Creative Writing Student Showcase 2022

 

On Wednesday 23 March 2022, as part of Literary Leicester, we ran our first ever Creative Writing Student Showcase event in Attenborough Arts Centre, University of Leicester. The event was sold out, and featured fiction, poetry, prose and scripts from students across all our courses and programmes: BA, MA and PhD. The event was a wonderful opportunity to celebrate some of the brilliant work done by University of Leicester Creative Writing students, past and present, and was a great success. 

Students who performed at the event were: Joe Bedford, Laura Besley, Isobel Copley, Nina Walker, Lisa Williams, Tracey Foster (who read her recently-published poem "Second-Best Jewellery Box"), Laurie Cusack, Hannah Mitchell (who read her award-winning story, "Happy Birthday, Eileen"), Beth Gaylard and Cathi Rae.

Congratulations and thanks to everyone who was involved!

Guest Lectures, Masterclasses and Events, Spring 2022

There are lots of forthcoming Creative Writing events happening this term in the Centre for New Writing at the University of Leicester. Here are some of them! They are all free and open to students, staff and the public. If you'd like to attend one of them, and aren't already registered, please email Jonathan Taylor, jt265[at]le[dot]ac[dot]uk for further details. 

Anita Sivakumaran: Guest Talk on Writing Fiction
Tuesday 1 March 2022, 2-3pm, Attenborough room 002

Anita Sivakumaran is the author of several books. Her first was a poetry collection titled Sips That Make a Poison Woman. Her novel The Queen fictionalised the life of a famous South Indian film star turned politician and was adapted into one of the most successful Indian television series of 2019. The Birth of Kali, a short story collection, followed, reimagining Hindu myths from a feminist perspective. Her latest novel, Cold Sun, published by Little Brown in 2021, is the first in the 'DI Patel' series, following a Leicester-born Scotland Yard detective. Cosmopolitan called it 'a super-gripping new thriller series ... will have you totally hooked.' The Times describes Anita as 'an exciting new name in crime fiction.' The second book in the series, set largely in Leicester, is due out this summer. Anita has Masters degrees from Bangalore and Lancaster Universities, and a PhD from the University of Leicester.

Kadija George: Guest Lecture on Decolonising Publishing through Independent Black Publishers

Monday 21 March 2022, 4-5pm, Ken Edwards room 527

Mainstream publishers are becoming more diverse in relation to their human resources and in the authors they publish. Do independent Black publishers still have a role in decolonising publishing? Dr. Kadija George Sesay is a scholar activist with a focus on radical publishing. She set up the Inscribe Writer’s Development Programme for Black British writers at Peepal Tree Press in 2004. Her role includes publishing a series of anthologies and chapbooks. She freelances for other publishers on book projects such as co-editing IC3: The Penguin Book of New Black Writing in Britain with Courttia Newland. She is the founder of SABLE LitMag and an app, ‘AfriPoeTree.’ She recently co-authored This is the Canon: Decolonize Your Bookshelf in 50 Books with Professor Joan Anim-Addo and Dr. Deidre Osborne. She has edited several anthologies and received several awards for her work in the creative arts.

Literary Leicester Festival 2022

Wednesday 23 March 2022 to Saturday 26 March 2022

Free and open to all! You can see the full line-up for this year's events here. 

Leicester University Student Creative Writing Showcase

Wednesday 23 March, 430-545pm, Attenborough Arts Studio 1

Free and all welcome! As part of Literary Leicester Festival, we'll be holding a 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 and would like to get involved, please email Jonathan Taylor on jt265[at]le[dot]ac[dot]uk. 

Barbara Cooke: Guest Talk on Editing and Publishing 

PLEASE NOTE RESCHEDULED SLOT: Wednesday 30 March 2022, 10am-12, Attenborough room 111.

Please pre-book if you'd like to attend this session but aren't registered on the MA in Creative Writing. Places are limited. 

