Creative Writing, Performance and Innovation

About this Cluster

The Creative Writing, Performance & Innovation Cluster’s key strength is in the practice and study of innovative writing. The research interests in the cluster include: experimental and literary fiction, young adult fiction, innovative poetry, visual text, scriptwriting, devising and directing for stage, performance, adaptation, autobiography and translation. Members of the cluster have published, performed and won awards for their work nationally and internationally, including appearances across Europe and in the United States. They also participate in the local literary scenes of Salford and Greater Manchester through venues and events such as The Bury Text Festival, The Creative Cafe and The Other Room poetry reading series.

Staff from this cluster meet regularly as the Creative Writing Research Seminar, where members give and receive feedback on work in progress. Two events series – Vital Signs and Drama Workshops – are also an important part of the cluster’s activity. There are strong links with the Poetry and Poetics cluster at Salford, since three members are internationally-known scholars of poetry.

Membership

(please click on members’ names to view SEEK research profile)

Dr Kate Adams recently performed a solo live art work I Found this Dirt under my Fingernails at the Emergency festival and is currently working on writing visual and performance poetry. Her research is focused primarily on experiential theatre and linked to this interest, she is leading Slow Art, a collective of artists and others interested in discussing and making slow art. In this context she explores how we can re-engage the ‘slow self’ of our audiences or participants.

Ursula Hurley’s novel, Heartwood, explores the relationships between history and fiction. She also publishes poetry with the innovative Liverpool press Erbacce, and researches Creative Writing pedagogy. Ursula is a member of the judging panel for the Onward short story and poetry competition, in association with the Theatre Royal, Hyde and advisor to a young people’s project at Tate Britain, ‘Seeing Through 2010: Icons and Order’.

Dr Gill James writes fiction for children and young adults. She has also published several short stories for adults. In addition, she has a research interest in creative writing in other languages. Gill is a judge of the annual National Creative Writing in Foreign Languages competition, run by the University of Portsmouth. She is the founder of the Creative Café project.

Dr Judy Kendall has published three full-length collections with Cinnamon Press, the most recent of which is Climbing Postcards (2010) - a book of rock climbing poetry. She has recently contributed to visual text artist Alec Finlay's poetry map of the Peak District, the largest work of public art in the UK. Judy is also researching into parallels between musical lexicon and theory and the composition of poetry.

Szilvi Naray-Davey joined the team as Lecturer in Drama in September 2010. Her practitioner’s background includes stage and film acting in New York, Los Angeles, London and Manchester. She is the founder and joint artistic director of Ignition Stage, a company that produces new writing. Her most recent stage credits include the starring role in Fencing for Losers at the Lowry and she can often be heard on Radio 4 dramas. Szilvi’s research interests include drama translation and she is in the process of translating a Hungarian play entitled Sunday Lunch. Szilvi is a Fellow of The Higher Education Academy.

Frances Piper devises and directs performance. Her most recent theatre production was selected for the Manchester New Writing Festival and went on to perform at the Hampstead Theatre, London (Sept: 2009). Her current work is towards a performance installation/textscape entitled How to Forget: A Story in Eight Songs. The work combines an adaptation of the novella The Yellow Wallpaper with original music and text. From March 2011 samples of the ‘eight songs’ will be found at www.talesofthings.com where visitors to the site are invited to engage with the samples in terms of how they might suggest moments of remembering and forgetting.

Professor Antony Rowland won an Eric Gregory award in 2000 and published his first collection with Salt, The Land of Green Ginger in 2008. He has recorded poems for the National Poetry Archive, set up by the previous poetry laureate, Andrew Motion, and is currently working on his second collection. Antony’s poems also recently appeared in the anthology Identity Parade: New British and Irish Poets (Bloodaxe, 2010) edited by Roddy Lumsden.

Dr Scott Thurston (Cluster Leader) is the author of eight books of poetry, including three collections with Shearsman Books since 2006, the most recent being Internal Rhyme (2010). He has performed and published his poetry in Europe and the United States. Recordings of his work are included in the ‘Archive of the Now’ hosted by Brunel University and Queen Mary College. He edits The Radiator, a little magazine of poetry and poetics devoted to innovative writing.

Jennifer Tuckett is the author of several plays including I am a Superhero, which was the joint-winner of the Old Vic New Voices Theatre 503 Award in 2008. Her work has been produced at the Liverpool Everyman Theatre and Playhouse, the Old Vic Theatre, Theatre 503, and developed at the Royal Court Theatre and the Hampstead Theatre amongst other places. Besides theatre, she has also written for film, television and radio and has won various awards in the UK and US.

Graduate Teaching Assistants

Lucy Burnett (Eco-poetics and contemporary poetry)
Nathan Thompson (Psychogeography and contemporary poetry)

International Activity

Several members of the cluster have visited the University of Palacky, Olomouc, Czech Republic, to participate in readings and to teach creative writing.

Thurston and Rowland read at the European-wide poetry festival Slova Bez Hranic (Words Without Borders) in 2007 organised by Palacky University. They also read at the ESSE conference at Strasbourg in 2002 (organised by Dr Joanny Moulin from The University of Lyon), and were invited by The British Council to read at the central library in Gdansk in 2007 (in conjunction with The University of Gdansk).

In April 2009 Thurston read at Rust Belt Books in Buffalo, New York State in conjunction with SUNY Buffalo’s Poetics Plus program.

Jennifer Tuckett’s writing for theatre has been produced in Europe, Australia and America.

