- Creative Writing
- Centre for Law, Society and Popular Culture
About me
I am the Course Leader for ‘Creative Writing and English Literature’ and ‘Creative Writing and English Language’. Alongside my academic work, I am a playwright with a passion for all forms of creative writing. My books and academic publications include 'The Soho Theatre, 1968-1981' (STR, 2017), 'Key Concepts in Creative Writing' (Palgrave 2010), and 'Big Questions: Incredible Adventures in Thinking' (Wizard Books, 2007). I have had plays performed at theatres including the Riverside Studios, the Arcola, the Finborough and the Gate, and was a Literary Associate at Theatre503 and an Artistic Associate of the theatre/dance collective Hannah Bruce and Company, which specialises in site-responsive work. I am co-Creative Producer for the ‘Soho Poly’ arts venue.
Teaching
I am the module leader for, and also teach on, the following undergraduate modules:
Writing the City: an introduction to London as a place of literary production and inspiration. As well as seminars and workshops exploring the 'nuts and bolts' of writing, there are site-visits, urban walks and opportunities to hear from published writers about how they have made use of 'the city' in their work.
Making Plays: a playwriting course that examines how plot, character and dialogue are constructed. There's also plenty of opportunity to discuss individual plays and playwrights. In recent years we've looked at the work of people including Jez Butterworth, Penny Skinner and Jack Thorne.
The Individual Writing Project: this module is the end point of the BA creative writing degree. This project allows students to work on a sustained piece of creative work under the guidance of a 'writing mentor'. In past years students have produced chapters from novels, full-length plays, film scripts and memoirs - as well as a host of creative hybrids.
Screenwriting module: an introduction to the craft of screenwriting, with a focus on the development of ideas from the pitching stage to the completion of draft scripts.
For the MA Writing the City, I teach the module Conflict and the City - a detailed investigation of dramatic works about, or drawn from an experience of, the urban environment.
I have run external creative writing programmes at the Tate, the 'Circle of Misse' in France and the Foundation for International Education. I am also responsible for many of the guest lectures and workshops that the creative writing department hosts.
Research
My monograph The Soho Theatre, 1968-1981 (STR, 2018) is the only published history of a theatre company of national significance. In 2023 I co-authored an article which discusses the more recent work that Professor Osborn and I have produced at the revived venue (‘Disrupting work and leisure in lockdown: the case of the Soho Poly, International Journal of the Sociology of Leisure, https://doi.org/10.1007/s41978-023-00135-z). From 2021 to 2023, as part of a National Lottery Heritage Fund grant, I led a substantial archival research project which involved the recording of 12 new oral histories with former Soho Poly practitioners. These interviews, which were conducted following training from the British Library Oral History Society, are now available publicly via the University of Westminster website. Considered together, the different strands of my research have revealed a previously occluded story of post-war alternative theatre practice.
Beyond the Soho Poly, I have wider research interests in the fields of contemporary British playwriting and dramaturgy, and in the relationship between text and place. Since 2013 I have been an associate artist with Hannah Bruce and Company, a theatre/dance collective which has created site-responsive work at venues such as Wilton's Music Hall, Northern Stage and Shoreditch Town Hall. Much of my work as writer for this company has emerged out of archival research into the respective places of performance. One such commission, ‘A Collection of Small Choices’ (Hoxton Hall) was nominated for a Museum and Heritage Award (2017). I also have an interest in drama about the Arctic and successfully applied to be included in The Arctic Circle Artists and Writers Residency Programme, circumnavigating Svalbard for three weeks in Summer 2022.
I also continue to develop my creative practice as a playwright. My most recent play, ‘Dance’, received four- and five-star reviews when it premiered at The Kings Head in 2021. Other notable productions include: ‘The View from the Mountaintop’, which received Arts Council England funding and was performed at the Brighton and Plymouth festivals; ‘The Shelter’ a LAMDA commission, performed at the Riverside Studios; ‘Through the Night’, a Papatango New Playwriting Award runner-up, produced at the Finborough Theatre; and ‘Inside Out’, selected for the inaugural HighTide Festival (see box 5 below).
My professional writing experience has always had a direct impact on my teaching and, in 2010, I gathered my knowledge of wider creative writing practice into a handbook for Palgrave as part of their Key Concepts series (‘Key Concepts in Creative Writing’).
Publications
For details of all my research outputs, visit my WestminsterResearch profile.