CV
Select Bibliography:
The Apple Sequence (Orchard Editions) 2011
Emblems (Shoestring Press) 2009
Marginalia (Peterloo) 2001
(as contributor): Good Fiction Guide (ed.Jane Rogers) (OUP) 2001
(as editor) Staple Magazine: numbers 66 – 74 (2007 – 2011). 8 issues to date of the poetry, fiction and visual arts magazine Staple (initially founded in 1982). Themed issues have included The Publishing Issue, The Art Issue, The Music Issue, The East Midlands Issue, The Film Issue and On Translation [forthcoming].
Online:
The Serendipity Project (Archive and Found Materials Project)
Eastern Bloc Songs (Translations and material concerning popular music in former Communist states)
The Robert Holcombe Archive (Fictional art-historical archive)
Write Here At Nottingham Contemporary (Documentation of a Spring 2011 Writing Residency)
A further Miscellaneous gathering of links to online material is here.
Cross Arts & Collaboration:
Crystal Pamphlets Series: Mentoring project working with the poet Roy Marshall on developing his debut chapbook collection for publication with Leicester-based Crystal Clear Creators. The pamphlet, Gopagilla, appeared in 2012.
The Orchard Project: Commission to create texts around the subject of orchards and apples to create a publication that will coincide with visual artist Neville Gabie’s Orchard, a project involving the planting of eight heritage variety apple trees in a new marketplace and the creation of a dispersed urban fruit forest by way of an adoption scheme for 100 further varieties. The publication and events were launched in December 2011.
TLC Talent Showcase: Collaboration between myself as editor, Staple Magazine, and The Literary Consultancy on a running online Talent Showcase, featuring one new writer’s work in depth each month. Launched in January 2011, and now in its second year. The TLC Showcase and its archive can be seen here.
Nottingham Writers’ Studio Mentoring: Working with the poet Pippa Hennessy on developing a selection of new work towards a debut chapbook or full length publication. Summer 2011.
Reading Genet/Writing As Curating: A series of six linked workshops running during Marc Camille Chaimowicz’s Jean Genet exhibition at Nottingham Contemporary during the summer of 2011. Three discussions were hosted – looking at the key Genet texts Alberto Giacometti’s Studio, Four Hours At Chatila and The Blacks – each followed by a writing workshop, led in collaboration with Alice Gale Feeny, focusing on the relationships between these texts and selected works in the exhibition.
Write Here at Nottingham Contemporary: Writer in Residence: Residency and mix of open and community workshops at a new contemporary arts venue in Nottingham, undertaken during the Jack Goldstein/Anne Collier exhibitions (January to March 2011). Supported by Writing East Midlands.
The Bookmark Project: Commission to create a bookmark merging text and visuals for insertion into a specified volume in the library at the Study at Nottingham Contemporary. Curated by Yelena Popova (April 2011).
Disturbances: 7m film performance with live narration and score by Jon Brooks presented at Annexinema (Dec 2010). Part of Sideshow visual arts festival. Also performed at Word of Mouth (Antenna, Nottingham) in March 2012.
The Enigma Of Robert Holcombe: 30m fictional lecture/performance at Hatch: It’s About Time in Leicester (Embrace Arts, Oct 2010) and Nottingham (Castle Museum & Art Gallery, Nov 2010). Part of Sideshow visual arts festival.
Writing Art: A series of four workshops focusing on critical and creative writing in relation to contemporary art, drawing on works featured in Nottingham Contemporary’s segment of British Art Show 7. Each section set writing exercises in a particular mode, ranging from poetry and fiction to critical writing, journalistic reviews and broader history and theory.
Harvest (The Sneinton Square Songs): Commission to work with artist Neville Gabie on texts around themes of local history, food production and plant varieties for use within a planned redevelopment of the Sneinton market area on the Eastside of Nottingham. Funded by Contemporary Art Society and EU via Nottingham City Council. (Aug – Sept 2010)
A Mandinka Song: Theme & Variations: Lyric commissioned for untitled track on CD by Seckou Keita Quartet.
The Protein Songs: Commissioned by Retina Dance Company for use in Eleven Stories For The Body, Distance To Our Soul; the show toured during 2005/6 in UK and Europe.
Talks and Other Presentations:
Decoding Monkey (Nottingham Contemporary): Illustrated talk on the history and international spread of Wu Ch’en’s Buddhist novel ‘Journey To The West’ by way of sixteenth century century China, modernist poetry, the 1960s Japanese music scene and the 1970s Western craze for martial arts inspired by Bruce Lee (Part of the public programme around exhibitions by Huang Yong Ping and Wael Shawky during May/June 2011, and available to view on iTunes here).
