in Madswirl Magazine here. Tracey's haiku "Gallery" is published on the Haiku Foundation website. 

Congratulations to PhD Creative Writing student Cathy Galvin, whose poetry collection Ethnology: A Love Song to Connemara will be published by Bloodaxe in February 2026. See more here. 

Congratulations to Kathy Hoyle, PhD Creative Writing student, whose story has been shortlisted for the Hammond House 2025 Literary Prize. You can see the shortlist here. 

As part of the University's Ukrainian Culture Week, final-year Creative Writing student Oleksandra Korshunova gave two excellent and moving poetry readings in the David Wilson Library. She read from and talked about contemporary Ukrainian poetry, and finished with a poem of her own. She performed the poems in both English and Ukrainian. You can read more about the Ukrainian Culture Week here.  

Congratulations to PhD Creative Writing student Mathew Lopez-Bland, who passed his viva in November!

Karen Powell-Curtis, PhD Creative Writing graduate, has written reviews for Everybody's Reviewing of Mary Bailey's Poems of a Nottingham Lace-Runner here, and Familiar Phantoms by Sue Forrester here. 

Congratulations to PhD Creative Writing student Rob Reeves, who passed his viva in November!

Congratulations to MA Creative Writing student Mithila Dutta Roy, whose story "A Father and a Tide" has been longlisted for the World History Encyclopedia Ink of Ages Fiction Prize. Read more here.  

Congratulations to PhD Creative Writing student Jane Simmons, who passed her viva in November!

Hannah Stevens, PhD Creative Writing graduate, has had her story "A Micro-Second of Silence" published by Fictive Dream here. 

Jonathan Taylor, Associate Professor of Creative Writing, has been co-editing, with Karen Stevens, a book of essays called Creative Writing and the Critical Commentary: Reflection, Influence and Process, which will be published in 2026. His short essays "The Role of Comedy in Short Fiction" and "On Relatability" have been published, respectively, in The Subtle Art of Short Fiction, ed. Isabelle Kenyon (Fly on the Wall Press), and Antae: A Journal of Creative Writing (read it here). He has written three reviews for The Morning Star here, here and here. He has given various readings and talks, including the Christmas address to the Arnold Bennett Society.   

Congratulations to Paul Taylor-McCartney, PhD Creative Writing graduate, whose first non-fiction book, Cornwall Uncharted: Mapping Cornwall’s Queer History of Concealment, Culture and Creativity, will be published by the History Press in June 2026, to coincide with National Pride Month. You can read more about Paul's work on his website here. Paul has written a review of White Road by Harry Whitehead for Everybody's Reviewing here. 

Associate Professor of Creative Writing Harry Whitehead's novel White Road was published in September and he embarked on a book tour, taking in several book festivals and other events from Scotland to Kent. The tour continues into 2026 (see more news and reviews here).  

Lisa Williams, MA Creative Writing graduate, has a story ("Hope") in a new anthology called Pocket Full of Posies: Shadow Children, edited by Parth Sarathi Chakraborty and Rasiika Sen. Read more about the anthology here. Lisa has written reviews for Everybody's Reviewing of FantasticLand by Mike Bockoven here and The Names by Florence Knapp here.  

Lee Wright, PhD Creative Writing student, has written a review for Everybody's Reviewing of Common by Nikolai Duffy here. 

SuAndi, "Leaning Against Time"

SuAndi, photo by Julian Kronfli

SuAndi is an Honorary Creative Writing Fellow in the Centre for New Writing at the University of Leicester. She is a writer, poet and arts practitioner born and raised in Manchester. She is the recipient of an OBE, a Doctor of Arts from Manchester Metropolitan University and a Doctor of Letters degree from Lancaster University. Her awards include the Windrush Inspirational Award, Winston Churchill Fellowship, Hope & Inspiration Award for Work Supporting Black History Month, NESTA Dream Time Fellowship, Big Issue in the North Individual Inspirational Award and the MBMEN Lifetime Award. In 2023 SuAndi was the recipient, in her hometown, of the Manchester Culture Special Recognition Award. In 2024 SuAndi was named an Honorary Fellow as well as awarded the Benson Medal by the Royal Society of Literature, in recognition of "conspicuous service to literature."

