About

I am a poet at Staffordshire University and I teach Creative Writing and English Literature. The courses I teach are Introduction to Creative Writing, Poetic Writing, Community Writers, and Experimental Writing. I also contribute to modules in American Literature, Introduction to English Studies, Philosophy, and the MA in Negotiated Studies. I also supervise PhD work.
Of special interest is not only how this has been evident in cultural texts from the past, but also how cultural identity is represented in the arena of avant-garde verbal art, where the primary concern of representation is linguistic, material and physical.

About me

I studied English Literature (BA Hons) at Cardiff University and followed a program weighted towards Creative Writing, Critical and Cultural Theory (1999-2002). I stayed at Cardiff to complete an MA in the Teaching and Practice of Creative Writing (2003), then a PhD in Critical and Creative Writing (2007). My thesis was about hybrid creative-critical writing, oral and sonic traditions, and cross-cultural relationships to do with orality, most notably connections between African-American text and Welsh text.
I have substantial experience in facilitating community writing and have delivered workshops and reminiscence projects to senior citizens, lectured for the University of the Third Age [U3A] in addition to bringing Creative Writing into schools and to adult education. I have worked as a consultant for Kingston University (2008) to help develop the first online MFA in Creative Writing in the UK. I have worked at Staffordshire University since 2008 and hope to continue working with community groups though the Community Writer module, which is a part of the BA in Creative Writing.

Qualifications

English Literature BA HONS: Cardiff. 2002
MA in the Teaching and Practice of Creative Writing: Cardiff. 2003
PhD in Critical and Creative Writing: Cardiff: 2007
Thesis: The Form of the Fix: Sonority in the Minority.

Expertise

I am a publishing poet working in the areas of linguistically/formally innovative poetics, digital poetries, and hybrid forms. My poems can work can be read in Adanna, Ceramic Review, Chanticleer, Open Wide Magazine, Tears in the Fence, Equinox, and French Literary Review.

Research Interests

My research explores how linguistic and sonic schemas can assist in negotiating, challenging and channeling the building of identities. This is particularly evident for groups that experience their identity as dual, plural or chaotic or unfixed and disconnected, due to their heritage and possibly because they are part of a minority.
I am happy to consider PhD applications (proposals for either critical or creative theses) in the areas of minority and/or peripheral writing (poetry or prose), experimental writing, digital poetics, and hybrid textualities.

Academic Publications

“Reading Harryette Mullen is like hearing a new Musical Instrument: Post-National sampling, Verbal Art and Hip-Hop” in Ablaze With Lyric Fire: Black Music, Black Poetry. Ed. George Thompson. New York, Ashgate, 2012. [Forthcoming in the Summer]

Conference Papers

From Bardism to Minstrelsy to the Avant-Garde. Reconfigurations: Remaking Narrative, Reinventing Genre in Postcolonial and Diasporic Writing and Performance Third Conference in the AHRC-funded ‘Beyond the Linear Narrative’ project: Goldsmiths, London. (November 2011).
Ghosts, Ancestors and Signature: Echoes of Identity in Minority Literature: Midwestern Modern Language Association [M/MLA], Chicago. (November 2010).
Invited Respondent. Dramas and Traumas: Writers Responding to War. The British Council, London (May 2008)
Mackey, Mythology, and Mabinogi, American Literature Association [ALA], Boston (June 2007) [Performed Paper]

Creative Publications

Sonnet 3, Upstairs at Duroc. 14 (2013)
Seventh Negative Space, Upstairs at Duroc. 14 (2013)
Eleventh Negative Space. Upstairs at Duroc. 14 (2013)
Parallel Ceramic Review. Sept/Oct (2012)
Music To Not Write Home To, Commas&Colons. 0 (2012)
Palimpsests Blackbox Manifold. April (2012)
Trrrrrrrrrr, ditch May (2012)
In D, ditch May (2012)
Fifth Negative Space, ditch May (2012)
Perambulam. Adanna. 2011
Love Poem 2. Tears in the Fence 53 (2010)
Fifteenth Negative Space. French Literary Review (Oct 2010, France).
Shadow-Crab. Equinox (September 2010, France).
For(u)m. Open Wide Magazine 23 (2010)
Eighth Negative Space. Open Wide Magazine 23 (2010)
Ninth Negative Space Open Wide Magazine 23 (2010)

Fourteenth Negative Space. Open Wide Magazine 23 (2010).
Mannequin. Ol Chanty 3/Chanticleer 24 (2010).
Third Negative Space. Ol Chanty 3/Chanticleer 24 (2010).
Twelfth Negative Space. Ol Chanty 3/Chanticleer 24 (2010).
Scape Ore 2 (2004)
Sonnet 10. Aught 13 (2004)
Sonnet 12. Aught 13 (2004)
Sonnet 4. Aught 13 (2004)
Bk. Ore 1 (2003)
Talking to Stein. Ore 1 (2003)
Ice Rink. Fire 21 (2003): p.161.
Making Something of Nothing. Fire 21 (2003): p. 161.
Pastoral Virelay. Fire 21 (2003): p. 162.
C-Shanty. In The Pterodactyl’s Wing: Welsh World Poety. Ed. Gwyn, Richard. Cardigan: Parthian, 2003. p. 145.
Digging. The Pterodactyl’s Wing: Welsh World Poety. Ed. Gwyn, Richard. Cardigan: Parthian, 2003. p. 144.
I Won’t Send Roses. Gwyn, Richard (ed.). The Pterodactyl’s Wing: Welsh World Poety. Ed. Gwyn, Richard. Cardigan: Parthian, 2003. p. 143.
Jellyfish. The Pterodactyl’s Wing: Welsh World Poety. Ed. Gwyn, Richard. Cardigan: Parthian, 2003. p. 144
St Teilo. The Pterodactyl’s Wing: Welsh World Poety. Ed. Gwyn, Richard. Cardigan: Parthian, 2003. p. 141.