News & Events
International Student Writing Competition
The Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts (NCLA) is pleased to announce the inaugural International Student Writing Competition. The competition, the first of its kind to be sponsored by NCLA, aims to attract outstanding work which captures the day-to-day lives of international students living and studying in the UK (1st Prize: £1000; 2nd Prize: £500; 3rd prize: £200). Winners to be selected by award-winning writer, Jackie Kay. Best stories to appear in an anthology in 2010. Deadline: 21st June, 2010. Students from anywhere in the world can enter, providing they are studying at a UK university, or have graduated within the past two years. For competition rules and further information about making a submission, please visit the website: http://www.ncl.ac.uk/ncla/projects/competitions/isssc/
Regarding War: Image/Text:
10.30am - 6.00pm Thursday, 18th June 2009, Conference Centre, Lancaster University
This one-day event brings together a photographer, a filmmaker, a contemporary writer and a literary critic to discuss the themes of conflict, displacement and alienation in the context of the Centre’s Regarding War project. The conference will include an exhibition of Hanson’s photographs, a creative writing workshop run by Graham Mort and the work of two filmmakers who are exploring similar themes, Dictynna Hood and Sami Khan. Read online invitation and click here for a full report of the June 2009 Trans-Scriptions event.
Radiophonics Phase II
The British Council-funded Radiophonics project, led by Dr. Graham Mort of Lancaster University's Department of English and Creative Writing, has now entered its second phase in Nigeria. Stories written last year in workshops in Kano, Enuga, Abuja and Lagos and focused on key social and political issues, are now being broadcast on Inspiration FM, Lagos, in the ‘Under the Sun’ series. Click here for further information.
Lancaster University's Distance Learning MA in Creative Writing: International Scholarship Offer
Lancaster University is expanding its highly successful Distance Learning MA in Creative Writing, allowing the admission of a new cohort of 18-20 students for the academic year 2009-10. We are delighted to announce that we will also be able to offer two International Scholarships (worth £8,000 over two years) to applicants who need assistance in financing their studies and who are resident outside the EU. Click here for further details.
Creative-critical synergies: CTWR Research Event, 27th February 2009
You are invited to attend Creative-critical synergies on 27th February, 3-6 pm, IAS MR3. This is the first of three seminars for which we have 'Research Centre Seminar Series' funding. Our aim is to initiate cross-disciplinary exchanges by having members of the Centre (and other interested members of FASS) give presentations on different forms of research (theory-based, practice-based), methodological approaches and thematic focuses. There will be ten speakers from six different departments, and we are hoping for wide-ranging discussion of possible avenues of collaborative research amongst Centre members. Click here for full seminar details.
The Sankofa Center for African Dance & Culture: a Unique Artistic Internship
The Sankofa Center for African Dance & Culture, directed by Ronnie Shaw (University of California Los Angeles), is an American arts-based HIV/AIDS education, prevention, testing, and treatment internship program working in Ghana, West Africa under the National AIDS Control Programme. Those with a professed interest in the artistic expression of dance, drama, music, & art merged with public health, nursing, and social welfare are encouraged to apply to the Sankofa Center program, which, merges culturally appropriate preventative education with modern medical HIV testing & treatment. To learn more about the Sankofa Center program and to view a 5 minute documentary on their efforts in Africa please click on their website. See also our links section.
New African Studies group at Lancaster
The Lancaster University African Studies Group has recently been established to bring together researchers with a shared interest in African Studies, broadly conceived. The reading group will be meeting during term time to discuss a range of texts, and currently includes academics and doctoral students from History, Linguistics, Geography, Psychology, DELC, Theatre Studies and English Literature. If you would be interested in joining the reading group, please contact Charlotte Baker.
Launch of Online Exhibition: Regarding War
Regarding War: Image/Text is a new research project funded by the Institute of Advanced Studies and directed by members of the Centre for Transcultural Writing and Research. The images and texts displayed in our online exhibition communicate the experience of contemporary wars from perspectives in the North of England. Reflected in these new commissions of photographer Richard Hanson and writer Fadia Faqir are the ways in which contemporary armed conflicts touch individuals and communities. Click here to visit the Regarding War exhibition.