About Leaning Against Time, by SuAndi

Leaning Against Time is the first substantial selection of poems by SuAndi, whose work – as performer, writer for stage and arts curator – has recently been celebrated by the award of the Benson Medal by the Royal Society of Literature, of which she is an honorary fellow, for services to literature across her career. The prize recognised her poems’ fierce, vividly powerful and dramatic depictions of women’s lives – in Manchester, the city she grew up in – and of Black communities and the lives of those whose voices are not often heard, even now, in contemporary British literature. In this selection, the rhythms of speech and performance echo off the page. Though she is as at home with the dramatic monologue as the lyric and the ballad, SuAndi’s poems defy easy categorisation and make visible on the page a remarkable trailblazing writing career.

You can read more about Leaning Against Time on the publisher's website here. Below, you can read two poems from the collection. 

From Leaning Against Time

Toast

She offered me toast with my tea
Not cake or biscuits
Maybe because of the hour of the day
Brewed the right way
Like my mother’s teapot
warmed first
Old ways seem odd today
Toast in three minutes
always golden
No aroma
to tempt the appetite
Cookers with grills
foil wrapped to save bacon fat
No bending backache with eyelevel vision
central heating modernised away what once was to no longer
It’s not the same
as when
One fork too heavy for the table
slightly bent by the heat
of a grate red hot with coals
browned fingers
often burnt toast
It made no difference
when laden with fridge rock hard butter
Smells of the old are different to the new
I sipped my tea and declined the marmalade

Ordinary Woman

I am an ordinary woman
Nothing special
Ordinary. Nothing. Nothing. Ordinary.
There is nothing to show
Nothing to tell
Ordinary. Nothing. Ordinary.
I have cut my hair, grown it
Cut it again. Permed it, straightened it, left it natural
Ordinary. Natural. Naturally ordinary.

I have raised children, alone
Born many, lost a few
Terminated one for my survival, sanity.
Paid the price. Murderer. Nothing. Ordinary.

Will you tell of me?
Remember me in history?
I am not a feminist made no stands
Nor have I been the discarded
Pleasure of a man.
I have loved and left. Loved and lost.
Ordinary. No different. Ordinary.

Yet without me there is no tomorrow:
No more generations;
Without me the world cannot last
From my loins – I have borne life,
Ordinary children

Grinded by a man, ordinary just like me.

Do not forget we who have fought battles
Lost and won wars
Worked hard in labour
Settled no scores;
You may go down in history,
We will simply die.
Ordinary. Nothing.
Ordinary in life. Ordinary in death. Ordinarily special.
This woman me, that man he
Please, never forget the ordinary people.

Harry Whitehead, "White Road"

Congratulations to Harry Whitehead, Associate Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Leicester, on the publication of his second novel, White Road!

Harry Whitehead is a novelist and director of the University of Leicester’s Centre for New Writing and its annual free lit-fest, Literary Leicester. His first novel The Cannibal Spirit (Penguin) was reviewed as "powerful, brave, ambitious" (The Globe & Mail), "a unique work, compelling, complex, thought-provoking and impressive" (Quill & Quire). White Road (Claret) is his second. He’s published short stories, reviews, essays and more in a wide variety of genres. Currently, he’s writing a novel about climate change in the Himalayas. 

About White Road, by Harry Whitehead
White Road tells the story of an oil rig that explodes in the High Arctic just as winter is setting in and the environmental disaster that follows. Carrie, a Scottish-born rescue swimmer, is lost, presumed dead, after the accident. Only she can answer the questions about what really happened, but first she must find her way back to civilisation across the polar wilderness in the Arctic night.

Below, you can read a short section from the novel. Carrie is stranded on the sea ice, with a badly injured back, following an ice ridge beside open water south. The ice is rapidly breaking up after an abrupt change in the weather. And she’s about to realise the true extent of the environmental disaster unfolding somewhere out there on the dark ocean.

From White Road
Clutching the walking poles, she leaned forward to haul the heavy sled, but her back hurt so fiercely she had to crouch down instead. She pressed her fists into her temples. Squeezed through the hood, trying somehow to reduce the agony. She needed focus. At any moment, this ice slab would break free of its mooring and she’d be marooned on a crumbling, free-floating berg on the ocean.

