A round-up of UEA Creative Writing alumni achievements in six months from 1 July 2021
DEBUTS
Lynne Bryan (MA 1985), Helen de Borchgrave (MA 2014) and Adam Andrusier (MA 2016) published debut memoirs.
Emily Bullock (MA 2004) and Sonal Kohli (MA 2013) published debut collections of short fiction.
Sean Gregory (MA 2010), Mona Arshi (MA 2012), Dani Redd (MA 2014; PhD 2018), Lin Le Versha (MA 2020) and Michael Egan (current MA) published their debut novels.
Zein Sa’dedin (BA 2017), Kat Payne Ware (MA 2020), Leia Butler (BA 2021), Al Anderson (current PhD) and Adrienne Wilkinson (current MA) published debut pamphlets of poetry.
Sam Buchan-Watts (MA 2014) published his debut collection of poetry.
Lily Meyer (MA 2014) published her first full-length translation.
NEW WORKS
Molly Naylor (MA 2008) published a graphic novel with Lizzy Stewart.
Rose Tremain (BA 1987), John Boyne (MA 1995), Ashley Stokes (MA 1997), Amanda Smyth (MA 2000), Aifric Campbell (MA 2003; PhD 2007), Chris Farnell (BA 2005), Anjali Joseph (MA 2008), Barrie Sherwood (PhD 2008), Gavin McCrea (MA 2009; PhD 2013), Owen Nicholls (MA 2009), Paul Howarth (MA 2015), Timothy Ogene (MA 2017), Judi Daykin (MA 2019), Karen Taylor (MA 2019) and Gina Hollands (current MA) published new novels.
Avril Joy (BA 1972) and Judi Daykin (MA 2019) published new collections of short stories.
Seth Fishman (MA 2005) published a new picture book for children. Richard Lambert (MA 2010) and Arathi Menon (MA 2018) published new novels for children.
Richard Beard (MA 1995), Tash Aw (MA 2003), Megan Dunn (MA 2006), Phyllida Scrivens (MA 2014) and Joanna Walsh (PhD 2020) published new works of non-fiction.
Robert Sheppard (MA 1979), Sue Hubbard (MA 1995), Agnieszka Studzińska (MA 2003) and John Osborne (MA 2020) published new collections of poetry. Jon Stone (BA 2004), Anna De Vaul (PhD 2012) and Meghann Boltz (MA 2016) published new pamphlets of poetry. Anna Selby (BA 2005; MA 2006) edited a new anthology of poetry. James McDermott (BA 2015; MA 2016) published a new pamphlet of poetry and wrote his first script for Eastenders.
The Trick, a TV thriller by Owen Sheers (MA 1998), was broadcast on BBC1. Sarah Stephenson (MA 2020) had a staged reading of new play at the Garage Theatre. A play by Chloe Yates (current BA) ran at the Golden Goose Theatre, Camberwell.
Anna Pincus (MA 1984) co-edited a fourth anthology of Refugee Tales. Nessa O’Mahony (MA 2003) co-edited an anthology of poetry. Jen Calleja (current PhD) co-edited a collection of new Maltese writing.
AWARD WINNERS (BOOKS):
Richard Lambert (MA 2010) won the Mal Peet Children’s Award at the East Anglian Book Awards. Gboyega Odubanjo (BA 2017; MA 2018) won the Michael Marks Poetry Award. Abhishek Prasad (MA 2020) won the Bath Novel Award.
AWARD NOMINATIONS (BOOKS, PRODUCTIONS):
David Almond (BA 1973) and Richard Lambert (MA 2010) were longlisted for the UK Literary Association Book Awards. Kazuo Ishiguro (1980) was longlisted for the Booker Prize. Hannah Vincent (BA 1987) was shortlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize. John Boyne (MA 1995) was shortlisted for the Eason Novel of the Year Award at the An Post Irish Book Awards. Graham Clifford (MA 2001) was longlisted for the James Tate International Poetry Prize. Sam Byers (MA 2003; PhD 2013) was shortlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize. Luke Wright (BA 2003) and Lewis Buxton (BA 2014; MA 2020) were shortlisted in the Poetry category of the East Anglian Book Awards. Rick Bland (MA 2008) was shortlisted for The First Novel Prize. Nick Bradley (MA 2016; PhD 2020) was longlisted for the Diverse Book Awards. Peter Goulding (MA 2018) was shortlisted for the Wales Book of the Year Award in the Creative Non-Fiction category. Arathi Menon (MA 2018) was placed third in the Novel London Literary Competition and longlisted for the BPA First Novel Award. Louise Mangos (MA 2019) was longlisted for the Page Turner Award. Yan Ge (MA 2020) was runner-up for the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation.
