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?
I was recently awarded an MA in Writing (Merit) from the University of Warwick. Alongside my academic work, I contribute regularly to queer publications such as DIVA magazine and am researching the role of undergraduate research as a means of widening participation within higher education, https://wrapprojectwarwick.blog/
I am a creative writing practitioner across many forms: poetry, short and long fiction, and audio and TV drama. I was shortlisted for the Lichfield Cathedral 'The Word' inaugural poetry award (2019). I am currently editing my debut novel, the coming-of-age tale To Autumn, and recording series 2 of the eclectic fictional podcast Inspector Detective On Chan Tay.