Founded in 2009, the Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts (NCLA) builds on the long relationship The School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics and Newcastle University as a whole has had with creative writing and creative writers.
The Northern Arts Literary Fellowship (latterly the North Eastern Literary Fellowship) shared with Durham University and first held by Tony Harrison in 1967, has been occupied by a long line of distinguished writers. The list includes Fleur Adcock, Edward Bond, Basil Bunting, John McGahern, Carol Rumens, Jo Shapcott, Anne Stevenson and Barry Unsworth and will be available in full on this site.
Three of the Fellowship’s former holders - W.N. Herbert, Jackie Kay and Sean O’Brien - have since been appointed Professors of Creative Writing at Newcastle University. They each contribute to the teaching of short courses and the MA and PhD degrees in Creative Writing. Established in 2003 with an initial focus on poetry, the MA in Creative Writing has broadened to offer writers the opportunity to develop skills in fiction, scriptwriting and screenwriting whilst maintaining its strong reputation for poetry.
Northumberland based poetry publisher Bloodaxe Books and Newcastle University have enjoyed a long and fruitful relationship reflected in the highly successful annual Newcastle/Bloodaxe Poetry lectures. We look forward to welcoming distinguished poet and editor of Poetry Review Fiona Sampson in 2010. Previous lecturers have included Desmond Graham, Jane Hirshfield, Ruth Padel, Carol Rumens and George Szirtes. Copies of their lectures published by Bloodaxe are available to purchase via the Bloodaxe website.
Whilst the attempt to found a physical Centre (the Northern Writers’ Centre 2007 – 2009) in collaboration with New Writing North was thwarted by funding difficulties, video and sound recordings from some of the exciting events hosted during that time will soon be available in our archive section. The mission to bring world-class writers to Newcastle will now be carried forward by the Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts.