New Writing

Four graduates of the UEA Creative Writing MA are among the ten winners of this year’s Escalator Literature Competition, organized by Writers’ Centre Norwich.  Megan Bradbury (pictured) graduated from the Prose Fiction MA in 2005 and is the current Charles Pick Writing Fellow at UEA. Meghan Purvis graduated from the Poetry MA in 2005 and subsequently completed a PhD in Creative & Critical Writing under the supervision of George Szirtes.  She was the winner of the 2011 Times Stephen Spender Prize for poetry in translation.  Lucy Yates graduated from the Prose Fiction MA in 2006 and has since published short fiction in a range of anthologies.  She is currently working on her first novel, ‘From the Mountains Descended Night’, which explores one of the biggest literary scandals of the eighteenth century.  Sue Healy graduated from the Prose Fiction MA in 2009 and has since won a number of prizes for her writing, including the Molly Keane Memorial Award, the HISSAC Prize, the Sussex Playwrights’ Prize, the Meridian Prize, the Waterford-Annaghmakerrig Award and the Ted O’Regan Arts Award.  The Escalator scheme is open to writers from the East of England and offers a year’s worth of mentoring from established writers Tobias Hill, Natasha Cooper, Cathi Unsworth, David Rain and Michelle Spring.  The winners will receive coaching to support applications for grants, attend professional development workshops, and receive introductions to agents and publishers.