Staff

Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts Administrator at the School of English Literature, Language & Linguistics, Newcastle University

Melanie has been the NCLA's Administrator and Event Manager since it was founded in 2010. She is also the Postgraduate Administrator for the MA in Creative Writing and the MA in Writing Poetry which runs in association with educational partners the Poetry School.

Educational qualifications include:

• BSc (Hons) in Social Policy and Politics (Bristol University)
• MA in Cultural Event Management (Northumbria University)
• HNC in Graphic Design (Newcastle College)
• Chartered Institute of Marketing Professional Diploma (Newcastle College)
• Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education Administration, Management and Leadership (Association of University Administrators & Nottingham Trent University)

Interests include volunteering at Dilston Physic Garden and being a member of the Amnesty International Newcastle upon Tyne group. She is currently studying the four level pathway of compassion based mindfulness with the Mindfulness Association.

Director of Newcastle Poetry Festival, Research Associate in Contemporary Poetry

Theresa Muñoz has published one collection of poetry, Settle, which shortlisted for the Melita Hume Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared on BBC Radio Scotland and in international journals such as Arc, Canadian Literature, Southward and Poetry Review. Her work has been shortlisted for The Kayva Prize and the Royal Society of Literature Sky Arts Award, and she has been awarded the Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship, Muriel Spark Centenary Award and a Creative Scotland Award. She has also managed literary initiatives through NCLA and Bloodaxe Books, including the James Berry Poetry Prize, the first prize in the UK to offer mentoring and debut publication to emerging writers of colour. She can be reached at Theresa.Munoz@ncl.ac.uk

Professor of Creative Writing, Subject Head of Creative Writing 

Alex Pheby is the author of ground-breaking literary fiction including Playthings, shortlisted for the 2016 Wellcome Book Prize and Lucia, which was joint winner of the 2019 Republic of Consciousness Prize. His epic fantasy trilogy Cities of the Weft includes Mordew, selected as a Book of the Year by The Guardian, The I, Tor.com and Locus and published in the UK and USA; the second book in the series, Malarkoi was published in 2022. Alex has taught at the University of Greenwich and Sunderland University and now teaches at all stages of Creative Writing at Newcastle, specialising in fantasy, world building, YA, and adult literary prose. 

Professor of World Literature and Creative Writing, Director of NCLA 

Preti’s first novel We That Are Young a translation of Shakespeare's King Lear, tracks the rise of fascism in contemporary India. It won the 2018 Desmond Elliott Prize for the UK's finest literary debut of the year, and was listed for awards including the Folio Prize, the Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize and the Prix Jan Michalski, Europe’s premier award for a work of world literature. It is published in translation worldwide. Her second book is Aftermath, a creative non-fiction lament on trauma, terror, prison and grief, following the London Bridge terror attack in 2019. It was a Book of the Year in the New Yorker, the New Statesman and The White Review, and was shortlisted for the British Book of the Year awards. Aftermath is the winner of the 2022 Gordon Burn Prize awarded 'for literature that is forward thinking and fearless in its ambition and execution'. Preti teaches all stages of Creative Writing at Newcastle and has also taught for Faber Academy, in prisons, adult education centres and for festivals. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.