Christmas News from Creative Writing at Leicester

A lot has been happening during the Autumn term, since our last news post (which you can read here), and we thought the run-up to Christmas might be a good time for an update of student and staff news. There have been some great public events, guest lectures and masterclasses over the last few weeks. You can see a list here. We'll be running more events next term, and this will include our annual Creative Writing Student Showcase as part of Literary Leicester Festival 2024 - details to follow. In the meantime, here's this term's news from the Centre for New Writing ...  

News

Congratulations to University of Leicester students and graduates Joe Bedford, Tracey Foster, Bridie Granger, Georgia Sanderson (winner of the inaugural Belvoir Poetry Prize) and Lisa Williams, all of whom have been published in the new issue of the Leicester Literary Review. Micro-reviews from Everybody's Reviewing are also featured in the magazine. 

PhD Creative Writing student Joe Bedford has continued his excellent series of interviews with authors, "Writers on Research," interviewing Victoria Richards here. 

Laura Besley, MA Creative Writing graduate, has interviewed Roppotucha Greenberg for Everybody's Reviewing. You can read the interview here. Laura's micro-story, "A Real Dog," is in the new issue of Streetcake Magazine here. Her story "Fragments" is published by Fictive Dream here. Her story "Against the Grain" was shortlisted for the 2023 Subbub Prize for flash fiction. Laura has also been awarded a grant by the Arts Council's DYCP scheme, to write a collection of short stories. 

Congratulations to MA Creative Writing graduate Constantine, who has just published his book of short stories, And Things Begin to Change ... & Other Stories. You can see more about it here. We'll be featuring the book on Creative Writing at Leicester next week. 

Congratulations to MA Creative Writing graduate Isobel Copley who has won third prize in the Anthology Short Story Prize 2023. 

Congratulations to PhD Creative Writing graduate Laurie Cusack, whose collection of short stories, The Mad Road, has just been published by Roman Books. You can read about the book here, and you can read a review of it by Gus Gresham on Everybody's Reviewing here. The book was launched, alongside Jonathan Taylor's Scablands and Other Stories (Salt, 2023) and Charlie Hill's Encounters with Everyday Madness (Roman Books, 2023), as part of a Triple Book Launch at the Emerald Centre, Leicester, on Tuesday 21 November. Both Laurie's and Charlie's books are part of Roman Books's Stretto Fiction Series, which is edited by Jonathan Taylor. 

Sam Dawson, MA Creative Writing graduate, has had his story, "Shelly and Shelley," published by Litro Magazine here. Sam was also longlisted for the Oxford Flash Fiction Prize 2023. 

Kit de Waal has written a piece, "Quiet Violence," for the Cold War Steve Annual 2024. You can see details here. 

New Walk Editions, which is co-edited by Nick Everett, has published two new pamphlets: Derron Sandy's The Chaos and Blake Morrison's Never the Right Time. You can see more details on New Walk Editions' website here. 

Everybody's Reviewing, our book review blog, continues to be read by thousands of people every month, and has now had well over 300,000 readers. 

Beth Gaylard, PhD Creative Writing student, has been working as editorial coordinator and co-organiser for the inaugural PGR Arts Conference at Leicester University, "Reimagining World Views Across Space and Time." The conference took place in November. It attracted speakers from the UK, India, China and the USA, eighteen in all, on many aspects of the literary arts and social science. Topics in Creative Writing included reimagined worlds of family migrations, recent social history and solastalgia. Kit de Waal made the keynote speech on cultural appropriation in contemporary writing. The aim is for the conference to be repeated in future years as a regular PGR event. If you missed it, look out for the special edition of Frontier journal early next term, which will contain some of the presentations in article form. Congratulations to all concerned!

Congratulations to PhD Creative Writing student Kathy Hoyle, whose work "North East Lass" is overall winner of the Hammond House International Writing Competition 2023. You can read the piece here. Kathy's story "Fish Sands, 1984" was also highly commended in the Free Flash Fiction Competition 2023. You can read it here. Kathy's story "Humbug Shark" was highly commended in the Oxford Flash Fiction Competition 2023. 

Amirah Mohiddin, PhD Creative Writing student, presented a conference paper at the Pacific Ancient Modern Language Association (PAMLA), in Portland, Oregon. At a panel dedicated to "Young Adult Literature and Culture," she presented a paper titled "A Thousand and One Nights Meets Morocco’s Fight for Independence in a Historical Fantasy," exploring how Young Adult fantasy can be a powerful mode to decolonise history. The paper is linked with her practice-based research, where she is writing a YA fantasy novel interrogating storytelling as a mode of heroism and salvation. You can read more about Amirah's research on Creative Writing at Leicester here.  

Karen Powell-Curtis, PhD Creative Writing graduate, has had her poem "Passing" published by Thanatos Review here. 

Lee Wright, PhD Creative Writing student, has written a review of The Mirror and the Road by William Boyd and Alistair Owen for Everybody's Reviewing here. 

Congratulations and thanks to all, and wishing everyone a very happy Christmas and New Year from Creative Writing at Leicester!

Christmas News 2022

It's been a busy term, and before we break up for the holidays, we'd like to share some of the recent news from students and staff at the University of Leicester.

 

Third-year Journalism with Creative Writing student Ayan Artan continues to publish non-fiction articles. You can read two recent articles by Ayan here and here. 

