New Writing

Multi-award winning authors Margaret Atwood and James Lasdun are to join the UEA Creative Writing programme in the new year as UNESCO City of Literature visiting professors. They will each spend the spring semester at the university helping students to develop their creative writing through a series of masterclasses and individual tutorials. Both writers will also appear at the university’s spring literary festival, and Margaret Atwood will deliver UEA’s annual Sebald Lecture at the British Library on 18th February. Margaret Atwood (pictured) is the author of more than forty books of fiction, poetry and critical essays. Her latest novel, ‘MaddAddam’, is the third in the trilogy that began with the 2003 Giller Prize-winner, ‘Oryx and Crake’, and continued with ‘The Year of the Flood’ in 2009. James Lasdun is the widely-acclaimed author of novels, short stories, poetry, essays, screenplays and, most recently, the memoir ‘Give Me Everything You Have’ (2012), an account of being stalked by a former student. His 2006 novel ‘Seven Lies’ was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and his 2001 poetry collection, ‘Landscape with Chainsaw’, was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize and the Forward Prize. Born in London, he is the son of the late architect Sir Denys Lasdun, who designed the UEA campus.