Who gets published in the UK, and who chooses who gets published? Has the institution of the Creative Writing programme made a difference? Or do the older institutions of Oxbridge and the private school continue to exert a disproportionate influence? This extract from Against Creative Writing by novelist and UEA professor Andrew Cowan looks at […]
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Ian McEwan interviewed by Jon Cook
Lessons is the new novel by UEA alumnus Ian McEwan, and is published by Jonathan Cape on 13 September 2022. To coincide with its publication, here is McEwan in conversation with Jon Cook as part of the celebrations to mark 50 years of Creative Writing at UEA in 2020-21. Visit the UEA Live website here: […]
A History of Delusions
An extract from Victoria Shepherd’s new work of non-fiction A History of Delusions: The Glass King, A Substitute Husband and a Walking Corpse, published by OneWorld in June 2022. The 1340s, Rouen, northern France, behind a wonky timbered building near the river Seine, at the back of the rear courtyard, a furnace glows fierce […]
The Hollow Sea
The opening of Annie Kirby’s debut novel, The Hollow Sea, published by Penguin Michael Joseph on 18 August 2022 1 The Woman and the Girl: Monsters I think of them often, the woman and the girl in the dilapidated fishing boat with a mermaid painted on the deck, fleeing monsters of some kind or […]
Everything We Are
An extract from Karen Angelico’s debut novel, Everything We Are, published by Phoenix Books, Orion, in August 2022 Sarah remembers the first time Luke didn’t come home. They had only been married a year and he hadn’t done anything like that before. As the hours went by, her anger had turned to dread and […]
Housebreaking
An extract from Colleen Hubbard’s debut novel, Housebreaking, published by Corsair in the UK in August 2022. She was twenty minutes late for meeting Greg. She had taken a streetcar from a café where she had put in a job application, but a broken train at the next stop had held it up. On […]
Two poems from Glut
Two poems from Ramona Herdman’s new poetry collection, Glut, published in August 2022 by Nine Arches Press. Salad spinner I have failed to convey to you why I hate it so much. You laugh. There’s something obscene in plastic things – that the dinosaurs died, prehistoric forests went to mush, the whole […]
Christie Watson in conversation with Fiona Lettice
The UEA Literary Festival was founded in 1991 and this past academic year we have been celebrating 30 years of live literature at the university. Now known as UEA Live, the Spring 2021 season featured this event with Christie Watson in conversation with Fiona Lettice. Christie is a Professor of Medical and Health Humanities at […]
No Country for Girls
The opening of Emma Styles’ debut novel, No Country for Girls, published by Sphere on 21 July 2022. The highway is long and flat and arrow-straight, running into the setting sun, and that is how he gets into difficulty. That, and his too-frequent glances between the rearview mirror and the holdall on the passenger […]
Little Boy
The opening of Little Boy, the debut novel by John Smith. An Editor’s Choice in The Bookseller’s Discover Review, it is available to purchase from Boiler House Press. Part 1 1 One morning a small boy was found buried in the ground in the Belgian Congo. He was buried up to the scalp. […]
