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!

Peter Thabit Jones, "A Cancer Notebook"

 

Peter Thabit Jones has authored sixteen books. He has participated in festivals and conferences in America and Europe and is an annual writer-in-residence in Big Sur, California. A recipient of many awards, including the Eric Gregory Award for Poetry (The Society of Authors, London) and the Homer: European Medal of Poetry and Art, two of his dramas for the stage have premiered in America. His opera libretti for Luxembourg composer Albena Petrovic Vratchanska have premiered at the Philarmonie Luxembourg, the National Opera House Stara Zagora, Bulgaria, and Theatre National Du Luxembourg. Further information is on his website here. 

About A Cancer Notebook, by Peter Thabit Jones

From the Foreword, by Patricia Holt

In A Cancer Notebook, Peter expresses, viscerally, purely, his emotions and thoughts while he is living with the reality of cancer. Being a poet, he does so in a way which can be integrated into another being directly, shattering the isolation, and giving each person a better understanding and acceptance of what they are going through - a precious step toward healing, emotionally and physically. This is the profound gift of Peter’s book. The poems are such a totality, each word adding to the whole, building within themselves to an integrated power and poignancy. 'Women’s Ward' and 'Words' are two such poems, among many others.

From A Cancer Notebook

The Bird in the Garden

Over two weeks
Since New Year’s Eve
And the word the surgeon said
Won’t leave. My thoughts try
To break through the ice of it.

I carry a bit of death for now -
Until it's removed. January
And a dunnock bird sits
In the swaying round feeder,
Unbothered by the cold breeze
Of a grave, grey winter, He pecks
At the hard, dry pool of seed.
I smile at the beauty of him.
He warms my emotions.
I love the positivity

In his need to survive.


Women's Ward

Midnight. I pass the women’s ward,
As I struggle, so slow, to the men’s room.
I momentarily think of their possible
Pains, maybe the loss of the features
Of their womanhood, the scars they
Will own for the rest of their lives.

The moon has always tracked their days,
Decided their mothering blood.
The ages enslaved them to kitchen
And bed, denied them the schooling seeds,
Denied them the flourishing voices
Of men. I pass their ward again.

'The eternal note of sadness'
Is always with us, it seems, unsettling 
Our lives and all that we are as humans.
Sleep well, sisters, caught by this thing 
Called cancer, and may your journeys
Be one to a safe and long future of wellness.

Note: 'The eternal note of sadness' is a line from Matthew Arnold’s poem 'Dover Beach.'


One Man's Notebook

Four weeks since my surgery.
What deep songs can I pull up 
From the well of my experience 
Of this thing called cancer?

I check my scar, healing to a crisp 
Dryness. Confined to my home
For now, unable to lift heavy things,
Restricted physically, I feel like a man

Stood at a crossroad with a number 
Of signposts. Will I ever be the same 
Again, after tasting a droplet of death?
Words have been the religion of my life,

The worship of their weights and sounds.
My mind pulls up emotions from the bright
Bottom of the strangest of months.
The splashes of inspiration will become

Phrases, lines, stanzas, and then poems,
One man’s notebook trying to record
The imagined and challenging road 
To a place I’m told is full recovery. 

Julian Bishop, "We Saw It All Happen"

 

Julian Bishop has had a lifelong interest in ecology thanks largely to a childhood in rural Wiltshire. He’s a former television journalist and apart from poetry has a passion for gardens, running and dogs although not necessarily in that order. He’s been widely published and was a runner up in the International Ginkgo Prize For Eco-Poetry. He lives with his family in North London. His website is here. 

About We Saw It All Happen

The poems in this first collection were written over seven or so years at a time when daily headlines brought more evidence of climate change and our increasing disconnection with nature. Bishop, a journalist who once worked as an environment reporter, talks in the preface about how he feels he failed in raising awareness about the seriousness of the crisis by reporting on the alarming data and hopes the more emotional engagement offered by a poem might have more impact. His approach is often formal, there are villanelles, sonnets and a lipogram among other forms. The book itself is divided into three sections which look at the impact of climate change on the natural world, a second more political and satirical section followed by a third more forward-looking section which offers some more hopeful poems. 

From We Saw It All Happen

At The Ice House

(An 18th century ice house was discovered during work on Regent’s Crescent in London)

Polished mahogany tables heaved
under the weight of Regency treats -
calves’ foot jellies, sweetmeats,
wobbling flummery poised on concealed 

ice-beds, hand-harvested
from Norwegian fjords. Numb-thumbed
cutters, slicing through rime, fashioned
brieze-blocks of ice to fit

into steamships, sawdust-stuffed
to stave off melt, cargoes stowed
between beams of deal below,
cubes cracked big enough

for an igloo the size of the O2. 
Staring now into the brick-lined 
void unearthed in grounds behind 
a stuccoed row, it hits you

how a division of spoils is where it begins: 
with the convivial aristocratic clack
of a vintage hock or an Escubac 
on the rocks, how tickling a gentleman's 

gins counts more to those in power
than the cost of a frosted bourbon, 
those who only ever reflect on 
melting ice when it is raised in a tumbler.

