The Masterclass Series exists to supplement Masters and Undergraduate students of Creative Writing with talks and readings from excellent writers, agents, publishers and others with knowledge of the world of writing. Any interested member of the university or public is welcome to attend. We also use the series to highlight the work of writers associated with Sheffield Hallam who are launching new work
ALL EVENTS BELOW FREE, OPEN TO ALL AND ON CAMPUS:
30 October Sharna Jackson Children’s/YA writer
Norfolk 210, 6.10-7.30pm
High Rise Mystery/Low Level Stress
Local author Sharna Jackson will tell the story behind the story, giving an insight into the process and pains of creating High Rise Mystery, her debut Middle Grade Novel.
Sharna Jackson is a children’s author, her debut novel High Rise Mystery was released in April 2019. The sequel is due Spring 2020. She has also created The Tate Kids activity book series with Tate Publishing. She is Southbank Centre’s Imagine A Story author for 2019/20. Sharna is a member of BAFTA’s Children’s and Learning and New Talent committees and the Children’s Media Conference advisory board. She is also the Artistic Director at Site Gallery, Sheffield’s leading international contemporary art space, specialising in moving image, new media and performance. She is also on the board of Sheffield Doc/Fest.
Sharna Jackson will work with Contemporary Writer students in the afternoon
6 November Catherine Taylor – journalist, writer and publisher
Norfolk 210, 6.10-7.30pm
Stirrings in Sheffield
Catherine will talk about her background growing up in Sheffield, her very different experiences of schooling, her politicisation during the 1980s as a result of the Miners’ strike and CND campaigns; what it was like to have a bookshop at the heart of our family, authors who’ve influenced her and how she became a publisher and eventually a journalist and, finally, why I find Sheffield to be my first inspiration when it comes to writing.
Catherine Taylor was born in Waikato, New Zealand, and grew up in Sheffield from the age of three. She is a freelance writer, editor and critic for The Guardian, FT Life and Arts, TLS and the New Statesman among other publications, and a co-founder and commercial director of the not-for-profit cultural quarterly the Brixton Review of Books. Catherine was publisher at The Folio Society for over a decade and deputy director of freedom of expression charity English PEN from 2014-2016. She has judged several literary prizes including the Jewish-Quarterly Wingate, Guardian First Book Award, European Union Prize for Literature and most recently the Republic of Consciousness Prize for Small Presses. Catherine is currently writing The Stirrings, a cultural memoir of Sheffield, and has edited The Book of Sheffield: A City in Short Fiction, published this autumn by Comma Press .
Catherine Taylor will work on literary reviewing with Contemporary Writer students in the afternoon
13 November Patrick McGuinness – poet, novelist and critic
Norfolk 210, 6.10-7.30pm
How To Keep Going
I’ll speak about not how to begin or how to end but how to hold on to what you’ve started…
Patrick McGuiness was born in 1968 in Tunisia, grew up in Belgium, Iran and Ireland, and now lives in Caernarfon, North Wales. His poems, translations, essays and reviews have appeared in the London Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement, The Independent, PN Review, Poetry Wales, Leviathan, and New Writing 10. His first book of poems was The Canals of Mars (Carcanet, 2004), followed by pamphlet 19th Century Blues and collection Jilted City (Carcanet, 2010). His first novel The Last Hundred Days (Seren, 2011) was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize 2011 and won the 2012 Wales Book of the Year Award. Other People’s Countries: A Journey into Memory (Jonathan Cape, 2014) won the 2015 Wales Book of the Year Award and the Duff Cooper Prize 2014 for non-fiction. The memoir was also shortlisted for the James Tait Black Prize 2014, the 2015 PEN Ackerly Prize and longlisted for the 2014 Thwaites Wainwright Prize. His latest publication is the novel Throw Me to the Wolves (Jonathan Cape, 2019), based on the story of Christopher Jeffries, hounded by the press for a crime he didn’t commit. He is a fellow of St Anne’s College, Oxford, where he is a Professor in French and Comparative Literature.
Patrick will work with Contemporary Writer students on his new novel, Throw Me to the Wolves, in the afternoon
20 November Yvonne Battle-Felton’s Storytelling Soiree venue tbc
Open Mike Open to all – Watch This Space
27 November Andrea Ashworth short story writer
Norfolk 210, 6.10-7.30pm
Rejection: The Elephant in the Writing Room
Rejection is the one thing that most writers will face at one time or another during their writing life – but it continues to be a subject that is rarely spoken about or acknowledged. This talk will focus on the author’s own experiences with rejection while trying to consider it as something not to be ashamed of but that is valuable – and indeed essential – to our development as writers.
A. J. Ashworth is the author of the short story collection Somewhere Else, or Even Herewhich won Salt Publishing’s Scott Prize and was shortlisted in the Edge Hill Prize. She is also the editor of Red Room: New Short Stories Inspired by the Brontës (Unthank Books) and has won various awards, such as the Society of Authors K. Blundell Trust Award. She is currently working towards a PhD at Edge Hill University, Ormskirk, for which she is writing a novel.
Andrea Ashworth will work with Short Story Module students in the afternoon
4 December Nikesh Shukla novelist
Norfolk 210, 6.10-7.30pm
Details to follow
11 December Showcase of MA Creative Writing 2019 graduates
Norfolk 210, 6.10-7.30pm
18 December Christmas Social
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