Writing place: what haunts the landscape of modern Britain? A creative writing conference, April 2023

(Image credits: Rohan Rangaswami on Unsplash; Luca on Unsplash; Philip Seargeant)

This one-day conference will consider the strategies writers use to explore place and their relationship with the environment, both real and imagined. 

The creation of setting is central to the way in which writers bring their worlds to life. However, beneath the streets, mountains, waterways and byways of Britain, lie secrets, ghosts and the haunting of history. This conference will explore how writers draw on the idea of place and identity in their practice, as well as providing participants with the opportunity to engage in practical exercises as they are invited to track shadows and history through the streets of London. 

The day will consist of talks, panels, and Q&A discussions, offering a variety of topics such as poetry, nature writing, fictional worldbuilding, and a virtual writing tour of an area near to the conference venue. Speakers include Helen Mort, Jessica Mookherjee, Ed Hogan, Philip Seargeant and Sarah Butler.

Registration: There is a £20 conference fee. The day includes lunch and refreshments. Book here

Key terms: Creative writing, psychogeography, hauntology ("Cultural memory and the persistence of the past" Coverley, Merlin 2020), world building, life writing, fiction, poetry .

Venue: Senate House, University of London, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU    Rooms G3, G4, G5

Venue map for Senate House.

When: Thursday 20^th April, 2023 10:45am – 4.30pm (arrival and refreshments from 10.15am)

Contact: IESEvents@sas.ac.uk  or  CCWriitngOU@open.ac.uk  

Schedule: 

Information about the speakers (in order of appearance)

 Helen Mort is an award-winning author based in Sheffield. She has published three poetry collections (Division Street, 2013 and No Map Could Show Them, 2016) and her latest, The Illustrated Woman (2022) is shortlisted for the Forward Prize. She has also written a novel (Black Car Burning, 2019), a short story collection (Exire, 2019) and also writes drama and creative non fiction. Helen’s first full length non-fiction book A Line Above The Sky (Ebury, 2022) was featured in the Guardian and Evening Standard’s ‘books to watch’ lists. She has been been shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize and Costa Prize and won the Fenton Aldeburgh Prize in 2015. She appears regularly on BBC radio and sometimes on TV. For more information: Helen Mort

(Photo with thanks to Emma Ledworth)

 Ed Hogan is a Lecturer in Creative Writing at the Open University. His research interests include the contemporary short story, and states of attention in fiction writing practice. Ed’s novels include The Electric, and Blackmoor. His recent short stories have been longlisted for the Sunday Times Short Story Award, and shortlisted for the V.S. Pritchett Prize. His story ‘Single Sit’ won the Galley Beggar Press Short Story Prize in 2021.

 Elizabeth Dearnley is a folklorist, artist and Lecturer in Creative Writing at Edinburgh Napier University whose work explores fairy tales, horror and collective storytelling. Following a practice-based Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship at University College London exploring the transmission of folktales set in forests, she has since worked across academia and the arts to stage imaginative participatory events, interventions and installations. She has produced several projects exploring the intersections of folklore and place and is currently writing a book about the relationship between forests and fairy tales.

 Sarah Bower is an associate lecturer at The Open University where she is also reading for a PhD in creative and critical writing. She is the author of two historical novels and (writing as S. A. Hemmings) one contemporary thriller. Her short fiction and non-fiction have been published in Asian Cha, the Historical Novels Review,  MsLexia, Lighthouse Literary Journal and Writing in Education among others and also been broadcast on BBC Radios Three and Four. Sarah lives in Norwich.

(Photo with thanks from Kate Griffin)

 Jessica Mookherjee is a poet of Bengali heritage. She was brought up in Mumbles, Wales, but has lived much of adult life in London and Kent. She has worked in Public Health for over 20 years and has a background in psychology and biological anthropology and socio-ecology. Her book Tigress (Nine Arches Press) was shortlisted as best second collection in the Ledbury Munthe Prize in 2021 Jessica is a board member of  the Poetry Society and a Co-Editor of Against the Grain Poetry Press. For more information: https://thejessicapoet.com

Philip Seargeant

 Philip Seargeant is the author most recently of The Art of Political Storytelling (Bloomsbury), described by The Irish Times as a ‘brilliant deconstruction of propaganda and how it co-opts dramatic and narrative technique, throwing into doubt truth, fact and identity’. He works as Senior Lecturer in Applied Linguistics at The Open University, where he teaches and researches language and communication. He has written and edited a dozen academic monographs, textbooks and collections on topics ranging from World Englishes, language and social media, to language and creativity. He regularly works as a consultant for the BBC and other media companies, and has won several awards for his short films on language and communication. He is a frequent contributor to publications such as Wired, The New European, Prospect, The Huffington Post, The Washington Post and The Independent.

