mortiz070

A new novella by Dr Sarah Dobbs is due out in the autumn.  The Sea Inside Me (Unthank Books) is set in an England ravaged by civil strife and terrorism. An experimental zone, Newark-by-the-Sea has trialed the Process, the removal of traumatic memories to eliminate crime and fear from the minds of its citizens. Processing Officer Audrey is instructed to tail Candy, a girl resistant to the Process, whose memories are returning, As the Process is about to be rolled out countrywide, a darker, deep-rooted conspiracy coils smoke-like into view. Read more about this title on Unthank Book's website .

Once again, several members of the School of Culture will be taking part in the Sunderland Libraries Literature Festival (download the full programme here ). These events feature our staff/students: Colin Younger (Senior Lecturer): Expressive Writing as Therapy, City Library @ Museum & Winter Gardens, 10th October 3-4.30pm This workshop will explore expressive writing approaches to support mental health well-being as part of Mental Health Day. Dr Alison Younger (Senior Lecturer): Folklore and Fable in the North East, Houghton Library, 16th October 2-3pm This session will explore the extraordinary folklore and fables of North East England. Short Story Competition Launch , Waterstones, The Bridges, 16th October 5pm In association with Waterstones, the University of Sunderland will launch a Short Story Competition. Dr Geoff Nash (Senior Lecturer): The Gothic Terrorist: from Robespierre to Jihadi John City, Library @ Museum & Winter Gardens, 18th October 5-6.30pm Gothic, terroris...

Heather Askwith Heather Askwith is a new Creative Writing PhD student in the School of Culture, under the supervision of Dr Sarah Dobbs . She is writing a novel called Resurrection Man as part of her thesis, which seeks to explore fears around the body from the Victorian Era and the parallels between this and contemporary fears. The novel will be set in two time periods and seeks to evoke the style of these periods as an exploration of narratology. In parallel with the writing of the novel, Heather will research the connections between gothic Victorian writing, modern horror writing and self-reflexive styles. She is interested in the development of horror fiction in response to developments in science and medicine. Her thesis seeks to explore the presentation of fears surrounding the body both in Victorian Gothic literature, and in contemporary modern texts, also considering a feminist angle and the presentation of female bodies.  Heather has been writing creatively for five years...

Dr Sarah Dobbs will be giving a paper at the ' Great Writing Conference 2017 ', to be held at Imperial College, London. She will be exploring three key areas within the filmic representation of Arrival (2016). One, how does the film's fictive space encourage the consideration of the viewers' own motivations in concrete, everyday reality? Two, how do some of the film’s key conceits (such as translating a language and the idea that language may construct identity; the decision to have a child with the knowledge that they will die from a terminal illness) invite our questions about our own perspectives and choices in various aspects of our lives? Finally, if we allow this supposition to stand, how can we be aware of the implications of the constructions of our own fictional narratives and the real-world consequences of these?

Creative writing lecturer Dr Sarah Dobbs has recently published three short stories. 'Burning the Ants' was commissioned for Unthank's collection The End , along with contributors Professor Ailsa Cox and AJ Ashworth, who also attended the Sunderland launch of the collection in the recent Sunderland Literature and Creative Writing Festival . All stories are phrased around images provided by London artist Nicholas Rushton, exploring narrative and emotional responses to the notion of 'the end'. Her other recent short fictions, 'The Imaginary Wife' and 'As Linda was Buying the Flowers' are featured in Unthank's unthology 8 and 9 respectively.

Several members of the School of Culture will be taking part in the Sunderland Literature and Creative Writing Festival this autumn. Click on the links below to find out who will be doing what and where. The festival starts on September 30th (the full schedule is here ). Spectral Visions book launch Against the Grayne: Learning about your Reiver ancestry Witchcraft and wizardry in Wearside Northern Gothic: Jane Harvey's The Castle at Tynemouth (1806) Eternity in an hour: William Blake and popular music Gothic Wearside World books to read before you die Apples and Snakes performance poetry Flash Fiction in a flash: how to write it and how to get it published Reading philosophy to lose weight The terrorist novel from Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent to Hamid Mohsen's The Reluctant Fundamentalist Of Peter and Jemima: An introduction to the extraordinary life of Beatrix Potter 'Not quite a Geordie': The ethnonyms of North East England Wizards, goblins and forbidden l...

The Department of Culture is delighted to announce that Dr Sarah Dobbs has been appointed as lecturer in English and Creative Writing. Sarah won a Funds For Women Graduates (FfWG)   award to complete her PhD in Creative writing at Lancaster University in 2011. Her PhD explored coma as fictional space, crime, culture and masculinity and the femme fatale. Her PhD novel, Killing Daniel (Unthank Books), was published in 2012 and she recently edited and co-authored a textbook, English Language, Literature and Creative Writing: A Practical Guide for Students (Anthem Press, 2014). Previous work has been broadcast by the BBC, performed at Bolton Octagon and Cambridge ADC theatres, and published in  Flax , Stepaway magazine and Litro . She is currently at work on a novel that considers the relationship between apocalyptic fiction, illness and assisted dying. Sarah has previously taught at Lancaster, Manchester Metropolitan University, Edge Hill and the Open University, as well as on...