This session, which is part of the MA in Creative Writing but also open to others, will look at the day-to-day tasks and demands of entry-level editorial jobs. Barbara will also be looking back on how work experience in a publishing house can benefit your professional writing life, from understanding how production works to collaborating with an illustrator. Dr Barbara Cooke is a lecturer in English at Loughborough University and Co-Executive Editor of the Complete Works of Evelyn Waugh. She began her career in 2007 as an Editorial Assistant in London, working on such challenging and groundbreaking titles as Xtra Naughty Cakes and Take the Kids to Paris. Later, she collaborated with illustrator Amy Dodd to produce the biography Evelyn Waugh’s Oxford.

Cathi Rae: A Masterclass on Performance Poetry

Wednesday 30 March 2022, 2-4pm, Attenborough room 204

Please pre-book if you'd like to attend this session but aren't registered on the MA in Creative Writing. Places are limited. 

Cathi Rae is a spoken word artist and performance poet, performing as headline poet throughout the UK. She is a multiple Slam Poetry Champion and is currently teaching a class on "How to become a spoken word poet" at the Attenborough Arts Centre. She has been described as " A spoken word icon" by no less a poet than Joelle Taylor. Her workshop, which is part of the MA in Creative Writing but is open to all, will cover:

• The nuts & bolts of the UK spoken word scene
• The reasons why a poet may want to develop a profile via spoken word poetry
• Discussion around some of the best talent currently working in the UK

There will also be practical work around performance and writing for performance. Participants will need to bring at least one poem that they feel might work as a spoken word piece.

Civil Service Fast Stream Q&A Session

Thursday 31 March 2022, 10-11am, online via MS-Teams

This one-hour session is an opportunity to learn about careers in the Civil Service. It will be hosted by Civil Service Fast Streamers, working across government. Please bring along any questions you have relating to the Fast Stream and wider Civil Service. The presenters will be happy to talk through any part of the application process, their experiences on the Fast Stream or anything else related. You can see more information about the Civil Service Fast Stream here. 

Jenny Kane: Perfecting Your Fiction Masterclass

Wednesday 11 May 2022, 10am-12, Attenborough room 210

Please pre-book if you'd like to attend this session but aren't registered on the MA in Creative Writing. Places are limited. 

Writing the draft of your first novel is just the beginning of the journey towards publication. To make sure that your novel reaches beyond a publisher or agents slush pile, you need to ask a number of questions of your work. Does this story work on a sentence-by-sentence level? Is it written in the best possible order? Am I drowning in exposition? Jenny addresses these questions and more in her two-hour masterclass, dedicated to elevating your editing process to the next level. This masterclass is part of the MA in Creative Writing, but there are also a limited number of places open to others. Over the past 17 years, Jenny has written 36 novels under the pen names Jenny Kane (romcoms), Jennifer Ash (medieval crime), and Kay Jaybee (erotica). Sixteen of these novels have been bestsellers, including the Midsummer at Mill Grange, Autumn Leaves at Mill Grange, Spring Blossoms at Mill Grange and Winter Fires at Mill Grange series, A Cornish Escape and Another Cup of Coffee (written as Jenny Kane), The Folville Chronicle series, (written as Jennifer Ash), The Perfect Submissive series, (written as Kay Jaybee). Jenny is currently working with two publishers, Headline and Head of Zeus, as well as the audio company Spiteful Puppet, for whom she writes audio scripts for ITV’s popular 1980’s television show, Robin of Sherwood. As co-manager of Imagine, a creative writing tutoring business operating across the South West of England, Jenny has helped launch many new novelists’ careers. You can learn more about Jenny here and here.

Val McDermid: 10th Annual Creative Writing Lecture: Killing People for Fun and Profit

Thursday 12 May 2022, 6.15pm, Peter Williams Lecture Theatre

Val McDermid, photograph by KT Bruce

Please pre-book tickets for this guest lecture here.