Crying out with each step, she slogged forward over the ice’s dancing surface. Its shivering movement, the way it dropped and rose, meant her legs hardly knew what to do. Her knees gave way at the wrong moment. Her rump slammed down on her ankles, and her back exploded in anguish. 

But now the ice ridge beside her began to come apart in earnest. Fragments showered down on her. Looking up, she saw one giant slab, big as a pick-up truck, teetering one way and the other. Desperately, she picked up her pace, adrenalin numbing the physical anguish.

A tearing clamour, snaps, a series of bangs and then a sizzling rush. The weight of the sled against her harness abruptly vanished. Over her shoulder, she saw it lifted up on a wave of smashed ice and roiling water where the ridge had come down behind her. She had time to take another step before the sled whipped her legs away and she collapsed on top of it. She careered forward amid the wave’s roar. A ball of ice two feet thick whistled past her head. The water and slush-ice gushed about her body. She was screaming. 

At last, it stopped. She lay still, arched diagonally over the sled like a sacrifice across an altar. The water’s confusion subsided. Carrie fidgeted the sled harness from her waist, dragged herself to her feet. The floe she’d just escaped was turning away like some stately liner leaving dock. A mass of smaller ice chunks still cascaded down the broken ridge-end into the frothing sea.

Her arms, her body, glimmered in subtly refracting colours. For a time, she just stared at herself in fascination. She was hallucinating. Then she understood. Where the water had washed over her, she was covered in a thin film of oil.

Summer News 2025

Our last News post was back in April. You can read it here. Since then, lots has been happening in the Centre for New Writing in the University of Leicester, so here is an update on student and staff news. Congratulations and thanks to everyone who helps make this such a vibrant place to be!

 

General News from the Centre for New Writing

Above all, we're sad to announce that Nick Everett, Associate Professor of American Literature and Creative Writing, has now taken early retirement from the University. Nick has worked at the University of Leicester for thirty-four years. He has been the cornerstone of Creative Writing, and its founder as a subject here. He introduced the original MA options in Creative Writing, undergraduate modules, and the PhD programme. His contribution to the University and to students over the years has been immeasurable. It goes without saying that he will be hugely missed by students, graduates and staff alike. He will continue as an Honorary Fellow at the University. He will also be continuing his work as co-editor of the hugely successful New Walk Editions. Thank you for everything, Nick!

Our acclaimed MA in Creative Writing is still open for late applications for October 2025. You can find information and apply here. For more detailed information, or to talk about the course, email Jonathan Taylor on jt265@le.ac.uk. 

This blog, Creative Writing at Leicester, has recently passed 450,000 readers, while our review blog, Everybody's Reviewing, has now had over 700,000 readers. Thank you to everyone - reviewers, readers, editors, authors, interviewers, interviewees - involved!

The Centre for New Writing, in conjunction with Everybody's Reviewing, recently ran its first ever student Book Review Competition. The competition was open to all undergraduate and postgraduate students in the School of Arts, Media & Communication at the University of Leicester. Congratulations to all the winning entries, from Lee Wright (1st prize), Mellissa Flowerdew-Clarke (runner-up), Iain Minney (runner-up), Wiktoria Borkowska (honourable mention), Kathy Hoyle (honourable mention), and Kimaya Patil (honourable mention). You can read more about the competition here. 

Student and Staff News

Congratulations to PhD Creative Writing student Joe Bedford, who passed his viva in June! Joe has also had a short story published in issue 3 of Ragaire Magazine, available here.  

Congratulations to PhD Creative Writing student Laura Besley, whose new collection, sum of her PARTS, has just been published by V. Press. You can read more about it here. Laura's story "The Tilting World of Lotte Janssen" won Morgen Bailey's May 50-Word Short Story Competition, and her story "Playing at Dinner for Two" won the April Competition. You can read the stories here and here. Her story, "It's All So Unexpected," won second prize in the 500 Flash Fiction competition. You can read it here. Laura was also shortlisted for the prestigious Scratch Books Short Story Competition. You can read her story, "Every Winter Solstice," here. 

Congratulations to Constantine, MA Creative Writing graduate, whose new book, Alien Boy: Wasteland (sequel to Alien Boy) has been published by Coalville CAN Community Publishing. Read more here. 

