Ms Katie Margaret Hall
Contact
- Email: k1931654@kingston.ac.uk
- Location: Kingston School of Art, Knights Park
- Faculty: Kingston School of Art
- School: School of Creative and Cultural Industries
- Department: Department of Humanities
- Personal website
Research project: Queer as Friends: rewriting the platonic-romantic relationship binary between women / Writing as knowing: locating creative nonfiction in queer feminist knowledge creation
Abstract
Queer as Friends is a practice-based creative non-fiction project which interweaves confessional memoir with queer/feminist theoretical discourse. It proposes a manifesto for unconventional friendships between women. It is intended to be both an autoethnographic approach to scholarship and a celebration of queer friendships as a feminist act.
The narrative is an experimental non-chronological patchwork structure of micro-chapters comprising mixed forms. Encompassing intimate details and experiences from ten of my own unconventional, boundary-crossing, friendships, their disruptive potential and radical effects will be uncovered and examined. This builds on the emerging market of creative non-fiction by women, books that successfully blend memoir with qualitative research (Gilbert 2007, Moran 2011 2012, Russell 2016, Nelson 2015, Wilby 2017).
The project's critical component is integral. I will explore the practice of writing the self as queer feminist methodology, in order to address the question: why is creative writing not yet accepted as scholarship?
- Research degree: Practice-based PhD
- Title of project: Queer as Friends: rewriting the platonic-romantic relationship binary between women / Writing as knowing: locating creative nonfiction in queer feminist knowledge creation
- Research supervisor: Dr Martin Dines
- Other research supervisor: Dr Helen Palmer
Biography
Following a long career in the UK voluntary sector, I shifted focus to my writing practice. As well as a freelance contributor to LGBTQ+ media publications, I am a creative writing practitioner across many forms: poetry, short and long fiction, and audio and TV drama. I was longlisted for the 2020 Primadonna Award and shortlisted for the Lichfield Cathedral 'The Word' poetry award (2019). I am currently editing my debut novel, and I perform and produce a comedy mystery scripted podcast series. I created and wrote the UK's first lesbian web series, 'She's in London'.
Other research interests include widening access to undergraduate research opportunities, as a member of the wrap team at the University of Warwick https://wrapprojectwarwick.blog/ and "Confessional Knowing: A critically queer reading of friendships in the letters and journals of modernist women" in collaboration with the Modern Literature and Culture Research Centre at Ryerson University, Toronto.
Areas of research interest
- Creative non-fiction
- Poetry
- Feminist literary theory
- Queer literary theory
Qualifications
- MA in Writing, University of Warwick (merit)
- PGDip Voluntary Sector Administration, London SouthBank University (merit)
- BA (Hons) English Literature, University of Warwick
Funding or awards received
- Techne Doctoral Training Partnership
- Mitacs-Globalink Scholarship
Conference papers
- Gammel, Irene and Katie Hall. "#MeToo Narratives: The Shift from "Confessional" Writings to Feminist Activism." Women and Gender Studies et Recherches Féministes Annual Conference, 13-16 May 2022, virtual conference. Conference Poster.
- Hall, Katie, 'Queering Feminist Voice in Memoir', unpublished paper, delivered at the 'Voices' Conference (Techne, 25 November 2021).
- Hall, Katie, 'Ethical Reflections for Queer Non-fiction', unpublished paper, delivered at the 'Ethics in Arts Research Roundtable' (Kingston University, 31 March 2021).
- Hall, Katie, 'Queer Dis/embdoiment', unpublished paper, delivered at the 'Queer Materialism Study Day' (Kingston University, 11 February 2021).
- Hall, Katie, 'Queering memoir in theory and practice', unpiblished paper, delivered at the 'On Transversality Conference' (Techne, 9 December 2020).
- Underwood Michele, Hall Katie, Gonye Anoshamisa, Nasadan, Dan, Sari, Wangi, Rawlins, Shane, 'Findings from the wrap project' unpublished paper, delivered at the 'Warwick Education Conference' (University of Warwick, 19 June 2019).