Dubbed the Queen of Crime, Val McDermid has sold over 15 million books to date and is translated into over 40 languages. She is perhaps best-known for her Wire in the Blood series, featuring clinical psychologist Dr Tony Hill and DCI Carol Jordan, which was adapted for television starring Robson Green. Her most recent novel Out of Bounds was a number one bestseller and her brand new novel Insidious Intent was published in August. As well as producing a bestselling novel every year, Val is a regular on TV, radio and in print. Her recent projects include two BBC Radio 4 dramas, chairing the Wellcome Book Prize and captaining the 2016 winning University Challenge alumnae team! Her awards, too numerous to list, include the Outstanding Contribution to Crime Fiction Award, the CWA Gold Dagger for best crime novel of the year, the Grand Prix des Romans D’Aventure, the Lambda Literary Foundation Pioneer Award and the LA Times Book of the Year Award, as well as Celebrity Mastermind champion. She is a Fellow of both the Royal Society of Literature and The Royal Society of Edinburgh. Val will be discussing her writing, her inspirations and the fatal attraction of crime fiction! 

Amitav Ghosh with Clare Anderson, Mark Williams and Caroline Upton: The Climate Emergency: Creating A Dialogue Between Science And The Arts  

Tuesday 7 June 7, 2022, 6:00pm-7.30pm, Online Event. 

Please pre-book tickets for this online event here. 

It's 2022 and everybody is talking about the climate emergency, but what does it mean in a global context with plural perspectives? Join 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 chaired by Clare Anderson as we engage in dialogue between the sciences and the arts in thinking about the climate emergency.

Carol Leeming, "Song for Guests"

 

Carol Leeming, photo by Hana Kovacs

Carol Leeming MBE FRSA is Leicester born, of Windrush parents from Jamaica and Antigua, and grew up partly in Jamaica. She received her Queen’s honour as a playwright and poet, and for her contribution to Leicester arts and culture. Carol is a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts, a Cultural Olympian of 2012, and is featured on the University Grassroutes Writers' Gallery microsite here. Carol’s choreopoetry is highlighted by Corinne Fowler in the Cambridge Companion to Black & Asian Writing 1945-2010, ed. Deidre Osborne. In 2018, Carol’s poem ‘Molly’ was displayed across a Leicester University Campus building, as part of a centenary celebration week for the British Suffragettes Movement. 

Other notable work includes Carol’s debut chapbook The Declamations of Cool Eye published by Dare Diva. A film poem, entitled Enchanter, featured the poem 'Drawing' from the chapbook. You can see it here. Some other plays produced include Storm, & The Twisted Plait at Haymarket Theatre, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Diva, and Love the life you live … Live the life you love at Curve Theatre, also published in the book Hidden Stories Anthology, published by Leicester University/Phoenix. 

Carol’s poetry features in a number of anthologies. These include 'Valley Dreamers' in  Out of Bounds, ed. Jackie Kay (Bloodaxe), 'Some Things that Never Failed Me' in Covid 19 & Poetry Anthology, ed. Anthony Caleshu and Rory Waterman (Shearsman Press), ‘Song for Guests’ (translated into ten languages) in Welcome to Leicester, ed. Emma Lee (Dahlia Books), Overland, Oversea, ed, Kathleen Bell, Emma Lee & Siobhan Logan (Five Leaves). A recurring feature of her work is to give voice to the voiceless, untold diverse stories, or magic realism in narratives, compelling diverse characters, with distinctive voices. 

Carol recently debuted at A Time to Breathe Festival curated by Greta Mendez MBE, London 2021, in a performance of her new choreopoem play, entitled The Dreadful Dance of Ms. Iniquity. Carol also has a major collection of writing, poetry and choreopoetry entitled The Eclipse of Dread, in preparation for book publication, along with writing the final part of her choreopoem trilogy, ‘Go Where the Songs Are.’ 

Carol works freelance, in literature performing arts and digital media. She is a multi-award award-winning author, published poet, director, playwright, dramaturge, performer and tutor. She was dramaturge and director for Harley, Scholar & Stateman by Pamela Roberts. She previously worked full-time as Resident Assistant Director at Curve Theatre Leicester, on theatre productions My Beautiful Laundrette by Hanif Kureishi, and West Side Story by Laurents/Sondheim/Bernstein.

Carol currently is part-time lecturer at De Montfort University, BA Performing Arts, Guest Visiting Lecturer on the MA Creative Writing at Nottingham University, and Guest Visiting Lecturer Writing for Performance at Derby University, in addition to mentoring prisoners, to create poetry for the NO BARS II Project Anthology launched in 2021. Carol is also Patron of East Midlands Women Awards. 