AWARD WINNERS (COMPETITIONS):
Sarah Corbett (MA 1998) won the Northern Writers’ Awards Arvon Award. CD (Chris) Rose (MA 2007) won the Northern Writers’ Award for Fiction and Creative Non-Fiction. Jade Cuttle (MA 2019) won the Northern Writers’ Awards Debut Award for Poetry. Vijay Khurana (MFA 2019) won the Griffith Review Emerging Voices competition. Leeor Ohayon (current MA) won the Royal Society of Literature V.S. Pritchett Short Story Prize and the Leicester Writes Short Story Prize. Ezra Woodger (current MA) was one of the winners of the JKP Writing Prize.
AWARD NOMINATIONS (COMPETITIONS):
Sue Hubbard (MA 1995) was shortlisted for the Bridport Poetry competition. Josephine Corcoran (MA 1997) and Stuart Charlesworth (MA 2012) were shortlisted for the Live Canon International Poetry Competition. Nina Cullinane (MA 2003) and Vijay Khurana (MFA 2019) were shortlisted for the Bristol Short Story Prize. Amaan Hyder (MA 2006) was shortlisted for the 4thWrite Short Story Competition. Joanne Hayden (MA 2007) was Highly Commended in the Ambit Short Story Competition. Rory Gleeson (MA 2014) was shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award. Alan Murrin (MA 2017) was shortlisted for the Writing.ie Short Story of the Year competition. Kathy Stevens (MA 2017) came second in the Moth Short Story Prize. Rachel Cleverly (MA 2019) was longlisted for the Winchester Poetry Prize. Louise Mangos (MA 2019) was longlisted for the Exeter Story Prize. Amanda Caswell-Robinson (MA 2021) was longlisted for the second year running for the Primadonna Prize. Leeor Ohayon (current MA) was shortlisted for the Brick Lane Bookshop Short Story Prize. Adrienne Wilkinson (current MA) was Highly Commended in the Bridport Poetry Competition; Sue Hubbard (MA 1995) and Linda Collins (current MA) were shortlisted.
BOOK DEALS:
Cressida McLaughlin (BA 2003) signed a five-book deal with HarperFiction. Priscilla Morris (MA 2009; PhD 2013) sold her debut novel to Duckworth Books. Kim Sherwood (BA 2011; MA 2012) signed a deal with HarperCollins to write a trilogy of James Bond novels. Anna Metcalfe (MA 2012; PhD 2016) sold her debut novel to Granta Books. Deepa Anappara (MA 2017; current PhD) and Tamour Soomro (MA 2016; PhD 2021) signed a deal with Vintage (UK) and Random House (US) to co-edit an anthology of essays. Karen Angelico (MA 2018) sold her debut novel to Orion. Emily Berry (PhD 2018) sold her new collection of poetry to Faber & Faber. Daniel Wiles (MA 2020) sold his debut novel to Swift Press.
ALSO:
James McDermott (MA 2016) was awarded a grant by the Peggy Ramsay Foundation to write a new play. The publicity campaign for The Muslim Problem by Tawseef Khan (MA 2021) was shortlisted for the FutureBook Awards. Conor Duggan (MA 2021) was selected for the Irish Writers Centre Novel Fair mentoring scheme. A poem by Perla Kantarjian (current MA) was selected for the Lunar Codex and will be launched in a time capsule to the moon.
MISSED LAST TIME:
Cherry Smyth (MA 2000) published a new collection of poetry. Sabina Dosani (current PhD) was longlisted for the Mslexia Life-Writing and Memoir Prize. Karina Cheah (current MA) published her debut collection of short stories. Tess Little (current MA) published her debut novel. Chloe Yates (current BA) was shortlisted for the inaugural Women’s Prize for Playwriting.
AND NOT FORGETTING:
Our 2013-14 Charles Pick Writing Fellow Avni Doshi sold the film rights to her Booker nominated first novel. Our 2015-16 David T.K. Wong Writing Fellow Violet Kupersmith published her debut novel. Professors of Creative Writing Giles Foden and Tessa McWatt published new novels. A new four-part play by Professor of Scriptwriting Steve Waters was broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Steve also published a new book about cinema and playwriting, and premiered a new play at Wicken Fen and RSPB Strumpshaw Fen. And as mentioned above, alumna and Scriptwriting lecturer Molly Naylor published a graphic novel with Lizzy Stewart.
Congratulations all!