Dung Beetles

(Could vanish within a century - Biological Conservation journal)

Strange that catastrophe should announce itself

on such small feet 

among such humble collectors of dirt, 

street-cleaners, shovellers of stools, 

tunnellers through filth.

Ancient Egyptians saw gods in them, suns in dung

shaped into spheres 

dragged into creepy-crawly underworlds;

guided by starry skies, they deep-cleaned fields,

deodorised cattle dumps.

Photographers fawned over tigers, meercats,

svelte giraffes 

while caddis flies withered in the wings - 

no lightbulbs exploded as spiders dived for cover 

beneath piles of calcified scat.

Globetrotting beetles wade through cesspits

teeming with tailings,

cowpats contaminated by worm controls.

Bugs that make the world go round push up

the daisies, while the planet goes to shit.

Bethan Roberts, "My Policeman"

Bethan Roberts has published five novels and writes stories and drama for BBC Radio 4. Her books include The Good Plain Cook (Serpent’s Tail, 2008), which was a Radio 4 Book at Bedtime; My Policeman (Chatto & Windus, 2012), the story of a 1950s policeman, his wife, and his male lover (now an Amazon Original movie); and Mother Island (Chatto, 2014), which received a Jerwood Fiction Uncovered prize. Her latest novel, Graceland, tells the story of Elvis Presley and his mother, Gladys. Bethan has taught Creative Writing at Chichester University and Goldsmiths College, London. She lives in Brighton with her family.

About My Policeman, by Bethan Roberts

It is in 1950's Brighton that Marion first catches sight of Tom. He teaches her to swim, gently guiding her through the water in the shadow of the town's famous pier, and Marion is smitten —determined her love alone will be enough for them both. A few years later, Tom meets Patrick, a curator at the Brighton Museum. Patrick is besotted, and opens Tom’s eyes to a glamorous, sophisticated new world of art, travel, and beauty. Tom is their policeman, and in this age it is safer for him to marry Marion and meet Patrick in secret. The two lovers must share him, until one of them breaks and three lives are destroyed. Inspired by the real-life relationship the novelist E. M. Forster had with a policeman, Bob Buckingham, and his wife, My Policeman is a deeply heartfelt story of love's passionate endurance, and the devastation wrought by a repressive society.

You can see more about My Policeman on the publisher's website here. Below, you can read an opening extract from the novel. 

From My Policeman

Peacehaven, October 1999

I considered starting with these words: I no longer want to kill you – because I really don’t – but then decided you would think this far too melodramatic. You’ve always hated melodrama, and I don’t want to upset you now, not in the state you’re in, not at what may be the end of your life. 

What I mean to do is this: write it all down, so I can get it right. This is a confession of sorts, and it’s worth getting the details correct. When I am finished, I plan to read this account to you, Patrick, because you can’t answer back any more. And I have been instructed to keep talking to you. Talking, the doctors say, is vital if you are to recover. 

Your speech is almost destroyed, and even though you are here in my house, we communicate on paper. When I say on paper, I mean pointing at flashcards. You can’t articulate the words but you can gesture towards your desires: drink, lavatory, sandwich. I know you want these things before your finger reaches the picture, but I let you point anyway, because it is better for you to be independent. 

It’s odd, isn’t it, that I’m the one with pen and paper now, writing this – what shall we call it? It’s hardly a journal, not of the type you once kept. Whatever it is, I’m the one writing, while you lie in your bed, watching my every move. 

Rosa Fernandez, "Bite Me"

Rosa Fernandez, photograph by Kulvir Bhambra

Rosa Fernandez is a spoken word artist, musician and and two-time Word! Slam winner who has performed at venues and festivals across the UK and been published in the UK (various anthologies, Bite Me pamphlet by Bookishly) and Canada (Untethered magazine). With a degree from Goldsmiths College in English Literature, followed by a few years of nearly being famous as a pop star, Rosa has at least fifteen years of experience in editing, proofreading and publishing every kind of art form, running a blog of reviews of films, Netflix series, art exhibitions and poetry collections.

Rosa has performed in various guises at numerous venues nationwide, from singing songs from films in a burlesque showcase to writing and performing monologues, from headlining festivals and starring in a music video to performing stand up and hosting poetry nights dressed in ridiculous costumes; she brings her unique perspective, gentle whimsy and firm sense of socialist feminist justice to every performance. Otherwise, she can often be found wearing a hat and thinking about biscuits. Her poems have toured the nation in the back of a transit van, and it sometimes sounds like it.

Rosa’s upcoming poetry performances include co-hosting RunYour Tongue at the Exchange on Wednesday 23 November, a feature performance at Word! Slam at the Attenborough Arts Centre on Thursday 24 November and a feature performance at a fundraising event for Save Weekley Hall Wood on Friday 25 November at Kettering Arts Centre. Rosa will also be performing poetry and songs at the Clarendon Park Christmas Fair on Queen’s Road on Sunday 4 December, and would be delighted to see you at any of these events, particularly if you want to buy her pamphlet or haiku zines as excellent Christmas gifts!

 

About Bite Me, by Rosa Fernandez

Food is so much more than just fuel; it is opinion, memory, trigger, treat, and is at times just funny all by itself.