Congratulations to MA Creative Writing graduate Sam Dawson whose story "Set in Stone" was published in the inaugural issue of The Bournemouth Journal. His story "Statues" has also been published by Crow & Cross Keys. You can read it here. He originally drafted both stories during his MA. 

Congratulations to Kit de Waal, Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Leicester, on the publication of her new novel, The Best of Everything. You can read more about the novel here. Kit was Chair of Judges for The Women's Prize for Fiction 2025. There is a video of the awards here, and more information on The Women's Prize website here. She was on BBC R4 Bookclub talking about My Name is Leon - available on BBC Sounds here. Kit has also become Ambassador of the charity Bookbanks. You can find more information on the charity's website here.

New Walk Editions, which is co-edited by Nick Everett, Associate Professor of American Literature and Creative Writing, published two new pamphlets in June: D. A. Prince’s Continuous Present and Richie McCaffery’s Skail. You can see more details on New Walk Editions' website here.

Congratulations to MA Creative Writing graduate Tracey Foster, who is guest poet on Mad Swirl here. Tracey has written a review for Everybody's Reviewing of Spring Cannot Be Cancelled, by Martin Gayford, here.

Congratulations to new PhD Creative Writing student Cathy Galvin, whose poetry collection Ethnology will be published by Bloodaxe Books in 2026. You can read more here. 

Congratulations to PhD Creative Writing student Beth Gaylard, who passed her PhD viva in June!

Congratulations to PhD Creative Writing student Kathy Hoyle, whose story "A Diner Full of Nothing'" is published by FlashFood here. 

Sabyn Javeri, PhD Creative Writing graduate, gave a public talk at Newcastle City Library with the NMC (North Modern and Contemporary Network), on the personal challenges of writing, on Thursday 3rd July.

Creative Writing student Grace Klemperer won both this year's G. S. Fraser Prize (for best undergraduate poetry submission) and the John Coleman Prize (for best undergraduate non-poetry submission). Honourable mentions for the G. S. Fraser Prize were given to Mahnoor Raja and Keeley Zappia. An honourable for the John Coleman Prize was given to Sarah Moritz. Congratulations to all!

The Strange History of Samuel Pepys's Diary by Kate Loveman, Professor of Early Modern Literature and Culture, was recently published by Cambridge University Press. You can read more about it here. 

Congratulations to Creative Writing student Dave Marston, whose poem "They" is published in a new anthology Salt in the Wound, published by Underland Review. You can read more here. 

Amirah Mohiddin, PhD Creative Writing graduate, has written a review of Birdy Arbuthnot's Year of "Yes" by Joanna Nadin for Everybody's Reviewing here. 

Sally Shaw, MA Creative Writing graduate, has written a review of The Two Keisukes by Brian Howell for Everybody's Reviewing here. 

PhD Creative Writing graduate, Hannah Stevens, has been interviewed about her writing for Pukaar Magazine. You can read the article here. 

Congratulations to Karen Stevens, Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Chichester University and also our External Examiner for the MA in Creative Writing (2020-2024), whose short story collection, Brilliant Blue, has been published by Barbican Press. You can read more about it here. 

Shauna Strathmann and Anna Walsh, MA Creative Writing students, recently performed at Leicester Quaker Meeting House as part of a series of "Green Talks." The event, which took place in June, was entitled "Changeable" and involved a poetry reading and discussion about Creative Writing and the climate crisis. 

Jonathan Taylor, Associate Professor of Creative Writing, won the Arnold Bennett Prize for his book of short stories, Scablands and Other Stories, in May. The prize is awarded bi-annually by the Arnold Bennett Society to the author of a book with connections to North Staffordshire. Jonathan's memoir, A Physical Education, was also longlisted for the award. You can read more about the award here and on the Society's website here. Jonathan's article, "Arnold Bennett, Stoke and Me," is on Chainlink Magazine here. In July, Jonathan was writer in residence for the day in Trentham Library, Stoke-on-Trent, as part of a project to mark 100 years of Stoke-on-Trent as a city. You can read more about the project here. Jonathan has also written reviews for The Times Literary Supplement here and The Morning Star here. His story "Bubble Man" was published in The Morning Star, and you can read it here. 

