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.

Kit de Waal, "Why Do a Creative Writing MA?"

Writing is a lonely business. When writers aren’t living in their heads, staring out of a window or into a coffee cup, when we’re not watching how people talk and move so we can use it later on, we are on our own writing, re-writing, editing, re-editing, lamenting and occasionally celebrating. Then comes the sharing bit. You know when you ask your best friend to read what you’ve done and you send the email and you wait and wait and hope that they say, "Oh wow! Brilliant!" because anything else has you reaching for the tissues. And then back to the screen for another bout of editing and refining.

Creative Writing courses - BAs, MAs, short courses and diplomas - all offer an alternative. Of course, you’re still going to be writing all on your own but you might do some of it in a classroom with other people struggling to get the great stuff in their heads down on to the page. And the feedback you get will likely be from someone who has been there, done that and lived to tell the tale and see their book in Waterstones.   

So often we hear that "the greats" (by that, people usually mean the mostly blokes that wrote the classics) didn’t do a Creative Writing degree, so why should I? Let’s think about that. Firstly, there were no Creative Writing degrees when, say Dickens was alive or Shakespeare or Flaubert or even Graham Greene. Secondly, most of "the greats" spent many, many years honing their craft, had many rejections, spent their days discussing Creative Writing with their friends (a course by any other name) and had editors and agents who polished up their manuscripts. And there are many examples of contemporary writers who have been published who didn’t do a Creative Writing degree. And there are just as many that did. Just like football or dressmaking or photography, some things are better achieved when there is a modicum of talent, but as well as talent you also need desire, opportunity, support and guidance.

What does make a good writer is a respect for the craft. Just as a chef or a tailor or a carpenter has to know the basics, has to know what tools to use and when, has to work for many years as an apprentice and learn from an expert, so too the good writer will know what good writing looks like and how the author has achieved the result. Like a good chef can taste a dish and say "too much salt," a good writer will also know what doesn’t work and be able to articulate why: "the character was not well rounded because …" or "the ending didn’t work because …" or "the middle was loose because …"  And good writers know the ingredients of a good story – plot, characterisation, dialogue, crisis, resolution etc. – and can put them all together in fresh and exciting ways.  

The Creative Writing MA at Leicester will help you find out what sort of a writer you are, help you discover your writing voice (the thing that makes you different from everyone else, just like your audible voice), and will help you develop confidence and connections. You will hear from published writers, agents and industry professionals and be accountable so that you keep writing and you keep moving forward. It's time spent working on something you love and that occasionally loves you back.

There are many routes to publication and a Creative Writing Master's is no guarantee of success. Neither is working alone without any professional input or support, without a class full of people all working towards the same goal, all interested in the exact placement of a comma or a line break and celebrating your success.

Come and join us, lonely or not. 

See here for further information about the MA in Creative Writing at the University of Leicester. 

Kit de Waal is Professor in Creative Writing and Jean Humphreys Writer in Residence at the University of Leicester. Born to an Irish mother and Caribbean father, she 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. 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. Kit founded her own TV production company, Portopia Productions, and the Big Book Weekend, a free digital literary festival in 2020 and was named the FutureBook Person of the Year 2019. Kit is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. You can read about her memoir Without Warning and Only Sometimes on Creative Writing at Leicester here. Her author website is here. 

Creative Writing Events, Guest Lectures and Masterclasses Spring 2024

Here is this semester's programme of Creative Writing guest lectures and masterclasses happening this term in the Centre for New Writing at the University of Leicester. All the events are free and open to everyone: students, staff and the public alike. If you'd like to attend one of them, and aren't already registered, please email Jonathan Taylor (jt265@le.ac.uk) for further details.

Centre for New Writing, University of Leicester: Programme of Events Spring 2024

Dave Bradley, "How to Nearly Make It as a Professional TV Writer" (Guest Lecture)
Tuesday 13 February, 11am-12, Bennett Building, room F75a.
This guest lecture is part of the first-year undergraduate module "Introduction to Writing Creatively 2." All are welcome to attend. Please email jt265@le.ac.uk to reserve a place if you are not registered on the module. 

Kit De Waal, "The Journey to Publication" (Masterclass)

Wednesday 20 March, 2-4pm, George Davies Centre, room 1.26.

This masterclass is part of the MA in Creative Writing. All are welcome to attend. Please email jt265@le.ac.uk to reserve a place if you are not on the MA. 

Literary Leicester Festival 2024

Wednesday 20 March to Friday 22 March.

