PhD Archive

Non-Fiction, Writing

Non-fiction piece published in Swamp 14

Posted by
on April 28

Pleased to have a piece published in the new issue of SWAMP writing, published out of the University of Newcastle, Australia.

The piece has gestated for a long while, so it’s very good to have gone back to it, edited, submitted, edited again with the wise guidance of SWAMP’s editor, Amy Lovat, and to see the piece out in the world. It’s about the relationship between fathers, loss, writing and especially writing a PhD, and is indebted to Professor Nicholas Royle and his novel Quilt.

You can read the piece here: How to gain a PhD while losing a father

Novel Writing, On Reading, Writing Blog

Notes on Stucture: Andrew Miller’s Pure

Posted by
on December 29

Andrew Miller’s Pure was the 2011 Costa Book of the Year. Set a few years before the French Revolution of 1789, it tells the story of Jean-Baptiste Baratte, and engineer, who is given the job of removing the cemetery of Les Innocents from Paris. Removing it complete, as it has become a physical and psychical stain on the city.

It’s a wonderful premise set in a turbulent time. But there’s something not quite right with the book. On the PhD at Newcastle, we were recently given a seminar by the prose playwright and senior lecturer Margaret Wilkinson on structure and narrative pace, taught how to be better readers-as-writers.

Margaret’s lesson is that there should be a few essential elements in each novel:

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