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Staff Profile

Professor Sinéad Morrissey

Professor of Creative Writing

  • Telephone: 0191 208 3533
  • Address: SELLL, Percy Building,
    Newcastle University,
    Newcastle upon Tyne,
    NE1 7RU
Background


Sinéad Morrissey is a Professor of Creative Writing at Newcastle University. Her current roles include Associate Director of Research (Creative Writing) and Postgraduate Research Director (Creative Writing) within the School of English Literature Language and Linguistics.


Author of six poetry collections, two Selected Poems (USA, UK) and multiple interdisciplinary collaborations, her prizes include the T S Eliot Prize (2013), the Forward Prize (2017) and the European Poet of Freedom Award (2020). She was appointed Belfast Poet Laureate in 2013 and in 2019 was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.


In 2021, courtesy of a Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship, she began work on a long-form prose memoir about her Communist childhood in Belfast during the 1980s.

In 2024, she was named the recipient of the Seamus Heaney Award (Japan), in recognition of her 'outstanding contribution' to world literature and fostering of strong cultural connections between Ireland and Japan.


Education


PhD. English Literature, French Revolutionary Period. Trinity College, Dublin. (2003 - Ussher Scholarship).

BA Hons. German and English. Trinity College, Dublin. First Class. (1995)


Professional Affiliations


FRSL Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (elected 2019)

AHRC Peer Review College (2017-2020)

MHEA Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (2010)

 

Poetry Awards


The Seamus Heaney Award (2024)

The European Poet of Freedom Award (2020)

The Forward Prize for Best Collection (2017) 

E M Forster Award (The American Academy of Arts and Letters, (2016) 

National Book Circle Critics’ Award for Poetry (finalist, 2016)  

Inaugural Belfast Poet Laureate (2013-2014) 

T S Eliot Prize (2013) 

Irish Times/Poetry Now Award (2013) 

Major Individual Artist Award (Arts Council of Northern Ireland, 2012) 

Irish Times/Poetry Now Award (2009) 

Lannan Literary Fellowship (USA, 2007) 

UK National Poetry Competition (First Prize, 2007) 

The Michael Hartnett Poetry Prize (2005) 

The Rupert and Eithne Strong Award (2002) 

The MacAulay Fellowship (Arts Council of Ireland, 2002) 

Eric Gregory Award (1996) 

The Patrick Kavanagh Award (1990) 


Research

POETRY COLLECTIONS

  • There Was Fire in Vancouver (Carcanet, 1996)
  • Between Here and There (Carcanet, 2002)
  • The State of the Prisons (Carcanet, 2005)
  • Through the Square Window (Carcanet, 2009)
  • Parallax (Carcanet, 2013)
  • On Balance (Carcanet, 2017)

SELECTED POEMS

  • Parallax and Selected Poems (Farrar Straus Giroux, New York, 2015)
  • Found Architecture: Selected Poems (Carcanet, 2020)

EDITED BOOKS

  • The Future Always Makes me so Thirsty: New Poets from the North of Ireland (co-editor, Blackstaff Press, 2016)
  • Donald Davie: Selected Poems (editor; Carcanet Press, 2022)

INTERDISCIPLINARY

  • Up by the Roots: a music/poetry collaboration with composer Piers Hellawell (Edition Peters, 2016).
  • Gone Westering: a music/poetry collaboration with Shetland fiddler and composer, Catriona MacDonald (2019).

CURRENT PROJECT

  • The Lightbox: a long-form prose memoir about my Communist childhood in Belfast during the Troubles funded by the Leverhulme Trust.
Teaching

I have been teaching Creative Writing for 21 years with a particular, though not exclusive, focus on poetry. I have taught at all levels of the curriculum and to date have supervised nine PhD Creative Writing Poetry students to completion.

Publications

  • Authored Books

    • Morrissey S. The Italian Chapel. Manchester: Fine Press Poetry, 2019.
    • Morrissey S. On Balance. Manchester, England: Carcanet Press, 2017.

  • Creative Writing

    • Morrissey S. Persimmons. Journal of Irish Studies 2024. Iasil, Japan, 38, 59-61.
    • Morrissey S. The Measures Taken. Copper Nickel 2023. University of Colorado Denver, 37; Autumn 2023, 11.
    • Morrissey S. An Asterisk on the Map. PN Review 2023. Carcanet Press Ltd, 50(2 (whole no.274)), 22-26.
    • Morrissey S. Two Poems: 'Sealand'; 'The Iron Room'. Poetry & Covid-19 2021. Shearsman Books, 33-33 + 1.
    • Morrissey S. A Week in Gdansk. PN Review 2021. Carcanet Press, 47(6), 21-25.
    • Morrissey S. Solstice. Volume Poetry 2020. (2). In Preparation.
    • Morrissey S. A Tourniquet for Emily Davison. P N Review 2020. Carcanet Press, 46(3), 1.

  • Digital or Visual Media

    • Morrissey S. What Pa Saw at the Benders. Acts of Commission Quotidien Words on the Street, 2022. Reading and Interview.
    • Mackay R, Polley J, Morrissey S, Masud M, Bergin T, Morris-Campbell J, Rickards M. The Sounds of Tyne. London: British Broadcasting Corporation, 2022. Radio Programme.
    • Morrissey S. Absences. London: BBC Radio 3, 2022.

  • Edited Book

  • Musical Composition

    • Macdonald C, Morrissey S. Gone Westering. . Newcastle upon Tyne: Newcastle Poetry Festival, 2019.

  • Performance

    • Macdonald C, Morrissey S, De La Haye D. Gone Westering. 2019. Gateshead: The Sage Gateshead, 20mins.