Latest News: 1st May: Here’s the URL for “Particles” – hardly the most serious poem I’ve ever written. I wrote it as a small exercise within the MA Writing at Hallam. Yesterday, it won 3rd prize as well as the “chuckle bonus” in the Jacqui Bennett Writers Bureau poetry competition.
So, for 2009 to date, that’s one 3rd, one runner up (Envoi), one 3rd by readers vote (Orbis), one Special Merit (National Galleries of Scotland), two Highly Commended (Chesterfield and Norwich), and one shortlisted (The Poetry Business).
And here’s a list of work forthcoming:
- Poems: “Conjuror’s Hat” and “The Lost and the Damned”, Monkey Kettle (forthcoming, Spring 2009)
- Poem: “Proxima Centauri” Norwich Writers’ Anthology (forthcoming, Spring 2009)
- Poem: “Planting Dorothy’s Garden”, The North (forthcoming, Spring 2009)
- Poem: “Sky-clad”, The Frogmore Papers (forthcoming, Spring 2009)
- Poem: “Sabretooth”, Envoi (forthcoming, June 2009)
- Reading at Woodseats Literary Festival, July 6th
- Short story: “The Silver Quill”, Words (forthcoming, Summer 2009)
- Poems: “Airbag”, “A Venetian Mask”, “Button Surgery”, “Holy Ground” and “Measures” Obsessed with Pipework (forthcoming, Winter 2009)
I’m also enjoying working in the “Matter” editorial team at the moment. You can follow Matter on Twitter.
My last academic book is a few years old now.
Whilst it’s not very ‘creative’ writing, I think it’s pretty readable, and it’s still selling so apparently useful:
- My introductory book on communications and media
Reviewed by Shaun Best, University of Manchester as:
“This is the most well written book I have read for some time. I would have very much wished for such a book when I was an undergraduate. It outlines very clearly and honestly the skills needed to be a successful independent learner. …the authors “voice” is one of a critical friend that the reader can trust“
I’m writing another book for Sage called, rather grandly but probably inaccurately”The Undergraduate Study Skills Handbook”. This won’t appear till 2010, though.
Academic papers:
I’m also expecting to deliver the following papers this year:
- “Can we assess writing for children?”, with David Harmer, at The Playful Paradox: Creative Writing on Campus 2009, University of Bedfordshire, May 23rd
- “Personal pronouns and ambiguous identity: CSI for the contemporary lyric” at a conference on Identity and Form in 20th and 21st Century Literature at Sheffield Hallam University, July 5th and 6th
- “The Petri-dish of poetry: growing a single culture”, at Science in Society, Cambridge, August 5-7th,
Words with music 