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Creative Writing Research

Creative Writing is a dynamic and high-achieving subject area in the School, whose members produce award-winning creative work as well as innovative practice-led research.

Strong tradition of creative and critical dialogue

Our poets, prose writers, scriptwriters, and film-makers not only maintain impressive levels of creative output, but also contribute to the strong tradition of creative and critical dialogue in the School, which began in 1967 with the appointment of the first Literary Fellow, Tony Harrison.

 

Film and Screenwriting

Research in film and screenwriting takes place across several Schools in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Theatre and performance

We produce prize-winning scholarly research and creative writing for stage, screen and radio.

Prose

Our research cluster produces award-winning writing across the novel, the short story, the memoir, and creative non-fiction.

Poetry

Poetry is an outstanding strength of the School, which has underpinned the transformation of Newcastle into the ‘UK Capital of Poetry’.

Creative Writing and Literature colleagues work together to explore the interface between a series of academic, civic, and artistic endeavours through practice-led research. These projects, funded by the AHRC, the Leverhulme Trust, and the Wellcome Trust, include:

  • writing and health
  • text and public art
  • text and music
  • poetry and translation
  • poetry and the archive
  • the pedagogy of creative writing

The School has excellent resources for supporting high quality creative writing research, including access to the Bloodaxe,  Flambard and Catherine Cookson archives, and to archives of prominent regional and national poets including:

The Creative Writing Subject Group is well-known for its strong international links, as well as being deeply embedded in its regional and historical context.

Research is concentrated in the Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts. The NCLA's primary aim is to contribute to the cultural life of the North East of England through the provision of readings, events, education, publications, and creative projects.

The NCLA has hosted lectures and workshops by many major literary figures, including:

  • David Almond
  • Carol Ann Duffy
  • Seamus Heaney
  • Ian McEwan
  • Paul Muldoon
  • Jo Shapcott
  • Jeanette Winterson

The School has an impressive publishing partnership with Bloodaxe, which started by sponsoring the Newcastle/Bloodaxe Poetry Lectures as a book series, and has produced a series of anthologies including The Poetry Cure and Out of Bounds.

Related research specialisms:

Children's Literature

A thriving centre for the study of children’s literature, history, and publishing.

Medical Humanities

The Medical Humanities research group produces research that engages with medicine by thinking critically and creatively.

Postcolonial and Black Atlantic Literature

Interests and expertise in this research cluster range across the literatures of Africa, South Asia and the Caribbean, and include world literature, transnational diasporic writing and Black British writing.

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