See more about Carol's work here and here. Below, you can read a poem by Carol. 

Song for Guests

           'The new arrival of a guest is reason for a feast' - A North African Bedouin Custom

Fear

and hate 
Is flung
it weights down 
a tar-paulin night as
folk crowd fire warmth 
dreaming of dark tunnel  
escape with luminous
hands of friendship 
held aloft ready to catch…?

Welcome us 

We welcome you all
Come … to us 

Sleepless knots of men
crouch into bush hides  
waiting for smoky vehicles
stowaway with stony 
grey lips of newsprint words 
pointed to goad or reject? 

Welcome us 

We welcome you all
Come … to us

Skeins of women children 
hold emotions like nets with
wounded screams as
running tears hearts salt
human streams across earth 
its seas would it wash away
foul slimes cruel indifference
a dirty din from a baited polis 
Is that blood on their hands?

Welcome us

We welcome you all
Come … be with us
Our table is full 
Yet empty missing you

I.M. Julie Boden, 1960-2021

By Jonathan Taylor

On Tuesday 28 September 2021, much-loved Midlands poet, performer and literary advocate Julie Boden passed away, following a long illness. 

Julie was born in Sutton Coldfield in 1960. She worked as a teacher, Creative Advisor and then full-time poet. At various times, she was Birmingham Poet Laureate, Director of Poetry Central, Poet in Residence at Symphony Hall, Birmingham, a Director of Warwick Words Festival, Founder of the Oasis Café Theatre and a Fellow of Hawthornden. As a passionate spokesperson for poetry, she toured and performed nationally and internationally, nurturing and promoting the work of hundreds of other writers, of all ages and experience. She organised and ran workshops, readings, events, lectures, poetry competitions, and interdisciplinary collaborations – between, for example, musicians and writers. 

Julie’s poetry is musical, emotive, humorous and approachable, with a wide range and appeal. Almost uniquely, it manages to ‘sing’ both in performance and on the page, in the reader’s mind’s-ear. Her books included Beyond the Bullring (2001), Cut on the Bias (2002), Through the Eye of a Crow (2003), Wasted Lives (2003) and Bluebeard’s Wife (2005). She edited and co-edited five anthologies, including Bluebeard’s Wives (2007), with Zoë Brigley. A selection of her poetry, entitled Aheenthi, was translated into Gujarati by Adam Godiwala and published in India in 2006. Her poems and articles were widely published at home and abroad, and featured on BBC Radio and TV. 

 As well as her own work, Julie will be remembered for her enthusiasm, kindness, humour and unique ability to communicate those qualities to others. She enthused everyone who she met about poetry, and fostered new connections and collaborations between hundreds of artists. She will be hugely missed by all whose lives she touched. Like so many other writers in the region, I was lucky enough to call her a friend. Thoughts are with her son and daughter.

Here are two beautiful poems she wrote for children:

Happy Day

Today is a good day
A yellow day
A golden sparkling silky day.
A smile day
A play day
A let’s jump up and sing day.
A chocolate day
A strawberry day
A birdsong all day long day.
A cuddling your pet day
A never to forget day
A feeling like a Queen day.
A warm glow in my tummy day
A ‘Look how good you’ve been!’ day
An everybody loves you day
A yellow day
A shining day
A good to be Alive day.

Sad Day

Today is
A sad day
A dark day
A bad day
A grey day.
A bleak day
A weak day
A coarse hair blanket scratchy day.
A broccoli day
A rainy day
A something in your eye day.
A bad egg day
A lemon day
A nothing in my tummy day
A porcupine to touch day
A creeping down the stair day
A whisper to my bear day
A grey day, a sad day
A please give me a hug day.

