News

Launch of Creative Writing Handbook for Health Care Workers
20th July 2021
The Open University and North Tees and Hartlepool Foundation Trust have joined forces on a pilot to establish whether Creative Writing practice could reduce stress and improve mental wellbeing in Health Care Workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Reading John Edgar Wideman’s ‘Fever’
14th January 2021
Lindsey Stewart is a Visiting Fellow in the School of English and Creative Writing at the OU. In this blog, Lindsey reflects on John Edgar Wideman’s short story Fever from 1989 which explores the 'colliding effects of a virulent illness, racism and environmental degradation'
Italian literature and pandemics: Part 2
11th December 2020
In the second of two blogs written for the annual History of Books and Reading seminar series, Francesca Benatti, Research Fellow in Digital Humanities in the department of English and Creative Writing at The Open University, shares her love for Italian literature
Italian literature and pandemics: Part 1
11th December 2020
'Italian classics became a way to remind myself that, whatever my circumstances, a part of me would always remain Italian.' Francesca Benatti is a Research Fellow in Digital Humanities in the department of English and Creative Writing at The Open University
Reading Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven
10th December 2020
Sarah Bowers, an Associate Lecturer in Creative Writing at The Open University, introduces us to Emily St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven and draws comparisons between the current pandemic and the unexpected, optimistic outcome of the novel despite its dystopian themes
Bibliotherapy Lessons from Lockdown
9th December 2020
Sally Blackburn-Daniels, a Postdoctoral Research Associate in English, shares details of the comfort she found during lockdown through re-reading much-loved texts. She particularly highlights the strength she harnessed from inspiring author Vernon Lee
Social Analysis and the COVID-19 Crisis
8th December 2020
Professor Suman Gupta, Chair in Literature and Cultural History, shares insights into the organic journey that led to the creation of a new book. With first-hand accounts of the pandemic as it unfolded, it explores the social and the political through the lens of the outbreak.
OU English & Creative Writing co-organise 2020 Annual International Vernon Lee Society Lecture
25th November 2020
This year’s annual International Vernon Lee Society Lecture, supported by HOBAR and the IES, was provided by Dustin Friedman (Assistant Professor of Literature at American University in Washington, DC) on October 14, 2020. Friedman’s paper entitled ‘“Sinister Exile”: Queer Myth and Aesthetic Teleology in Walter Pater and Vernon Lee’ contemplated Pater’s ‘Gods in Exile’, Lee’s ‘Dionea’ and the limitation of Western aesthetic ideals.
OU funds Creative Writing research with COVID-19 frontline healthcare workers
30th September 2020
An Open University COVID-19 Rapid Response funding scheme is supporting a series of writing workshops with health care workers in acute care and palliative care in collaboration with the North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust. The plan is that this research will lead to the production of a new Creative Writing Handbook for COVID-19 frontline workers.
Cholera in Middlemarch: George Eliot’s pandemic writing
10th September 2020
In this blog, Delia da Sousa Correa, Head of Department in English and Creative Writing at The Open University, explains how the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic unexpectedly enhanced her understanding of her favourite novel, Middlemarch