Academic
Dr. Winnie M Li is an Assistant Professor in Creative Writing at the University of Birmingham (UK), where she works with undergraduate, Masters, and PhD level students on shaping their own writing, across fiction, non-fiction, and screenplays
Dr. Winnie M Li
Winnie is also an Associate Lecturer in Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths, University of London, and a Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics in their Department of Media and Communications.
Winnie completed her PhD at the LSE on the emotional labor of sexual violence survivors who share their trauma on mainstream media platforms. She has had several academic chapters published on survivor-led activism and artistic representation around sexual violence. Winnie has also served as a consultant on improving media practices when engaging trauma survivors, for organizations like heard (formerly On Road Media) and IPSO. Her PhD research was funded by an ESRC Doctoral Training Centre Grant at the London School of Economics.
Broadly as both an author, activist, and researcher, Winnie is interested in the ethics and creative practice involved in representing trauma, violence, and victimhood, with its intersections of race, class, and gender. Travel writing, nature writing, ethnic diaspora writing, and writing fiction at the seam of ‘genre’ and literary are also strong interests of hers.
Winnie studied Folklore and Mythology (Celtic) at Harvard University, where she completed her BA Summa Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa. She was then selected as one of twelve Americans in the inaugural year of the George Mitchell Fellowship to pursue graduate study in Ireland. Winnie’s MA was in English (Gender and Sexuality in Irish Writing) at the National University of Ireland, Cork. Over a decade later, she completed her MA in Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths, University of London, where she began writing her debut novel Dark Chapter. In 2018, Winnie was also conferred an honorary doctorate of law by the National University of Ireland, in recognition of her writing and activism against sexual violence.
To see Winnie’s academic profile at the University of Birmingham, click here.