Creative Writing Varsity 2017: Leicester vs DMU, by Luke McNamara

Article by Luke McNamara

So, I know, I know: the first thing you might be thinking is – “A creative writing varsity? That’s a ‘thing’?” – and the answer is yes, yes, it is. How does it go down you might also ask? Well, both teams choose their champions, eight-a-side to be precise, and half of each team present a prose piece of five minutes, and the other half a poetry piece of three minutes each. This year, The Exchange was our host, in the heart of Leicester city on the 23rd of March; the event ran from 7:30pm-10:00pm. 

The pieces are written by the performers and are marked on the quality of the writing as well as its delivery by three judges; this year the judges were Leicester University’s Creative Writing lecturer Jonathan Taylor, poet Jess Green (check her out on YouTube!) and novelist Rod Duncan. The scores are added up and of course the team with the most points wins – as well as this, there are awards for "Best Prose" and "Best Poetry," respectively. There was also a charity raffle to enter for 20p, where you could win the works written by the judges. 

We all good on the ins and outs, the who and where, the hows and whats? Splendid. Let’s talk about the performances. 

In the low-level ceiling, cosily lit downstairs sitting area of the pub, the audience sat comfortably and observed the performers at the front who spoke into a mic, ensuring they could be heard by everyone. 

SPOILER ALERT: the University of Leicester won, sorry DMU. However, this shouldn’t suggest that it wasn’t an evenly fought contest. On the contrary, it was a very close contest that could have gone either way, as I’m sure the judges will tell you. 

Pictured above is Leicester University’s own Kassie Duke. She won best prose of the night. Remember her face. Remember her name. You will more than likely see it in a local bookshop very soon. Her sublime wordplay, coupled with her ability to convey mature themes such as insecurity, family relationships, and the nature of storytelling through colloquial contexts made Ms. Duke’s "The Great Divide" a pleasure to listen to. There was something irresistibly charming about listening to a great writer give a narrative that meditates on such thematic concerns as Kassie’s, in a tale where a bad story teller who "didn’t want to write about myself, there was nothing there" – oh the irony. The innovative, witty irony. Please give me your talent. 

And here, ladies and gentleman, is De Montfort’s Sammy Mitchell. I would say here was very much a case of "save the best for last." Her intelligently provoking, lyrically rhythmical, and profoundly moving poem "Left like a Boiling Kettle" struck me. It was so quotable – where do I begin? - “a poem is more than a poet” – so true. Please could all poet’s come to this realisation? “Leave your insecurities by the bedside” ha! I wish I could. “This is more than a product” – damn straight, this is art. This is poetry. Such works make me ponder why it is poetry is sometimes neglected by the modern reader? Why do we so often by novels instead of poetry collections? I leave that for you to decide.  

Who won what aside, I was moved that night. I listened to the pieces of every person, and there were several common themes I felt resonated with everyone in the room. The increasingly unstable political climate we live in, as well as mental health issues that so many students are suffering from, and feminism, and gender equality. 

I found myself unable to look away, my attention undivided, from several performers; Lydia Bell, Rosie Holdsworth, and Dominic Hynard touched on issues of identity, and introversion that afflicts many talented young writers, unfortunately. 

Yet, what for me was the most emotional performance of the evening was given by Abbie Curphey. Visibly nervous, with rubs of reassurance from her friends the young poet delivered an elegant work: "Just… don’t worry." She put it plainly that "everyone will experience anxiety in a different way," and highlighted truthfully that "you don’t want to inconvenience anyone." A heart-wrenching reality for most sufferers of depression, and other mental issues is that they often feel like a nuisance when they shouldn’t. More writers like Abbie need to discuss these issues; it’s so important for our generation's experiences to be conveyed through poetry, as well as prose.  

So, my final thoughts on the evening. I felt quietly optimistic that the art of the future will, as it should, bear out the voice of our generation. The Brexit generation, the generation that cried out for feminism, and demanded a change in the current climate. But we are also a generation capable of beautiful work, that if nothing else, like all literature of the past, helped me to realise we are one as a species feeling the same emotions, even if our experiences differ. We grind through life – it’s tiring, heart-breaking, difficult, and a struggle, yet it is filled with love, beauty, happiness, friends, family, and relationships. But above all else, it showed me that through art we bond, we connect and unify through the expressions of those brave enough to share their work with us, and boy, am I grateful for it.