New Writing

Wild Life is a new poetry collection from UEA alumnus James McDermott and is published this week by Nine Arches Press. James graduated from UEA with a BA in Scriptwriting & Performance in 2015 and with an MA in Scriptwriting in 2016. He has trained on The Royal Court Writers Group, Soho Theatre’s Writers Lab and Hampstead Theatre’s Inspire: The Next Playwright Programme. His plays include Fast Food (Lyric Hammersmith), Street Life (Norwich Theatre Royal), Rubber Ring (Pleasance Islington; UK Tour), and Time & Tide, which was written as his MA dissertation and ran at the Park Theatre London. It was nominated for an Off-West End Theatre Award for Best New Play. Manatomy, his debut collection of poetry, was published by Burning Eye Books 2021 and nominated for the Polari First Book Prize. Erased: A Pamphlet of Found and Erasure Poems was published by Polari Press in 2021. Green Apple Red was published by Broken Sleep Books in 2022. James received a Developing Your Creative Practice Grant from Arts Council England to write James received a Developing Your Creative Practice Grant from Arts Council England to write Green Apple Red with mentoring from Richard Scott. He currently teaches on the MA Creative Writing (Scriptwriting) at UEA.