Kingston University London

Writers in residence:

Paul Bailey has been shortlisted twice for the Booker Prize and won a clutch of other awards. His work focuses on the often grim lives of families and outcasts. His novels include At the Jerusalem; Peter Smart’s Confessions; Gabriel’s Lament; Sugar Cane; Kitty and Virgil; and Uncle Rudolf.

Non-fiction includes An English Madam – The Life and Work of Cynthia Payne; An Immaculate Mistake – Scenes from Childhood and Beyond; and Three Queer Lives – An Alternative Biography of Naomi Jacob, Fred Barnes and Arthur Marshall. He also edited the Oxford Book of London.

Paul has taught creative writing at the University of East Anglia and in Italy. Read more.

Scott Bradfield, formerly Professor of English at University of Connecticut, has been teaching literature, critical theory and creative writing at both graduate and undergraduate levels for over 20 years in the US, the UK and Germany. 

His novels, stories, essays, and reviews have appeared in more than a dozen languages – most recently Hot Animal Love: Tales of Modern Romance and the forthcoming novel How She Was Saved.  He has written screenplays for Sony, Working Title and Universal, and his films have been featured at Tribeca Film Festival and Sundance. Read more.

Maggie Gee is a Teaching Fellow at Sussex University and Fellow and Council Member of the Royal Society of Literature. Her fiction is often experimental or futuristic and includes Dying, in Other Words; The Burning Book; Grace; Where are the Snows; Lost Children; The Ice People; The White Family; and The Flood. She has also edited an anthology of writings against war.

Liz Jensen spent two years as a journalist in the Far East before joining the BBC as a journalist, then producer. She subsequently moved to France where she worked as a sculptor and began her first novel, Egg Dancing.

Back in London she wrote Ark Baby (shortlisted for the Guardian Fiction Award); The Paper Eater; and War Crimes for the Home (longlisted for the Orange Prize and adapted for the stage). Her latest novel, The Ninth Life of Louis Drax, was featured on Radio 4’s Book at Bedtime and is being adapted for film, written and directed by Anthony Minghella.

Hanif Kureishi is a multi-award-winning author of numerous novels, essays, stories and screenplays. His early work, the seminal My Beautiful Laundrette (1984), gained him an Oscar nomination, while The Buddha of Suburbia (1990) won the Whitbread Prize for Best First Novel.

His more recent works include Gabrielle’s Gift (2001) and My Ear at His Heart (2004). His latest screenplay, Venus (2007), was released to critical acclaim in early 2007. Hanif’s works have been translated into 36 languages. Read more.

Todd Swift is a graduate of the creative writing programmes at Concordia University (BA) and UEA (MA).  His recent book of critical essays on Anglo-Quebec poetry, Language Acts, co-edited with Jason Camlot, was a finalist for the 2007 Gabrielle Roy Prize. 

He has edited many poetry anthologies, including Map-Makers' Colours: New Poets of Northern Ireland (1988); and 100 Poets Against The War (2003).  His poems have appeared in The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, Poetry London and Poetry Review.  His fifth collection is Seaway: New and Selected Poems from Salmon, Ireland (2008).  He has also written for television, with over 100 hours of produced work, for companies including Hanna-Barbera, HBO, Fox and Paramount. Read more.

Creative writing teaching staff:

Adam Baron is an internationally renowned crime novelist whose work has been translated into French and German. He has published four novels with Macmillan – Shut Eye; Hold Back the Night; Superjack; and It Was You. Both Shut Eye and Hold Back the Night have been broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Read more.

Siobhan Campbell is a poet and critic. She has worked in book publishing for many years as publishing manager and director of Wolfhound Press. Her collections of poetry are entitled The Permanent Wave and The Cold that Burns, both from Blackstaff Press, Belfast.

Siobhan’s work is represented in many contemporary anthologies, including Making for Planet Alice (Bloodaxe) and The Field Day Anthology of Irish Literature (Norton). She has been writer-in-residence for the Airfield Trust, Dublin, where she founded the Airfield Readers and Writers Group. Read more.

Professor Norma Clarke is not only a renowned scholar of 18th century literature, but also the author of a series of children's novels. Her expertise in the study of literature and her professional life as an author will form a key part of the teaching of this course. Read more.

Rachel Cusk is the author of four novels and various works of non-fiction. Her 1993 debut novel Saving Agnes won her the Whitbread First Novel award. In 2003 she was nominated by Granta magazine as one of 20 ‘Best of Young British Novelists’. Her latest novel is Arlington Park (2006). Read more.

Dr Vesna Goldsworthy is the author of Inventing Ruritania, a groundbreaking study of representations of the Balkans, and the widely acclaimed Chernobyl Strawberries – A Memoir. Vesna has a background in the study of travel writing, 20th century fiction and popular culture. Read more.

Dr Meg Jensen is a creative writer and academic specialising in contemporary British and American fiction and poetry; literary and cultural theory; and influence and intertextuality. She is author of The Open Book – Creative Misreading in the Works of Selected Modern Writers.

Meg completed her first novel in 2005, and is now working on a second. She writes poetry and drama, and has published academic work on Tolkien, Woolf, Katherine Mansfield and Thomas Hardy. Read more.

Dr Jane Jordan is a specialist in Victorian writing and the author of biographies on Josephine Butler and Kittie O’Shea. Jane teaches the study of biography and draws on her knowledge of Victorian popular culture. Read more.

Winsome Pinnock’s plays include The Wind of Change (Half Moon Theatre); Leave Taking (Royal National Theatre and Lyric Hammersmith, Studio); A Hero’s Welcome, A Rock in Water and Talking in Tongues (all Royal Court Theatre Upstairs); Water and One Under (both for the Tricycle Theatre).

Radio plays include Her Father’s Daughter; Water; Let Them Call It Jazz (adaptation of a Jean Rhys short story); and Something Borrowed (all BBC Radio 4). Contributions to television series include Chalk Face and Eastenders (both BBC) and the screenplay Bitter Harvest (co-written with Charles Pattinson for BBC 2).

Awards include the George Devine Award and the Carlton Television best play of the year award. Winsome was Senior Visiting Fellow at Cambridge University. Read more.