The Speechless Freedom of Expression Tour
At the end of October, Lancaster hosted two events offered by a group of outstanding visiting poets from South East Asia centred around the ideas of the Speechless Freedom of Expression tour. An evening of live new international poetry was held at the Nuffield Theatre on Thursday 23rd October. The Centre for Transcultural Writing and Research additionally arranged for the poets to visit the Department of English & Creative Writing on Friday 24th October. A well-attended lunchtime writing and performance workshop was given for the Department's Creative Writing students. Click here for more information and photographs of the event.
Lindsey Moore, Arab, Muslim, Woman
Lindsey Moore's Arab, Muslim, Woman: Voice and Vision in Postcolonial Literature and Film was published by Routledge in May 2008. Given a long history of representation by others, what themes and techniques do Arab Muslim women writers, filmmakers and visual artists foreground in their presentation of postcolonial experience? Lindsey Moore's groundbreaking book demonstrates ways in which women appropriate textual and visual modes of representation, often in cross-fertilizing ways, in challenges to Orientalist / colonialist, nationalist, Islamist, and 'multicultural' paradigms. She provides an accessible but theoretically-informed analysis by foregrounding tropes of vision, visibility and voice; post-nationalist melancholia and mother/daughter narratives; transformations of 'homes and harems'; and border crossings in time, space, language, and media.
Trans-Scriptions: writing . culture . location
Migration, Memory & Mood in 'Multicultural' Britain
The Centre's new series of Trans-Scriptions began with an event held in County South Lecture Theatre, Lancaster University, on 1st May 2008. "Migration, Memory & Mood in 'Multicultural' Britain" brought together a contemporary writer, a sociologist and a visual artist and filmmaker to discuss the themes of migration, memory, and mood in 'multicultural' Britain. Dr Anne-Marie Fortier opened the programme with a paper on recent constructions of multicultural Britain. Click here for more information and photographs of the event.
New Developments in Radiophonics
In November 2007 Radiophonics, led by Graham Mort, was extended to an educational phase, with workshops involving teachers from 17 secondary schools in and around Kampala. Following workshops it is intended to mount a writing competition to broadcast the best three short stories. In March 2008, Graham led a group of UK-based writers (Mike Harris, Simon Brett and Biyi Bandele) to initiate the first phase of the project in Nigeria, where 48 writers took part, each workshop producing a portfolio of new writing for radio. In May 2008 feedback from the workshops will be used to plan collaboration with a Nigerian broadcast partner and to develop the project over a three-year period. Click here for more information on the Radiophonics project.
Crossing Borders Participant Chosen for Nordic Africa Institute Residency
Tolu Ogunlesi of Nigeria was recently selected by the Nordic Africa Institute, Sweden, as its 2008 Guest Writer. This entails a three month residency at the Institute (between September and November 2008). Click here for the press release. Tolu is an emerging short fiction, essay writer and poet who juggles his job as a pharmacist in Lagos, Nigeria, with writing. He was a 2005/2006 Fellow on the British Council Crossing Borders creative writing programme, and a participant British Council Beyond Borders Festival.
The Death of Archie Markham
E.A. (Archie) Markham died in Paris on 23rd March, Easter day. Everyone who was at the Centre’s second Trans-Scriptions event in March 2006 will remember the humour and warmth of Archie’s reading. Peter Fraser, in The Guardian obituary, writes, “Archie Markham, who has died of a heart attack aged 68, was a superb poet and writer of short stories. His work was characterised by subtlety, wit, intelligence, playfulness, resistance to all orthodoxies and a devotion to the craft of writing. In 2002 his collection A Rough Climate was shortlisted for the Poetry Book Society's TS Eliot prize.” (The Guardian 26th April 2008)
FASS Virtual Research Training: Pilot Project
The Virtual Research Environment provided as part of the Centre's Postgraduate Portal has become the core of a Faculty-wide initiative. We are very pleased to announce that we have received support from the FASS Research Training Initiatives Fund for a new programme of interdisciplinary virtual Research Training. The pilot will run in Summer Term. We are hoping to involve a selection of FASS PhD students from different disciplines, and are recruiting volunteers from each year of study. Click here for full details.
