Anna Vaught, "Saving Lucia"

Anna Vaught is a novelist, poet, essayist, short fiction writer, editor and a secondary English teacher, tutor and mentor, mental health advocate and mum of 3. 2020 saw the publication of Anna's third novel, Saving Lucia (Bluemoose), which has just been longlisted for the Barbellion Prize, and a first short story collection, Famished (Influx). Anglo-Welsh, she splits her time between Wiltshire, Wales, and the Southern US. She is currently finishing a new novel and working on some non-fiction, while a further novel and second short story collection are on the desk. Anna’s essays, reviews, articles, and features have been featured widely online and in print. She is represented by Kate Johnson of Mackenzie Wolf Literary Agents, in New York City. Her website is here. She is also on Twitter @BookwormVaught and Instagram @bookwormvaught6. 

Anna Vaught will be giving a guest talk and masterclass as part of the MA in Creative Writing at the University of Leicester on Wednesday 3 March 2021. If you are interested in attending, please email Jonathan Taylor (jt265[at]le[dot]ac[dot]uk). 

About Saving Lucia

How would it be if four lunatics went on a tremendous adventure, reshaping their pasts and futures as they went, including killing Mussolini? What if one of those people were a fascinating, forgotten aristocratic assassin and the others a fellow life co-patient, James Joyce's daughter Lucia, another the first psychoanalysis patient, known to history simply as 'Anna O,' and finally 19th Century Paris's Queen of the Hysterics, Blanche Wittmann? That would be extraordinary, wouldn't it? How would it all be possible? Because, as the assassin Lady Violet Gibson would tell you, those who are confined have the very best imaginations.

Saving Lucia explores the last days of the life of the Hon Violet Gibson, would-be assassin of Mussolini. In St Andrew’s Hospital, her lifetime co-patient is Lucia Joyce, daughter of James Joyce, and Lucia helps Violet to organise one last and extraordinary adventure, together with two other well-known psychiatric patients, and in the process secure freedom and understanding for herself. Saving Lucia is historical fiction with strong fantastical elements woven in - the journey undertaken is itself a work of prodigious fantasy - plus refrains and rhythms from the works of James Joyce, particularly Finnegans Wake. It is a testimony to the role of the imagination in mental illness and in confinement and its stimulus was the long and difficult experience of its author, who saw these women not as cases, but as heroines. 

Below, you can read the opening page of the novel. 

From Saving Lucia

Violet Albina Gibson, the Honourable, was behind bars, wearing an immaculate black crepe dress, clasping her finest manners and a lovely, lacquered fountain pen, for letters to Churchill and others. She was a criminal because, in April 1926, in Rome, she shot Mussolini. And she was insane with it; an assassin with devotions, prayers and visions. Not a steady-handed murderer, but one that broke apart most untidily and could not be trusted. In prison, in Rome, she threw a chamber pot at her guard and a flower press at a crackbrain; for an Honourable lady, such rude things she said. Then there were the screams and intransigence: strange mystical tantrums. And in 1927, when they put her in the mental hospital, in England, behind those necessary bars, through which you saw a fine vista—oh and the borders were lovely this year! —she would never do a jigsaw or embroidery, when instructed for her own good. Only towards the end of her life would she do one thing they suggested: she agreed to stand outside with the birds and encourage them to feed from her hands. 

Other than that, a hopeless obdurate virago, a strange dotty old girl, mad with religion. And a danger. Or a nuisance. Or both.

Annual Creative Writing Lecture: Blake Morrison

You are cordially invited to this year's Annual Creative Writing Lecture, which will be given by Blake Morrison on Monday 18th March 2019 at 6.30pm, in Lecture Theatre 1, George Davies Centre, at the University of Leicester. The event is free and open to all - students, staff and public alike. Below is a description of the lecture.

About the Lecture: Life Writing and the Writing Life

Drawing on his experience in working in several different genres, Blake Morrison considers some of the ethical and formal challenges authors face in doing justice to the story they want to tell. The talk - aimed at creative writers, literature students and general readers - will include short extracts from poetry, fiction and memoir while addressing a number of key questions: What are the drawbacks of writing about family and ‘real’ people? How likeable does a narrator have to be? How strictly should a memoir writer adhere to the truth? Is remembering the same as inventing? When is ‘confessionalism’ acceptable rather than prurient and exploitative? What risks are there, and what advantages, in using regional dialect rather than standard English? 

About Blake Morrison
Blake Morrison was born in Skipton, Yorkshire, and has written fiction, poetry, journalism, literary criticism and libretti, as well as adapting plays for the stage. Among his best-known works are his two memoirs, And When Did You Last See Your Father? (1993) and Things My Mother Never Told Me (2002). He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a former Chair of the Poetry Book Society and Vice-Chair of PEN, and has been Professor of Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths University since 2003. His latest book is a novel with poems, The Executor (2018). http://www.blakemorrison.net/

Two Inspiring Guest Lectures

By Karen Rust

This week we were treated to two very different, but equally inspiring guest speakers in the School of Arts.