Communist Rock’n’Roll (Nottingham Contemporary): Illustrated talk with Nottingham University academics Polly McMichael and Robert Adlington on the popular music of the former Eastern Bloc nations: my contribution focused on popular music in Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary between 1958 and 1975. (Part of the public programme around the Star City exhibition in April 2010: a version of the talk can be read here).
Anthologies:
Said & Done: New Writing From Brittle Star (Stonewood Press, 2011)
NW:15 ed: Maggie Gee, Bernadine Evaristo (Granta, 2007)
Poetry: The Nottingham Collection ed: John Lucas (Five Leaves, 2005)
New Writing 12 ed: Jane Rogers, Diran Adebayo, Blake Morrison (Picador, 2003)
The Forward Book Of Poetry 2002 (Forward Publishing, 2002)
The Gregory Poems 1991 – 1993 (Sinclair-Stevenson, 1994)
Poetry Wales: 25 Years edited by Cary Archard (Seren Books, 1990)
The Bloodstream: Seren Poets edited by Ceri Meyrick (Seren Books, 1989)
Employment:
2009 – present: Freelance writer/editor/tutor (various employers): Working with NADFAS Review, Primary, Hatch, Crystal Clear Creators, Staple Magazine, The Literary Consultancy, Nottingham Visual Arts, Nottingham Contemporary, Sideshow2010, Writing East Midlands, Derbyshire County Council, LeftLion, Neville Gabie/Contemporary Art Society, Creative Times, Nottingham Writers’ Studio and many others.
2004 – 2009: Freelance Arts Journalist, Metro (Associated News): Regular contributor of theatre, visual arts and dance features, interviews and reviews, for editions in East Midlands, West Midlands and North East regions, including features on Max Klinger, Willie Doherty, Joy Gregory, Paul Tecklenberg, Annette Foster, Vibeke Glarbo, El Anatsui, The Singh Twins, Kay Adshead, Abdel Abdessemed, Heidi Tikka, David Hancock, Jeanie Finlay, Arthur Pita, Philippe Petit, Neeta Madahar, William Ivory, Richard Deacon, Arturo Herrera, Richard Alston, Gob Squad, Wendy Houstoun, Hetain Patel, Julian Marsh, Bernard MacLaverty, Ken Russell, Cornelia Parker, Julian Opie, Sir Richard Attenborough, Christopher Le Brun and many more.
2003 – 2007: Tutor with The Open College Of The Arts: Tutor for postal students on the OCA’s ‘Starting To Write’, ‘Experience Of Poetry’ and ‘Creative Writing’ courses. Awarded Recognised Teacher Status by the University Of Glamorgan for DipHE courses.
1998 – present: Freelance Editor with The Literary Consultancy (TLC): Literary and commercial manuscripts reader, primarily fiction, poetry, history and autobiography, for London-based consultancy TLC.
1996 – 2004: Freelance Arts Journalist, The Big Issue In The North, Manchester: Various interviews, features, reviews from 1997 – 2004: including features on JMW Turner, JRR Tolkien, Ted Hughes, Technology in Visual Arts, Joe Orton, Sensation, Lari Pittman, The Kirov etc, and interviews with Tracey Emin, Chris Ofili, Dave Allen, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Mary Woronov, Jarvis Cocker, Gregory Isaacs, Kathryn Williams, Jah Wobble, Ian Duhig, David Mitchell, Courtney Pine, Mercury Rev, Kate Rusby, Alan Plater, Darshan Singh Bhuller, Steve Bell, Emily Lloyd, Chuck Palahniuk, Carl Davis, Tony Harrison, Michael Grandage and Ian McDiarmid, Johnny Vegas, Ross Noble, Jamie Cullum, Tim Etchells, Isaac Julien, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Rankin, Linda Smith, Linda Grant, Annie Whitehead, Horace Andy, Kathryn Hunter, Eliza Carthy, Barry Hines, Steve Reich, and many others.
1995 – 1998: R.V. Lecturer in Creative Writing at Sheffield Hallam University: Tutor on undergraduate BA writing modules.
Misc:
Brag, Leeds: Contributor, South and West Yorkshire Arts and What’s On magazine: reviews, interview with Nigel Charnock, items on Jan Svankmajer’s Faust, West African music, etc.
Polar Magazine, Sheffield: Contributor. 1997 articles on Forced Entertainment’s Pleasure, Quarterlight, Lovebytes Digital Arts Festival and Sheffield CIQ (Cultural Industries Quarter).
Overall There Is A Smell Of Fried Onions, Nottingham: Acted as contributor and arts editor between 1991 – 1993 on occasional Nottingham-based free magazine, covering theatre by Improbable and Robert Lepage, Now Festival and Powerhouse events by Desperate Optimists, Forced Entertainment and Third Angel, dance by DV8, Motionhouse and V-Tol, exhibitions by Helen Chadwick and Michiko Kon, alongside regular music reviews and listings contributions.
