Tag Archives: research

A Swedish book deal & my current PhD research at the LSE

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Happy 2016!  This update is very overdue, but I haven’t had much spare time these past few months, ever since starting my PhD.  But more on that later…

The first bit of exciting news is that my debut novel Dark Chapter has its first publication deal — it’ll be coming out in Sweden in Spring 2017 thanks to Norstedts, one of Sweden’s most prestigious publishing houses.  They also publish Margaret Atwood, Elena Ferrante, Colm Tóibín, and they discovered Stieg Larsson, so it’s not bad company to be in! The deal was listed at the top of Publishers Weekly Hot International Book Properties in November. I’m looking forward to publishers making the book available in other countries… I hope you are, too!

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Alongside my creative writing, I’ve begun my PhD at the Department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics. I’ll be researching the impact of social media on the public dialogue about rape and sexual assault — a very topical subject, and obviously, one which I feel strongly about, given my own experience and exploration of the issue. You can watch a video and read an article on my research here:

At the end of October, I spoke at the Feminism in London Conference, as a nominee for the annual Emma Humphreys Memorial Prize.  I didn’t win in the end, but it was an honor to be at the awards ceremony, both as an Individual Award nominee and as a representative of the Clear Lines Festival (nominated for the Group Award).  To have the chance to meet the other shortlisted women — and hear about their collective efforts working against gender-based violence — was nothing short of inspiring.

Me and Kate Llewellyn representing Clear Lines

Me and Kate Llewellyn representing Clear Lines

Speaking of Clear Lines, we have begun to release videos from the festival online.  You can watch them for free here, including videos of me speaking on the panel about news coverage of sexual assault, commenting on what it’s like to have your own rape reported in the media.   There’s also videos from our Spoken Word Night, featuring some very talented poets, and more videos will pop up over the next few months.

You can read my end-of-2015 round-up here.  Looking forward to what 2016 will bring!

Just launched the Clear Lines Festival

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After two months of hard work and a lot of enthusiasm, I’m very pleased to announce the launch of the Clear Lines Festival, the UK’s first-ever festival dedicated to talking about sexual assault through the arts and discussion. It’s something I co-founded in April (coincidentally, on the anniversary of my own rape) —  over coffee with Dr. Nina Burrowes and a group of other amazing women, all of whom are passionate about wanting to change the public conversation about sexual abuse and assault.  I personally believe the arts are one of the best ways to approach the issue, by bringing to light the human stories that underpin these experiences.  So we’re putting together an exciting programme of artists, writers, comedians, performers, and filmmakers, who will be exploring the topic through their art — along with panel discussions and workshops featuring psychologists, experts, social workers, journalists, and survivors, among others.  Nearly all events will be free to the public. The festival will run July 30 – Aug 2 in Central London.

At the moment, we’re busy crowd-funding so we can have enough funds to make the festival possible.  We’ll need £3,500 for that — and if we reach our stretch target of £9,000, we’ll be able to film the events and post them online so others around the world can access them.  So please do consider pledging if you can!  You can watch a video of me talking about the festival here.  Join us and together, let’s see if we can replace the silence and stigma that cloud this issue with insight, understanding, and community.

 

MA Portfolio FINISHED & Research in Ireland

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Ah, the big news is I handed in my portfolio (aka dissertation) for my MA in Creative and Life and Writing at Goldsmiths — and am now DONE with all the requirements for that course!  The deadline was at 4pm, and I handed it in at 3:45.  (I consider this progress: as an undergraduate, I would have been frantically racing down the department corridor at 3:59.)

Here’s a nice literary shot of my final portfolio, with some of the random books that influenced it.   However, I think I’m most proud of somehow managing to cite the Moscow car chase scene from The Bourne Supremacy in my Critical Commentary.

The portfolio was comprised entirely of extracts from my upcoming novel, Dark Chapter, which I have been researching heavily this summer. In August, I made my second 2014 trip to Belfast and ended up staying for nearly two weeks, living with a very hospitable family on the Falls Road and hanging out at the Feile an Phobail, the annual West Belfast arts festival.  Lots of great debate and discussion, where I got to learn more about the fascinating (and harrowing) history of that part of Belfast, plus literary readings and a very diverse line-up of musical acts.  There’s nothing quite like watching Boyzone perform in a circus tent, when you’re in a crowd of 4,000 Irish women going mental!

More importantly, the trip was a really genuine way to soak up the atmosphere of West Belfast, where much of my novel is set.  I had a lot of illuminating conversations with forensic psychologists, social workers, solicitors, community organizers, the West Belfast Partnership Board, the Public Prosecution Service of Northern Ireland, the Probation Board, the Belfast Travellers Support Program, and I went to visit The Rowan, the spanking new SARC (Sexual Assault Referral Centre) in Antrim, which serves all of Northern Ireland. Now I just have to make sure all this somehow makes it in to my novel.  Wish me luck!