John Tilney Writer in Residence - Summer Term 2014

Posted on 23 April 2014

This summer term 2014 the John Tilney Writer in Residence in the Department of English will be James Meek, a British novelist and journalist.

James Meek was born in London in 1962; he grew up in Dundee and studied at Edinburgh University. He spent several years in the former Soviet Union in the 1990s, and worked on the staff of The Guardian until 2005, reporting on the war in Iraq, the Chechen conflict, and the treatment of prisoners in Guantánamo Bay. In 2004 he was named Amnesty International Journalist of the Year. He now lives in London as a full-time writer and regular contributor to the London Review of Books on political issues.

He has published five novels, including The Heart Broke In, winner of the Costa Prize in 2012, and two short story collections, Last Orders and Other Stories (1992) and The Museum of Doubt (2006). In 2005 The People’s Act of Love, his historical novel about the Russian revolutionary period, won the Scottish Arts Council Book of the Year award and Ondaatje Prize. Other novels include McFarlane Boils the Sea (1989), Drivetime (1995), and We are Now Beginning Our Descent (2008).

During the Wednesdays of weeks 2-9, James will be taking a series of creative writing workshops for students of the English Department as well as being available for individual consultations with students in the Department to discuss their creative writing projects. Students should sign up via the doodle poll if they wish to attend the workshops.

During the course of the summer term he will also give a reading at the Humanities Research Centre open to members of the Department, University and general public. This will be held on Tuesday 6 May, in the Bowland Auditorium (Berrick Saul Building), at 6pm, with a reception afterwards.