Regarding War: Image/Text
We are delighted to announce that our bid for IAS Incubation Programme funding for ‘Regarding War’ has been successful. The project will be developed under the aegis of the Centre for Transcultural Writing and Research in collaboration with LICA. It will produce an archive of creative imagery and writing that reflects upon the experience of contemporary war(s) from perspectives in the North-West of England. Click here to read more.
Greater Middle East and Islamic Studies Network
Click here to see the schedule for the Lent term for the new interdisciplinary 'Greater Middle East and Islamic Studies Network' seminar series, a diverse and thought-provoking series of discussions.
Graham Mort wins The Bridport Prize
Graham Mort has won first prize in the prestigious international writing competition, The Bridport Prize, for his short story, "The Prince". His story is printed in the Bridport Prize 2007 Anthology. The 26 poems and short stories included in the anthology were chosen by Don Paterson and Tracey Chevalier from thousands of submissions. Read more...
Zambian 'Crossing Borders' writer wins Commonwealth Short Story Prize
Zambia's Ellen Banda-Aaku has won the £2,000 Commonwealth short story prize for her story Sozi's Box, about the thoughts of a young girl at her brother's funeral. The prize was established 11 years ago with the aim of increasing appreciation between different Commonwealth cultures. It is proving to be a nursery for star young writers, including the bestselling Nigerian Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, author of Half of a Yellow Sun. Ellen was a participant on the British Council/Lancaster University African writers project 'Crossing Borders' designed and led by Dr. Graham Mort.
Graham Mort's Visibility (September 2007)
Review in The Guardian of Graham Mort's Visibility: "Though not as well known as he deserves outside poetry's tight-knit circle, within it, Graham Mort is acknowledged as one of contemporary verse's most accomplished practitioners. This book, which showcases a selection of poems from five earlier collections alongside a generous tranche of new work, perfectly exhibits the blend of formal scrupulousness, sensory evocation and intellectual rigour that has shaped his reputation." Read more...
Crossing Borders participant wins Caine Prize
Monica Arac de Nyeko, a Ugandan participant on the British Council/Lancaster University Crossing Borders mentoring project for African writers, has just won the prestigious Caine Prize for African short fiction. Crossing Borders was designed by Graham Mort of Lancaster's Department of English & Creative Writing. Further details of the award appear in the following link: The Guardian.
Graham Mort wins International Award for Excellence in the arts
Graham Mort has been selected as the winner of the International Award for Excellence in the area of the arts, for his paper “The Reflexive Muse: Online Creative Writing Development in Africa and the UK Academy” (a paper delivered at the Edinburgh International Arts Festival, 15-18 August 2006, and published in The International Journal of the Arts in Society).
Fadia Faqir publishes My Name is Salma
Fadia Faqir is a Jordanian/British writer and a defender of human rights, especially women's rights in the Arab world. She is the author of two other novels, Nisanit and Pillars of Salt. She came to Britain in 1984 to study creative writing at Lancaster University under David Craig. In 1985 she was awarded an MA in Creative Writing by Lancaster, and in 1990 the University of East Anglia awarded her the first PhD in Critical and Creative Writing. Brought up in Amman she now lives with her husband in Durham. My Name is Salma was published in May 2007 by Transworld Publishers. Click here to buy My Name is Salma on Amazon.
Abigail Zammit's Voices from the Land of the Trees
Abigail Zammit, who is from Malta, was awarded an MA in Creative Writing by Lancaster University in 2006. Her new book, Voices from the Land of Trees, is forthcoming in June 2007, published by Smokestack Books. Its poems, which tell the story of Guatemala's thirty-six years of civil war, "are spoken by many different voices - mothers, missionaries, children, soldiers, guerrillas, Indians, students and journalists - each struggling to be heard above the sound of gunfire and weeping, each trying to break the silence. Voices from the Land of Trees is a work of bold historical imagination and sympathy, a contribution to the process of recovering these terrible events from official silence and collective amnesia."
Open Day - 31st May 2007
David Dabydeen was the guest reader at a very well-attended all-day event, inaugurating the Centre for Transcultural Writing and Research and showcasing the work done on such related projects as Crossing Borders, Radiophonics and Moving Manchester. Click here for posters and more information.
Centre for Transcultural Writing and Research, County College, Lancaster University, LA1 4YD, UK