Derek Neale is a fiction writer with an interest in dramatic writing and life writing. He helped to design and write the course materials for a whole new generation of Open University writing courses – Start Writing (A174-6) and Creative Writing (A215). He is Chair of Advanced Creative Writing (A363). He has recorded several CD interviews with playwrights, novelists, autobiographers and biographers about their approach to writing. He taught creative writing at UEA over a number of years, both fiction and drama, and has taught creative writing online to students in Britain and throughout Europe, as well as facilitating writing activities in a prison. He gained his BA in Drama and Literature as a mature student, and gained his Creative Writing MA and a PhD in Creative and Critical Writing at UEA. Research interests include the relationship between writing and memory, the creative process, the pedagogy of workshop teaching, online techniques for teaching writing, and crossovers between fiction, dramatic and life writings.
Extracts from Derek's Open University teaching material include a sample from A215, Writing what you know (a text unit on OpenLearn) and audio extracts from A363 which are available in the iTunes U album on Creative Writing (tracks 1-10). These are also available as podcasts. Topics include Tanika Gupta on Voice; Helen Blakeman and Setting; Developing the Idea; Alan Ayckbourn on Redrafting, as Director, and on Staging; David Edgar on Adaptation and Breakdowns; Jane Rogers on Adapting for Television and as a Novelist; and Approaches to Contemporary Fiction.
Derek has appeared as a guest blogger on The Writers' and Artists' Yearbook website, posting writing exercises on Making a scene, Finding a voice, and Splicing the strands. These are combined and expanded into an article on Developing Your Style.
Follow this link to see Derek discussing the relationship between drama and fiction.
Watch Derek in conversation with Iain Banks at the Cheltenham Literature Festival.
A Creative Writing Handbook: developing dramatic technique, individual style and voice (A&C Black/Open University, 2009) – editor and principal author, contributing chapters on writing fiction and writing for stage, radio and film.
‘Sets a strong benchmark for the study and practice of creative writing in higher education’ – Professor David Morley, Warwick University
Writing Fiction (Routledge, 2009) – co-authored with Linda Anderson
Life Writing (Routledge, 2009) – co-authored with Sara Haslam
‘Reading film: An Angel at My Table’ a film adaptation case study – in The Handbook to Literary Research, 2nd edition (eds. Delia Da Sousa Correa and W.R.Owens Routledge/OU 2009)
Creative Writing: a workbook with readings (ed. Linda Anderson, Routledge/Open University, 2006)
Major contributing author - chapters on the creative process, fiction and life writing.
Start Writing Essays – co-authored (Open University online - 2003)
See also Open Research Online for further details of Derek Neale’s research publications.
‘Writing a Wicked Commentary’ in Writing in Education Issue 41 Spring 2007
A Creative Writing Handbook: developing dramatic technique, individual style and voice (A&C Black/Open University, 2009)
Writing for stage and film (DVD – Pier Productions/OU, 2008)
Start Writing Plays (Open University online, 2004)
‘Prose from Cons’ (1994) and ‘The Write Mode’ (1996) - both in-house collections of prison writing from HMP Wayland
Mafia - co-edited (UEA and Eastern Arts, 1993)
‘Violin Lessons’ in Mafia (1993, UEA)
‘Land of Their Fathers’ in Debatable Lands (Panurge, 1994)
‘The Barber’s Victim’ in Raconteur (vol 6, 1996)
The Book of Guardians, a novel - forthcoming
Interviewer and academic editor for CDs –
Writing Plays (Pier Productions/OU 2008)
Radio, Film and Fiction (Pier Productions/OU 2008)
Start Writing Plays: Interviews with Playwrights (BBC/OU 2004)
Contributing Interviewer/ editor for CDs –
Fiction Writing: Interviews with Novelists (Pier Productions/OU 2006)
Life Writing: Interviews with life writers (Pier Productions/OU 2006)
Start Writing Fiction: Interviews with Novelists (BBC/OU 2004)
He has also been academic adviser on the Radio 3 series ‘Ian McMillan’s Writing Lab’
BBC/Arts Council Write Out Loud radio writing award (1997)
The European’s Raconteur short story prize (1996)
Currently working on his second novel – Gimcracks. He is also working on a collection of interviews with writers and a discussion book examining the relationship between writing and memory, and the language that writers use to talk about writing.
Email: derek.neale@open.ac.uk
Fax: +44 (0)1908 65 3750
Post: Dr. Derek Neale, English Department, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, UK.