 Sarah Butler has three novels published by Picador in the UK and with fourteen international publishers: Ten Things I’ve Learnt About Love (2013), Before The Fire (2015) and Jack and Bet (2020). In November 2018, she published a novella, Not Home, written in conversation with people living in unsupported temporary accommodation in Manchester. Sarah's work explores ideas of home, belonging, identity, family, and urban landscapes. She is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Manchester Metropolitan University and has an MA in Creative Writing from University of East Anglia, an MSc in Urban Studies from University College London and a PhD in Creative Writing from The Open University.

 Melissa Bailey is a Staff Tutor and experienced associate lecturer, at The Open University, where she is also reading for a PhD in Creative Writing.  She has been involved with a number of co-created writing and drama projects including standing in the rain as a living statute and constructing the eco installation Dodge.   Her BA and PGCE were from  University of London in English and Drama; her Creative Writing MA was achieved at Lancaster University.

 Anne Caldwell is a freelance writer based in West Yorkshire with a passion for writing about place and ecological themes.  Anne Caldwell currently works for the Open University and as a Royal Literary Fund Fellow.  In 2019, she was the co-editor of The Valley Press Anthology of Prose Poetry, alongside Oz Hardwick. Her fourth collection of prose poetry, Alice and the North, was published by Valley Press in November 2020. She has also co-edited a book of essays on prose poetry called Prose Poetry Theory and Practice (Routledge 2022). 

Panel Chairs (in order of appearance)

Derek Neale is Professor of Creative Writing at The Open University and is Co-Chair of the National Association of Writers in Education. His latest book is Writing Talk: Interviews with Writers about the Creative Process (2020). His creative work includes scripts such as Last Scenes (Liminalities 2021) and the novel, The Book of Guardians (2012). He is particularly interested in cross overs between genres, especially creative nonfiction, fiction and script, as reflected in his OU teaching chapters and books.  

Nicola Watson Professor Nicola J Watson (The Open University) has a specialist interest in the history of the literature of place, with a focus on the emergence of the heritage practices of literary tourism and the writer’s house museum. She is the author of The Literary Tourist: Readers and Places in Romantic and Victorian Britain (Palgrave, 2006), and The Author’s Effects: On the Writer’s House Museum (OUP, 2020) along with an edited collection and many other associated articles. One of her current projects, Coastlines, collects, explores, and commissions coastal writing.

 Siobhan Campbell is Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at The Open University.  She is a poet and critic. Siobhán was born in Ireland, where interests in post-conflict and cross-community work developed into her outreach in creative writing with military veterans. Her more recent foray into the research of creative writing as a social practice has let her to investigate the value of expressing creativity in palliative care.  www.siobhancampbell.com

 Jennie Owen is a Staff Tutor in Creative Writing, and an experienced Associate Lecturer with The Open University.  She is a Pushcart and Forward Prize nominated poet, who has been published in a wide variety of journals, magazines, and anthologies.  She has an MA in Creative Writing from Edge Hill University and an MA in English from The Open University.  Jennie is currently reading for her PhD with Manchester Metropolitan University, with a focus on poetry and traumascapes.

 Joanne Reardon works extensively with visual artists on site specific projects in museums and art galleries.  Her collaborative work with artists includes publications in exhibitions including Medusa and Her Sisters (2019) with Natalie Sirett at Burgh House Museum in Hampstead, Still Life with Black Birds (2015) with Richard Kenton Webb at the Corinium Museum in Cirencester and Mythopoeia (2012) with Iain Andrews at Warrington Art Gallery & Museum. Her novel, The Weight of Bones, was shortlisted for the 2017 Cinnamon Debut Novel Award and published by Cinnamon Press in 2020.  She is Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at The Open University.