In this tasty selection box, Rosa Fernandez celebrates all the things we might consume and why, whether toast will actually kill you, and why the kitchen is the best place in the house. Crumbs!

You can read more about Bite Me on the publisher's website here. Below, you can read  a sample poem from the collection.  

From Bite Me

Choke

I left all your words in.
You piled them all up
Into the imaginary;
You needed somewhere
Where they could disappear.
 
Shoved under the stairs
The words are dusty,
Fading, crumbling;
I put one in my mouth
Occasionally, for fun.

Michael Rosen, "Many Different Kinds of Love"

 

Michael Rosen, photograph by David Levene

Michael Rosen is renowned for his work as a poet, performer, broadcaster and scriptwriter. He is Professor of Children's Literature at Goldsmiths, University of London and visits schools with his one-man show to enthuse children with his passion for books and poetry. In 2007 he was appointed Children's Laureate, a role which he held until 2009. While Laureate, he set up The Roald Dahl Funny Prize. He currently lives in London with his wife and children. His website is here. 

About Many Different Kinds of Love: A Story of Life, Death and the NHS

Michael Rosen wasn't feeling well. Soon he was struggling to breathe, and then he was admitted to hospital, suffering from coronavirus as the nation teetered on the edge of a global pandemic. 

What followed was months on the wards: six weeks in an induced coma, and many more weeks of rehab and recovery as the NHS saved Michael's life, and then got him back on his feet. 

Combining stunning new prose poems and the moving coronavirus diaries of his nurses, doctors and wife Emma-Louise Williams, and featuring illustrations by Chris Riddell, this is a beautiful book about love, life and the NHS. Each page celebrates the power of community, the importance of kind gestures in dark times, and the indomitable spirits of the people who keep us well. 

You can read more about Many Different Kinds of Love on the publisher's website here. You can read a short review of the book by Lisa Williams on Everybody's Reviewing here. Below, you can read a sample prose poem from the book. 

From Many Different Kinds of Love, by Michael Rosen

The coma keeps secrets.

There is no place for the coma in 

the geography of my memory. 

I can't visit the coma. 

I can't call for it. 

If I try to find it,

if I plead for it to come, 

it doesn't hear. 

Or if it hears, 

it refuses to come out of its cave

and tell me what happened. 

It hangs back in the shadows

forbidding me from 

having a conversation

There isn't even a sign saying:

'This is not a memory.'

It's Never Too Late

By Sushma Bragg

It’s been 35 years since I graduated with my BA (Hons) Degree in Humanities (Literature & History Of Ideas), then life got in the way. Priorities changed, and I got stuck in the day-to-day humdrum of working 9-5. I had to, I had bills to pay. And I wanted a family.

My passion had always been to become a writer. I always had my head in a book from the age of 9. Thanks to my teacher at primary school (I am forever grateful to her), it had become a challenge for her to find me a book that I would actually read and finish. I had no interest in any of the children's books at school. Then she hit on a jackpot! She introduced me to a world of fantasy, magic, and make-believe in the form of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. I was forever lost to this world since that day! Every break, every lunchtime, you would find me in the cloakroom, my nose in a book. I surreptitiously read way into the night too and quickly turned my light off if anyone woke to go to the bathroom. I dreamed that one day, people would read what I had written. It was a pipe dream. I did not have the belief in myself. However, I did have to go to University, it’s a cultural thing, an unspoken rule in our family. But back in the day, there were no Creative Writing degrees, hence my degree in Humanities.

Now 35 years on, life has given me the opportunity to pursue that dream. My children are at university, and I am relatively a free agent.

I grew up in Leicester, my mum still lives here and I spend a lot of time here in the week to help care for her. So the obvious choice had been to apply to the University of Leicester for the Master's Degree in Creative Writing. At the time I did so (I was a late applicant for the September start) I really didn’t think I’d get a place. But I did to my surprise!

I was apprehensive, thinking what on earth am I doing at this late stage? My twins had just started uni and they were only 18! I’m in my late 50s! I also had that niggle in the back of my mind, “Am I good enough?”

But with the support and belief of my family, I came to be a student again. Even got myself a studio in student accommodation.

I can’t describe the emotion I felt on my first day. But it definitely made me realise how much I missed the whole academic environment. The uni life, the seminars, discussions and of course the creative art. This is where I was meant to be. All my life this is the path I was meant to take. And the time was right for me now. I was literally buzzing.

I am enjoying the whole process, from attending seminars, making new friends, both classmates and tutors,  meeting and attending lectures by guest writers. The opportunities have been endless. I even enjoy reading the copious amounts of set material and of course the WRITING! 

My heart fell when I realised that part of my degree was poetry! I’d never written a poem in my life before. I most definitely was NOT a poet. Yet to my surprise, my first few pieces of writing were poems - even for the non-poetry modules. Just goes to show, how if given the chance and the willingness to try new things, that whole worlds can open up to you. I’m not saying I am any good, but I can now say I have written poetry, and enjoyed doing so.

I have come home, to where I was meant to be. I am living my dream. It’s never too late …