Paul Taylor-McCartney, PhD Creative Writing graduate, has written a review of Brilliant Blue by Karen Stevens, for Everybody's Reviewing here. He also reviewed raw content by Naomi Booth here. A short fiction title, "Twelve Stories for Twelve Sections," that Paul commissioned, co-edited, published and launched as a collaboration between Hermitage Press and Cornwall National Landscape was a first place winner at the prestigious Holyer an Gof Publishers’ Awards in July. Paul has also been busy promoting his children's novel, Sisters of the Pentacle, at various bookshops and retailers around Cornwall, having completed a draft of the second book in the series.

Nina Walker, PhD student, has written a review of sum of her PARTS by Laura Besley for Everybody's Reviewing here. 

Harry Whitehead, Associate Professor of Creative Writing, recently returned from a month's artist residency with the Ladakh Arts and Media Organisation (LAMO) in Ladakh, India. He was there to research and write his next novel, about a film crew coming unstuck while shooting a tyre advert in the Himalayas. While he was in Ladakh, he also gave a series of workshops and talks about Creative Writing. Harry's new novel, White Road, will be published in September by Claret Press. He will be launching the novel at the University of Leicester on Wednesday 1 October, 5.30pm-6.30pm, in the David Wilson Library. All are welcome, and details are here. Harry also wrote a review of Syllables of the Briny World by Georgina Key for Everybody's Reviewing here. 

Harry with the LAMO team in Ladakh, India

Congratulations to MA Creative Writing graduate Lisa Williams, whose story, "Dad's Shed," was published in the new issue of Blink Ink Magazine. 

As well as winning first prize in our book review competition (see above), PhD Creative Writing student Lee Wright has written a review of On Writers and Writing by Henry James for Everybody's Reviewing here. 

Book Review Competition 2025: The Results

Recently, our popular review blog, Everybody’s Reviewing, passed half a million readers. To celebrate this milestone, Everybody’s Reviewing and the Centre for New Writing ran a book review competition. The competition was open to all undergraduate and postgraduate students in the School of Arts, Media & Communication at the University of Leicester. You can read more about it here. 

The standard of entries was very high indeed - every entry we received was professional, well-written and eminently publishable. Results of the competition are below. First prize is £100 in gift vouchers. There are also two second prizes of £25 each in vouchers, plus three "Honourable Mentions." All winning entries will be published on Everybody's Reviewing over the next week or so. Congratulations to everyone involved!

Results

1st Prize: Lee Wright, for his review of On Agoraphobia, by Graham Caveney

Runner-Up: Mellissa Flowerdew-Clarke, for her review of The Book of Guilt, by Catherine Chidgey

Runner-Up: Iain Minney, for his review of The Day of the Triffids, by John Wyndham

Honourable Mention: Wiktoria Borkowska, for her review of I Who Have Never Known Men, by Jacqueline Harpman

Honourable Mention: Kathy Hoyle, for her review of Cuddy, by Benjamin Myers

Honourable Mention: Kimaya Patil, for her review of Fourth Wing, by Rebecca Yarros

Book Review Competition 2025: Call for Entries!

Recently, our popular review blog, Everybody’s Reviewing, passed half a million readers. To celebrate this milestone, Everybody’s Reviewing and the Centre for New Writing are running a book review competition. 

The competition is open to all undergraduate and postgraduate students in the School of Arts, Media & Communication at the University of Leicester. First prize is £100 in Amazon gift vouchers. There will also be two second prizes of £25 each in vouchers. All entries will be considered for publication on the website. 

All you have to do is write a short book review (200-400 words) of a book you’ve read recently and enjoyed. The review should be positive overall. The book you choose doesn’t have to be new: it can be any work of fiction, creative non-fiction or poetry from any time, by any author. Please include a short (2-line) biography of yourself at the end of the review. 

Please send your entries (no more than one per student) to this email address: everybodysreviewing@gmail.com. You can also use the same email address for any queries you have about the competition. 

The deadline for submissions is 9am on Monday 23 June 2025. 

Literary Leicester 2025 Podcasts

 

You can now listen to podcasts of the brilliant events at Literary Leicester Festival 2025 here.