MA Creative Writing graduate Jess Bacon continues to write and publish numerous articles for magazines and newspapers, including an article on Matilda the Musical, storytelling and trauma for the Metro, which you can read here. 

Congratulations to MA Creative Writing student Laura Besley, whose story "No Matter What" has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Sunlight Press. You can see more details here. Laura's micro-fiction, "At the fairground," was recently published by Paragraph Planet, and Laura's story, "A Closed Book," was published by 101 Words here. 

Congratulations to PhD Creative Writing student Andrew Craven-Griffiths, who recently passed his PhD viva. 

Congratulations to Kit de Waal, whose memoir Without Warning and Only Sometimes was recently named by The Guardian as one of their "Best Memoirs and Biographies of 2022." More details here. 

November saw the publication of the two latest New Walk Editions pamphlets of poetry, co-edited by Nick Everett in the Centre for New Writing: Rebecca Farmer’s A Separate Appointment and William Thompson’s After Clare. See here for further details - and to order copies!

MA Creative Writing graduate Tracey Foster has reviewed Modern Nature by Derek Jarman for Everybody's Reviewing here. 

MA Creative Writing graduate Thilsana Gias has reviewed The Hen Who Dreamed She Could Fly by Sun-Mi Hwang for Everybody's Reviewing here. 

Undergraduate English with Creative Writing student Jess Hollis recently performed her poetry at Word! in Leicester. 

Congratulations to PhD Creative Writing student Kathy Hoyle, winner of the prestigious Bath Flash Fiction Award. You can read her winning story, "The Metamorphosis of Evaline Jackson" here.

Felicity James's essay on Elizabeth Gaskell, "String Is My Foible," has been published by Slightly Foxed Quarterly. 

Congratulations to Karen Powell, who recently passed her PhD in Creative Writing. Her thesis was entitled Bloodlines: Exploring Family History in Poetry. 

Congratulations to English with Creative Writing student Georgia Sanderson, winner of the inaugural Belvoir Prize for Poetry. 

PhD Creative Writing student Jane Simmons has reviewed Standing Up with Blake by Philip Dunn on Everybody's Reviewing here and Kathryn Simmonds's Scenes from Life on Earth here. 

Congratulations to second-year English with Creative Writing student Shauna Strathmann, winner of this year's G. S. Fraser Prize. You can read two of her winning poems here. 

Jonathan Taylor's book of short stories, Scablands and Other Stories, will be published by Salt Publishing later in 2023. 

Congratulations to second-year English with Creative Writing student Sara Waheed, winner of this year's John Coleman Prize. You can read her winning story here. 

Harry Whitehead's groundbreaking research project, Creative Climates: Creatively Communicating the Climate and Biosphere Emergency, which links artists and writers with climate change researchers to create new art, received developmental funding from Leicester Institute of Advanced Studies (LIAS). 

MA Creative Writing graduate Lisa Williams's seasonal story, "I Believe," has been published by Friday Flash Fiction here. Her story "The Split" has also been published by Friday Flash Fiction here. 

Wishing everyone a happy Christmas and New Year from Creative Writing and the Centre for New Writing at the University of Leicester!

Congratulations to Jane Simmons!

Congratulations to Jane Simmons, poet and PhD student in Creative Writing at the University of Leicester, whose poem "Nativity" has just won the Seren Christmas Poetry Competition 2020. You can read her poem on Seren's blog here. 

Jane Simmons is a former teacher/lecturer who completed an MA in Creative Writing at the University of Lincoln. She is now a Creative Writing PhD student at the University of Leicester, where her research project is The Poetics and Politics of Motherhood, a practice-led exploration of motherhood through an environmental and political lens, engaging with the theme creatively and as it is treated in contemporary women’s poetry. As a reviewer for The Blue Nib literary magazine, Jane has built a significant publication history of writing about contemporary women’s poetry. A small selection of her own poems appeared in the March 2019 edition of the magazine. Her collection From Darkness into Light – poems inspired by the Book of Kells – was published in 2018. Further poems appeared in the anthology The View from the Steep. She has work forthcoming in Ink, Sweat & Tears. Jane regularly reads and performs her work in the Lincoln area. She won the G. S. Fraser Prize for Poetry in both 2019 and 2020; you can read her winning poems here and here. She recently gave a guest lecture and reading at Leicester University, on the first-year undergraduate module "Introduction to Writing Creatively."

"Letter to Santa" - a poem by Malka Al-Haddad

Letter to Santa 


Dear Santa,
When you arrive on Christmas Eve could you please bring back our dreams that have been stolen 
My school
my friends 
that became ashes under fire

The roof of our house 
The smell of Mum and Dad

Why they left me without goodbye
there was a green garden, a Ferris wheel, 
ice cream vans 
shadow of lovers 

Nothing left for us ... 
only the stench of death 

Santa - how you can find the smile of childhood 
that has been buried underground 
without shrouds 
without a funeral 
without a farewell.

Please Santa take back your precious gifts and give me back only my home and peace.

Dear Santa, 
sorry that your children are now not here any more 

Sorry Santa 
your children have become men in wartime  
and their toys are guns and their ecstasy is the smell of gunpowder. 

About the author

Malka Al-Haddad is an Iraqi academic who has lived in Britain since 2012. She is a member of the Union of Iraqi Writers, Director of the Women's Centre for Arts and Culture in Iraq, and an activist with Leicester City of Sanctuary.