My research includes work for NAWE, The Higher Education Academy, and the University of Canberra. Topics include creative writing in schools and higher education, and poetry in a variety of guises and unexpected contexts – including work relating to Laurence Sterne and Nigel Kennedy.
Positioning Poetry
This context statement formed part of my professional doctorate, undertaken at Middlesex University (2014). My focus is on the mutually beneficial roles of poet and poetry entrepreneur. I explore how my personal development as a poet has interacted with other fields of practice (including science) and running a national writers’ organization concerned particularly with education. I demonstrate why “fields of practice” are sometimes considered in too separate a manner, and how poetry can play a role in connecting them, translating from one domain to another.
Beyond the Benchmark
This 2013 report was commissioned by the Higher Education Academy to investigate the current state of Creative Writing teaching and research in higher education and to determine key areas for investment (of time, energy and pedagogical research) following the rapid and sustained growth in Creative Writing degree programmes over the last decade.
The report collates examples of current best practice and identifies the issues facing the subject over the coming years. 27 universities contributed to the research.
Published in partnership with NAWE.
Class Writing
This NAWE project set out to research the effectiveness of writers working in schools. It involved the placement of writers in nine schools across England (four primary and five secondary) over nine academic terms between September 2006 and July 2009.
“This project suggests that a programme of visits by writers working with children can, with positive school co-operation, raise standards of writing and so is a worthwhile investment, especially given the concomitant increase in pupils’ enjoyment and enthusiasm.” Sue Horner
Co-authored with Nick Owen. NAWE, 2010.
Book Chapters
‘Publishing and its discontents: Authors, incomes and alternative models’ (with Jen Webb), in D Baker, DL Brien and J Webb (eds), Publishing & Culture (Palgrave, 2019)
‘Creative living: How creative writing courses help to prepare for life-long careers’, in R Eaglestone & G Marshall (eds), English: Shared Futures (Boydell and Brewer, 2018)
‘Revising “finished’ poems: How often should we reinhabit creative works?’ (with Paul Hetherington) in D Hecq and J Novitz (eds), Inhabitation: Creative Writing with Critical Theory, (Gylphi, 2018)
‘Writing and Education: The value of reconciling teaching and research’ in J Kroll, A Melrose & J Webb (eds), Old and New, Tried and Untried: Creativity and research in the 21st century university (Common Ground, 2016)
‘Poetry by Heart’, in G Harper (ed), Creative Writing and Education (Multilingual Matters, 2015)
‘Introduction: A Writers’ Field’, in F Sampson (ed) Creative Writing in Health and Social Care (Jessica Kingsley, 2004)
Articles
Poetry, Creative Writing and Education
‘Personal Rules: Individuality and the poetic line’ (2018)
‘Where is the music?’: Remediation and slow poetry’ (with Jen Webb, 2018)
‘Playing with Time: Prose poetry and the elastic moment’ (2017)
‘A Doubtful Freedom: Untidy sonnets and a contemporary poetics’ (with Paul Hetherington, 2016)
‘Poetry Reloaded: Revision as practice and art’ (with Paul Hetherington, 2016)
‘The Prose Poetry Project’ (with Atherton et al, 2016)
‘(In and) outwith the academy’, in Current Writing 27:2 (2015)
‘Sharing the Art, Craft and Imagination: The National Association of Writers in Education’, in New Writing: The International Journal for the Practice and Theory of Creative Writing 8:3 (2011)
Laurence Sterne
Door into the dark: Laurence Sterne’s black page – and beyond
The Marbled Page — “Motly Emblem of My Work”: Laurence Sterne and Multimodal Literacy, with Fiona Edmonds Dobrijevich.
‘Paint her to your own mind’: Re-inflecting Laurence Sterne’s 18th-century gesture, with Paul Hetherington
Nigel Kennedy
The Four Seasons in flux: Interpreting Nigel Kennedy through a hybrid biography, with Anouska Zummo
The Four Seasons: Translating the sonnets from Vivaldi’s score in relation to performances by Nigel Kennedy, with Anouska Zummo
Paul Munden 