These include:

• The Creative Writing Student Showcase 2025 here. Speakers included Sonya Hundal, Anna Walsh, Joe Bedford, Aidan Trulove, Laura Besley, Olivia Peachey, Kimaya Patil, Cate Morris, Shauna Strathmann, Daneil Hibberd, Nina Walker, Aarini Mehta, Sandra Shaji, Dave Clarke. 
• The "Bullying, School and Power" event, with Morag Edwards, James Scudamore and Jonathan Taylor, here. 
• The "Voices from the Other Side of Hope" event here. 
• Kit de Waal on The Best of Everything here. 
• "The Air We Breathe: How to Write about Our Air and Our Future" event here. 

And there are many others!

Kit de Waal, "The Best of Everything"

Congratulations to Kit de Waal, Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Leicester, whose new novel, The Best of Everything, has just been published!

Kit de Waal, born to an Irish mother and Caribbean father, was brought up among the Irish community of Birmingham in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Her debut novel My Name Is Leon was an international bestseller, shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award, longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize and won the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award for 2017. In 2022 it was adapted for television by the BBC. It is now on the GCSE curriculum for schools. Her second novel, The Trick to Time, was longlisted for the Women's Prize and her young adult novel Becoming Dinah was shortlisted for the Carnegie CLIP Award 2020. A collection of short stories, Supporting Cast, was published in 2020. An anthology of working-class memoir, Common People, was crowdfunded and edited by Kit in 2019. Her memoir Without Warning and Only Sometimes was published in August 2022. Kit founded her own TV production company, Portopia Productions, and the Big Book Weekend, a free digital literary festival in 2020 and has written for theatre and television. She was named the FutureBook Person of the Year 2019 and is patron of Prisoners Abroad, The Bridport Prize and Writing West Midlands. She is also an ambassador for Wellbeing in the Arts and the Listening Books, on the Advisory Board of Dead Ink Books and a trustee of The Reading Agency. Kit is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and Professor and Jean Humphreys Writer in Residence at Leicester University. Her new novel The Best of Everything was released in April 2025.

About The Best of Everything, by Kit de Waal

She's the last person who would call herself a heroine. But she's given him a whole new reason to live.

Paulette's the kind of woman who likes the future all mapped out: the wedding to Denton, the Caribbean honeymoon, the gingham quilt on the baby's crib. Until one morning Garfield, Denton's friend, arrives at her door with news she just can't take in: that Denton won't be coming around anymore, that there won't be time for her to say goodbye. 

Somehow Garfield finds his way into her bed, if not her heart, and sooner than anyone can believe there is a baby, and suddenly giving Bird, her son, the best of everything is what gives Paulette's life meaning.

So why is it another little boy, Nellie, who keeps Paulette awake at night? Nellie who is being raised a few streets away with no sign of a mum, with a grandfather who is obviously struggling. Surely Paulette is the last person who should be getting tangled up in any of that? The Best of Everything is a novel about what it means to care, to learn to live in the aftermath of loss, and the love that can steal into our lives - in spite of the best laid plans.

You can read more about The Best of Everything on the publisher's website here. Below, you can read an excerpt from the opening of the novel. 

From The Best of Everything

Midnight.

Paulette is still awake. A thin, freezing wind slips through an inch of open window and makes the curtains dance. When the room is cool, Denton sleeps heavy and won’t feel the weight of her head on his chest or the leg she drapes over his, running the sole of her foot from his knee to his ankle. She pulls one of his arms around her shoulders like a fur stole and nestles in. Skin on skin. The smell of Denton is pure man – sweat, soap and sex.

Bonfire Night come Saturday. Paulette’s going to ask Denton if they can go to the big display in town and watch the rockets and Catherine wheels making patterns in the sky. They could eat candyfloss and toffee apples and mingle with the crowd. He could wear the good leather driving gloves she got him last week. The thing is, Denton never likes to make plans too far in advance, says he doesn’t know his shifts and he doesn’t like to let her down at the last minute. There again, Saturday is only three days away, so Paulette is hoping. She feels a warm slick of sweat run off her breast and, suddenly, she’s too hot. She doesn’t sleep so good when Denton stays over because the man takes up more than his own half of the bed, and anyway, she likes to make the most of their time together.