Free and open to all! You can see this year's fantastic line-up of events and book in advance here. 

Creative Writing Student Showcase

Wednesday 20 March, 5-6pm, Attenborough Film Theatre.

Free and all welcome! As part of Literary Leicester Festival, we're holding our annual showcase event for University of Leicester BA, MA and PhD Creative Writing students to read and perform their poetry, stories and scripts. If you're a student or graduate and would like to get involved, please email Jonathan Taylor (jt265@le.ac.uk) in advance. 

Corinne Fowler, "Country Walks Through Colonial Britain: Combining Historical Research, Nature Writing and Reported Conversation" (Guest Lecture and Masterclass)  

Monday 25 March, 10am-12, Attenborough Building, room 2.02. This workshop is part of the MA in Creative Writing. All are welcome to attend. Please email jt265@le.ac.uk to reserve a place if you are not on the MA.

Barbara Cooke, "Pedagogic Puzzles: Harnessing the Thrill of Discovery in the Creative Writing Classroom" (Guest Workshop)

Wednesday 27 March, 2-4pm, George Davies Centre, room 1.26.

In this workshop, we will experience how the "dopamine hit" that accompanies the solving of literary puzzles can be harnessed for use in Creative Writing. While an established part of literary criticism since Kermode’s "Freud’s Masterplot," the technical skill involved in creating, as opposed to observing, the building and thwarting of readerly satisfaction deserves more attention. We will explore how workshop exercises can help you to promote the thrill and satisfaction of readerly discovery in your work and, most excitingly, to flex your own puzzle-solving and code-cracking abilities. This workshop is part of the MA in Creative Writing. All are welcome to attend. Please email jt265@le.ac.uk to reserve a place if you are not on the MA.

Paul Taylor-McCartney, "Setting Up an Independent Publisher: Hermitage Press" (Guest Lecture)

Tuesday 14 May, 10am-11am, Attenborough Building, room 2.08.

This guest talk is part of the MA in Creative Writing. All are welcome to attend. Please email jt265@le.ac.uk to reserve a place if you are not on the MA. This event is made possible by Literary Leicester Festival. 

Joe Bedford, "From Dissertation to Publication to PhD" (Guest lecture)

Tuesday 14 May, 11.15am-12.15am, Attenborough Building, room 2.08. 

This guest talk is part of the MA in Creative Writing. All are welcome to attend. Please email jt265@le.ac.uk to reserve a place if you are not on the MA. This event is made possible by Literary Leicester Festival. 

Kit de Waal, "Without Warning & Only Sometimes"

We'd like to welcome the brilliant Kit de Waal, who'll be joining us in the School of Arts at the University of Leicester! 

Kit de Waal, photograph by Sarah M. Lee

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. 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. Kit founded her own TV production company, Portopia Productions, and the Big Book  Weekend, a free digital literary festival in 2020 and was named the FutureBook Person of the Year 2019. Kit is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and Professor and  Writer in Residence at Leicester University. Her memoir Without Warning and Only Sometimes is published in August 2022. Her website is here. 

About Without Warning & Only Sometimes

Kit de Waal grew up in a household of opposites and extremes. Her haphazard mother rarely cooked, forbade Christmas and birthdays, worked as a cleaner, nurse and childminder sometimes all at once and believed the world would end in 1975. Meanwhile, her father stuffed barrels full of goodies for his relatives in the Caribbean, cooked elaborate meals on a whim and splurged money they didn't have on cars, suits and shoes fit for a prince. Both of her parents were waiting for paradise. It never came.

Caught between three worlds, Irish, Caribbean and British in 1960s Birmingham, Kit and her brothers and sisters knew all the words to the best songs, caught sticklebacks in jam jars and braved hunger and hellfire until they could all escape.

Without Warning & Only Sometimes is a story of an extraordinary childhood and how a girl who grew up in house where the Bible was the only book on offer went on to discover a love of reading that inspires her to this day.

Below, you can read an excerpt from the opening of the memoir. 

From Without Warning & Only Sometimes, by Kit de Waal

I will die.

I will die for wanting Christmas, for the slip of red ribbon from a huge box, for dreaming of the presents inside, Fry’s Chocolate Cream, things off the telly, other children’s presents. I will die for a taste of turkey and the imagined feel of the frilly white cuffs around its juicy brown leg. I will die for the dream of a mince pie I have never tasted and the magic blue flame on a Christmas pudding. Just the picture of it. I will die because I want to pull a cracker, because I want to wear a hat. I didn’t know about the jokes inside, I didn’t know about the little gift. I will find out about them when I am seventeen.

