‘Scorper’ is the new novel by UEA graduate Rob Magnusson Smith as is published by Granta this week. Rob (pictured) gained a BA in Philosophy and Psychology from Pitzer College in Claremont, California, before joining the MA in Creative Writing (Prose Fiction) at UEA in 2009. He was that year’s recipient of the David Higham Award and began writing ‘Scorper’ while on the MA. He subsequently completed a PhD in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University and now teaches English and Creative Writing at Exeter’s Penryn campus in Cornwall. Rob’s first novel ‘The Gravedigger’ won the William Faulkner-William Wisdom Award and was published by the University of New Orleans Press in 2010. His short fiction has most recently appeared in the Guardian, The Literarian, Fiction International, The Reader, The Istanbul Review, and The Greensboro Review, and he is also a contributing editor of investigative journalism at Playboy.