Kim Slater, full-time author, known for her award-winning Young Adult novels and bestselling crime novels, gave us a guest lecture with the fantastic title: ‘From MA to a Million Copies Sold’ - the holy grail for aspiring novelists.

Kim outlined her lengthy journey from wannabe to bestseller: the countless rejections, the roller coaster of emotions as doubt and lack of self-belief set in and the turning point when she decided to go back to University and study. She completed a full-time BA in English Literature and Creative Writing at Nottingham Trent University whilst holding down a job and looking after a family, which says a lot about her. Moving straight onto the MA, she experimented with different genres and discovered she enjoyed writing for young adults.  A short story written for that module received a universal thumbs up from her course peers and went on to become her first novel Smart. She had it professionally edited and sent it to six literary agents, five of whom offered her representation. The book sold quickly, so by the time Kim graduated she had both an agent and a publisher. 

She soon found she wanted to write more than one YA book every two years, even though she was still working, and returned to her first love – crime writing, as K.L. Slater. 

Bookouture, an innovative digital publisher, new to the market at that time, signed her up and she’s gone on to write full time and sell over a million copies for them. 

Kim has created a lovely balance for herself; the YA books are more literary and have won tens of awards, whilst the crime is commercial, formulaic but fun and pays the bills in a big way.

Her hard work, tenacity and self-belief has got her to this point. Writing three or four crime books a year as well as a YA novel every two years is no mean feat. An inspiring journey. 

Our second guest speaker this week was another inspiring woman, Crystal Mahey-Morgan. Crystal wrote for The Guardian and Face magazine aged sixteen, as well as running open-mic sessions for poets and hip-hop artists whilst performing herself. She became marketing Manager for the Raindance film festival aged nineteen, and then moved into traditional publishing for several years.

Seeing a gap in the market she set up OWN IT! with her partner, Jason Morgan, a storytelling lifestyle brand that cuts across books, music, fashion and film. 

Crystal spoke with passion about her experience inside traditional publishing and the lack of diversity of voices she saw being published. OWN IT! aims to make books accessible to young people by publishing stories they can identify with and come across in the kind of places they frequent – for example, titles are stocked in West Indian takeaways in London.

Books published so far include an exploration of black masculinity set against a backdrop of crime and violence, a memoir from a young lesbian raised in a Catholic family on an inner-city housing estate, and a journey exploring family ties across generations by a woman with Maori heritage.

The company also publishes music, collaborates with film makers and produces fashion that sits alongside the other art forms. Mixing media and art forms sits at the core of their ethos.

Instead of a standard launch party at Waterstone's with cheap white wine, OWN IT!’s first book launch took place at Hackney Empire with hip hop and grime musicians taking to the stage alongside poets and readings from the book. Thirteen hundred tickets sold out for the event.

They are constantly on the look out for something fresh and different, across any genre. Their publishing contract is also innovative – a 50/50 split on the net profit between publisher and artist. Most recently, they have set up an agenting arm with Crystal at the helm.

I, for one, am super excited by their approach and rooting for them to show the publishing industry establishment the way to go.

About the author
Karen is an aspiring novelist, currently studying for an MA in Creative Writing at the University of Leicester.  Check out her blog at: https://bloominglateblog.wordpress.com

Suzi Shimwell - Featured Poem

Last week, poet Suzi Shimwell gave a wonderful guest talk and reading for first-year Creative Writing students and the public. It was one of a programme of a guest talks by writers, publishers and professionals we run throughout the year.

About Suzi
Suzi Shimwell is a free verse poet who divides her time between Leicester and Cambridge juggling a Ph.D and a career in teaching. In her free time she runs the Cambridge Free Inkers writing group and edits The New Luciad. Her poems have appeared in Agenda Broadsheet, From The Lighthouse, The New Luciad and Cake.


Below is one of the poems she read during the guest lecture.



A poem only about toothbrushes

“I can’t put toothbrushes in a poem, I really can’t!”
Sylvia Plath, Interview 30th October 1962

In this poem there will be only toothbrushes.
There is just one in the glass,
moulded in hard blue plastic with two thousand
tough nylon bristles;

there is another in the bin
under the sink.
It’s pink. 

Geraldine Bell - Featured Poem

As part of our annual programme of guest speakers for Creative Writing, the poet Geraldine Bell gave an excellent talk this week, for first-year creative writers, other students and the public. She talked in detail about her experience of critical and reflective writing in relation to her own poetry. Geraldine is in her final year of a PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Leicester, and her poems have previously been published in Ambit, Dream Catcher and Brittle Star magazines. Here is one of her poems:

Pink Papers

These punishing pink paper notes

Are always telling me what’s to-do.

Their dog-eared corners growl and snarl

And aggressively pull at my shoe.

To slice one errand off the list;

Thou art the best o’ the cut throats.

But three more Fleances take its place

As heirs in black, on paper notes.

These punishing pink paper notes

Are always telling me what to do

With a righteous sense of duty;

And worst, in my own writing too.

Geraldine Bell