I will die because I want a birthday party.

I will die for my grinding embarrassment when the teacher halts the school assembly before the worship bit starts so that me and my sister can walk out. And I will die for the shame I feel when I walk back in again past superior girls and sniggering boys in time for the announcement of detentions and who won the Art Prize, who won the English Prize. My sister, usually.

I will die because while I sit outside assembly and they sing ‘There is a Green Hill Far Away,’ I sing along but only in my heart. Worst of all, in my heart.

I will die when the earthquakes start. I will be walking to school and the pavement will rumble and hiccup and a crack will start under my feet, small at first, and nobody else will realize what’s happening, but I will know that the end has come. Then the road splits in a zig-zag fracture and the tarmac breaks in half and the buses tip in and the cars and lamp posts, and if there are any women with prams, they’ll tumble in too, and dogs and motorbikes and trees and shops and anyone walking home with bread or potatoes, in they’ll go. Everyone who doesn’t believe. Or anyone who does believe but doesn’t do as they should. In they’ll go, toppling sideways into the chasm with their mouths open, screaming for forgiveness, but it’s too late because they had their chance, we all had our chance. And when we are dead, the earth will close over us so the world can heal.

I skip the cracked paving stones on my way to school because it can start at any time, the Wrath of God, any moment, without warning. ‘Stay on the watch! You do not know the day or the hour.’ Kim doesn’t know and Tracey doesn’t know, nor Dean, nor Karen. Not even Mom. So I stay alert, ready to straddle the split if it’s not too wide or outrun it by dashing around the corner or in the opposite direction or maybe straight inside someone’s house, begging them to save me.

Summer News 2022

Kit de Waal, photograph by Justin David

Since our last news post (Recent Creative Writing Student Success), a lot has happened, so here's a Summer update ...

Firstly, we'd like to welcome the brilliant Kit de Waal to Creative Writing at Leicester, who's going to be the University's first Jean Humphreys Writer in Residence. You can read more about this story here.

On Tuesday 7 June, the Centre for New Writing (in conjunction with Literary Leicester) were delighted to welcome Amitav Ghosh, author of The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable (2016) and The Nutmeg’s Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis (2022), and a panel of experts including Professor Caroline Upton and Professor Mark Williams to discuss the climate emergency.

Next, some wonderful book news: Laurie Cusack, UoL PhD Creative Writing graduate, is going to have his book of short stories, The Mad Road, published by Roman Books, in 2023/4, as part of their Stretto Fiction series. The Mad Road features stories written by Laurie during his PhD. Current PhD Creative Writing student Joe Bedford has had his novel, A Bad Decade for Good People, accepted for publication by Parthian Books in 2023. You can read more about it in The Bookseller here. Congratulations to both Laurie and Joe!  

New Walk Editions, which is co-edited by Nick Everett, has published two new pamphlets: Hugo Williams, The West Pier, and Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, Ghalib, A Diary, Delhi 1857-1858. You can see details on the publisher's website here. 

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

Congratulations too to MA Creative Writing student Isobel Copley, who won second prize in the Anansi Archive Spring 2022 Short Story Competition. You can read her award-winning story, "Just a Few Seconds," here.

Meanwhile, PhD Creative Writing student Lee Wright's flash fiction "Dick Ridgway's Shoes" is published in the first issue of the Leicester Literary Review. "Mask," a poem by MA Creative Writing graduate Constantine, has been published in Mad Hearts 2022. MA Creative Writing graduate Lisa Williams has published a short story, "Sue Morecambe in 3b," in Unfortunately Literary Magazine here. Tracey Foster's poem, "False Memory," has been published by Mausoleum Press here. Tracey has also written a review of Leicester University's "Let's Ride Leicester Literary Tour" for Everybody's Reviewing here. PhD Creative Writing student Paul Taylor-McCartney has also written a review for Everybody's Reviewing here.  

And finally, speaking of Everybody's Reviewing, the site has now passed 200,000 readers, while this website, Creative Writing at Leicester, has passed 100,000 readers! Congratulations and thanks to everyone - students, readers, reviewers, bloggers, editors, authors - involved. You can now see a complete index of author interviews on Everybody's Reviewing here, and a complete index of featured authors on Creative Writing at Leicester here. Many thanks to PhD students Mathew Lopez-Bland and Chloe Myers for their hard work in compiling these indexes. 

Wishing everyone a great Summer, and do keep in touch!