Gill James has taught creative writing and given readings at the European University of Cyprus and on the island of Tenerife.

Szilvi Naray-Davey is translating a play Sunday Lunch from the Hungarian and is working in close collaboration with the author Janos Hay from Budapest.

Publications

These include:

Judy Kendall, Climbing Postcards (Cinnamon Press, 2011)
Ursula Hurley, Tree (Erbacce, 2009) (poetry)
Gill James, Scum Bag (Butterfly Press, 2008) (children’s fiction)
Gill James, The Prophecy (The Red Telephone, 2009). (young adult fiction)
Judy Kendall, The Drier the Brighter (Cinnamon Press, 2008) (poetry)
Judy Kendall, Joy Change (Cinnamon Press, 2010) (poetry)
Antony Rowland, Birkenau (Knives Forks and Spoons Press, 2010) (poetry)
Kate Adams, 'I Found this Soil Under my Fingernails', Live Art Performance, Emergency Festival, Green Room Arts, Manchester (2009)
Frances Piper (Director), 'Donal Fleet: A Confessional', Ignition Stage, Hampstead Theatre, London, England and Manchester Festival (2009)
Antony Rowland, The Land of Green Ginger (Salt Publishing, 2008) (poetry)
Scott Thurston, Momentum (Shearsman, 2008) (poetry)
Scott Thurston, Internal Rhyme (Shearsman, 2010) (poetry)
Jennifer Tuckett, An Alien's Guide to the UK Election (Liverpool Everyman Theatre and Playhouse, 2010) (produced script)
Jennifer Tuckett, I am a Superhero (joint winner, Old Vic Theatre 503 Award, 2008, Arts Council Award 2009) (script)

Community Engagement

Cluster members, led by Ursula Hurley, were involved in the HEFCE funded project ‘Writing Lives: Engaging Communities through Arts’ (2007-9) which examined the use of creative writing workshops as a form of culture-led regeneration, and explored their role as a means for the expression of identities and as a facilitator of community cohesion and belonging.

Jennifer Tuckett founded and developed the Playwriting Network which links Salford with a variety of regional theatres and scriptwriting organisations. These include the Royal Exchange Theatre, Liverpool Everyman Theatre and Playhouse, West Yorkshire Playhouse, Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Contact Theatre and BBC Writers Room North.

Gill James’ Creative Café Project serves the more immediate community, including local cases and ones as far away as Tenerife. She also conducts a wide programme of school visits throughout the year where she investigates creative process with young writers as well as talking about her own work.

Frances Piper has recently organised two collaborative projects between the English Subject Group and BBC Television, one with BBC Entertainment, the other with Religious and Ethical Broadcasting. Both were focused on evolving new programme ideas for youth audiences.

Recent awards

Lecturer in English and Creative Writing, Jennifer Tuckett has been selected for Drafted, Vision and Media's film development programme. As part of the 8 month development and training initiative, Jennifer will be working with Head of Development at Warp X Films Caroline Cooper Charles to develop a screenplay from treatment to first draft stage as well as attending masterclasses at Vision and Media, the North West's film agency. The project is supported by the UK Film Council and National Lottery and Jennifer has been chosen as one of 24 writers chosen to undertake the highly competitive programme.

Programme leader in English and Creative Writing, Judy Kendall's poem 'Wa Harmony' from her collection Joy Change has been selected for the Forward Book of best poems published in 2009/2010. A poem from her previous collection The Drier The Brighter was also selected for the 2007 anthology.

Ursula Hurley, Lecturer and Admissions Tutor in English and Creative Writing, has won first prize in the Unbound Press International Creative Non-fiction Competition with the first chapter of her experimental memoir, Heartwood. The judges said: “We loved your chapter and had no hesitation in awarding it first place from a very strong shortlist.” The first chapter will be published in the November issue of the Unbound Press literary journal. Here is an extract:

Mike turned the ring which raised the latch. The door swung open on
well-oiled hinges. There was a smell of old dust.
'Are we allowed?'
'I can't see a "No Entry" sign.' Mike ducked and stepped inside.
I followed. We crouched as we shuffled through a cramped passageway, and
found ourselves on the lead flashings next to a gargoyle.
'Wow.' There was a gentle wind up here, which caught my hair and
snagged it in my lip gloss.
We peered out over the Backs; a huge expanse of blackness which
covered trees and water and ornamental lawns. A moorhen spiked the
darkness with a disembodied cackle. Far away occasional street lights
glowed weakly. Looking up at the sky gave me the sensation of peering
down into a bottomless well.

Events

This cluster is supported by the Vital Signs and Drama Workshop series, which invite visiting writers to the university. For further information please contact Jennifer Tuckett (J.Tuckett@salford.ac.uk)

VITAL SIGNS 2010-11 programme:

Tuesday Oct 5 Paul Southern (Crime Writer)
Thursday Oct 21 Simon Wu (Playwright)
Tuesday Dec 7 Carrie Etter (Poet)
Other bookings to be confirmed include: Martin Lucas and Fred Schofield (Tanka) and Steve Hartley (Teen fiction)

DRAMA WORKSHOPS 2010-11 programme:

Tuesday October 19 Caroline Jester (Dramaturg, Birmingham Repertory Theatre)
Tuesday November 9 Lizzie Nunnery (Playwright)
Other bookings to be confirmed include: Milan Govedarica (Theatre Producer), Alex Chisholm (Literary Director of West Yorks Playhouse), Brendan Murray (playwright and director), Tom Wells (Playwright).