She slips from under the blankets and shucks on her dressing gown, the one he bought her for her birthday, the one he didn’t even get a chance to wrap so she saw the price tag. Paulette had to pretend she didn’t notice because the thing wasn’t that expensive, but she had to remember they were saving, saving, saving. A house one day. Semi-detached, car on the drive, flowers in the front garden on a nice quiet road, grass on the verge and street lights that worked. That’s the plan. They’re a year and a half into it with a couple more to go. Before long, she’ll have everything she wants. Patience, Paulette.

Sophie Haydock, "Madame Matisse"

Sophie Haydock is an author, editor and journalist based in Folkestone, Kent. She is also curator of Folkestone Book Festival. Her debut novel, The Flames, was published in 2022. Her second novel, Madame Matisse, about the women who were integral to the life of the French artist Henri Matisse, was published by Doubleday in March 2025.

Sophie will be giving a guest talk, "Madame Matisse: The Women Who Made the Artist," at the University of Leicester on Wednesday 30 April 2025 at 5.30pm. With Harry Whitehead, she will be discussing the women who shaped the life of the artist Henri Matisse, and the process of turning history into fiction. You can see more details about the event and book a place here. 

About Madame Matisse, by Sophie Haydock
Madame Matisse is an fictionalised exploration of the women who played pivotal yet often overlooked roles in the life of the iconic artist Henri Matisse. Through the lives of three extraordinary women, Sophie Haydock paints an emotional portrait of art, love and sacrifice.

At the heart of the story is Amélie, Matisse's wife, whose quiet devotion to her husband's genius leaves her own dreams to wither in the shadows. Her unwavering support is the foundation of Matisse’s career, but it comes at a steep personal cost.

Then there is Lydia Delectorskaya, the dazzling Russian émigrée who becomes Matisse’s muse and confidante. With her fierce independence and enigmatic past, Lydia’s relationship with Matisse is as passionate as it is fraught, as she grapples with her own identity and her complex role in his creative world. 

When his wife, after forty years of marriage, delivers a desperate ultimatum, a question is born: who will Matisse choose? And what explosions lie ahead?

Finally, Marguerite, Matisse's daughter, emerges as a voice of resistance, forging her own path and confronting the turbulent undercurrents of her family dynamic. As she struggles to define herself outside her father’s shadow, Marguerite challenges the boundaries of art, family and love.

Set against the vibrant canvas of 1930s France, Madame Matisse is a tale of ambition, betrayal and the indelible impact these women had on Matisse’s artistic legacy. Their stories of resilience and sacrifice offer a powerful reflection on the often-unseen forces behind the creation of greatness.

You can read more about Madame Matisse here. Below, you can read an excerpt from the novel. 

From Madame Matisse
Make no mistake: Lydia doesn’t care for beauty, certainly doesn’t chase after it as currency, though she understands the privileges it affords her, as a woman about to turn twenty-nine, with pale skin, ice-blonde hair and blue eyes. She has caught the eyes of enough men in her time, usually the wrong kind. But Lydia knows such beauty is not a thing to build a life upon; it will not last for more than a handful of years, nor would she want it to.

She’s sitting alone in the dark with the cool instrument clasped to her breast, lost in a meditative daze, when she hears Monsieur Matisse calling for her. There’s a shift in his tone.

Lydia returns the gun to her father’s briefcase and checks the clasps are locked securely, pushing her thumbs up against them to test for weaknesses, to see if Amélie’s meddling has inflicted permanent damage. Then she conceals the case once more, hidden until the time comes.

Once it is safely put away, she passes from her room, down the stairs, to the studio where Monsieur Matisse spends his days. Birds call from their cages, wings darting. The artist has his back to her as he tops up their seed. She notices the slope of his shoulders, pulling at the centre of his taupe jacket, the material tight between his shoulder blades. He feels her eyes on him and turns expectantly. Her gaze roams to the fireplace. She looks at a pair of pressed violets, long past their best, their colours faded after many years trapped behind a pane of glass.

"There you are, Lydia. It’s not like you to keep me waiting," he says gently.

There’s a seriousness to his features, and Lydia knows something has changed.

"Your wife was looking for you. Did she find you?" she asks.

He nods, and gestures that she take a seat.

He inhales. Pauses. Her body tenses as she waits for him to continue, her heart pounding. She waits for the words she knows are coming.

"I’m afraid my wife has given me an ultimatum," he says slowly.