Professor Graham Mort

PhD Supervision Interests

Composition in fiction and poetry, especially with transcultural emphasis

Current Teaching

MA in Creative Writing

PhD supervision in Creative Writing

Career Details

Freelance writer and artist in education 1986-2002

Course Leader in Creative Writing, Open College of the Arts 1990-1999

Director of Studies, Open College of the Arts 1999-2000

Project Leader for British Council African writing development projects 2001 -

Lecturer in Creative Writing, Lancaster University, 2002 -

Research Interests

A former freelance writer, Graham Mort has worked as a poetry specialist, educational writer, editor, and tutor in a wide range of settings throughout the UK and overseas. Formerly Director of Studies for the Open College of the Arts, he is a Distance Learning and eLearning specialist. He is director of the PhD programme in Creative Writing at Lancaster and convenes the distance learning MA with Lee Horsley, designing new eLearning provision for postgraduate programmes. As part of the AHRC-funded Creative Exchange project based at Lancaster, Graham is currently working with the Digital Fiction Factory, BBC Learning and digital designers Atomhawk and Desq to create interactive digital protoypes derived from existing BBC programmes for user-testing.

Graham was project leader of the British Council/Lancaster University African writers mentoring scheme, Crossing Borders (2001-2006). He was then the consultant and designer of a new British Council/Lancaster University project in Africa, Radiophonics (2006-2009), which developed new writing for radio in partnership with Nigerian and Ugandan FM stations. African research projects have has taken him to Uganda, Malawi, Kenya, Ghana, S. Africa, Zimbabwe and Nigeria in recent years. He was the UK adviser for, the Beyond Borders pan-African literature festival in Uganda in October 2005, an event hosted by the British Council and involving writers from the UK and 17 African countries. Graham was Chief Guest at the Femrite 'Reading Uganda' festival in 2010 and has continued to work with this writers' association on writing and editorial training projects. Graham has won Lancaster University 'Community' and 'Communications and Media' staff prizes for his work in Africa.

Graham is a member of the AHRC Peer Review College. His research interests include contemporary fiction and poetry, eLearning, literature development project design, emergent African writing and narratives of diaspora. He was a co-applicant on the ongoing Moving Manchester research project, which received an AHRC award of £365,000 to research the writings of migrant communities in Greater Manchester since 1960. Graham is director of the Centre for Transcultural Writing and Research which hosts the new Tran-Scriptions seminar series Writing for Liberty on writing, politics, location and culture, linking academic research to readings by contemporary writers - these will take place throughout 2012-14.

Graham's first collection of poems, A Country on Fire, won a major Eric Gregory award from the Society of Authors; Circular Breathing, was a Poetry Book Society recommendation. A new collection of poems, Visibility: New & Selected Poems, was published by Seren in 2007. He has also written short fiction and radio drama for BBC Radio 4 and performed his work at literature festivals and venues throughout the UK and overseas. He was winner of the Bridport International Short Story Prize, 2007; a collection of his short fiction, 'Touch', was published by Seren in March 2010 and won the Edge Hill Prize for a collection of short fiction in 2011. A new Collection of poems, 'Cusp', was published by Seren in 2011. His work has been translated into Turkish and Vietnamese.

Recent and Current PhD Supervision

Raymond Robinson, Electricity, novel, published by Picador; PhD awarded 2006

George Green, novel, Hound, published by Bantam Press, (with Prof. Simon Bainbridge); PhD awarded 2006

Martin Goodman, novel, Ectopia (with Dr. Lee Horsley); PhD awarded 2007

Rebecca Irvine, novel, Moving (with Dr Lee Horsley), PhD awarded 2010

Rajiv Balasubramanyam, fiction & narrative theory, (with Prof. Lynne Pearce and Dr. Robert Crawshaw), PhD awarded, 2010

Rhiannon Hoosan, poetry, The Ox On Your Tongue, PhD awarded 2011 

Geraldine Green, poetry, The Other Side of the Bridge, PhD awarded 2011

Tariq Mehmood Ali, novel, (with Prof. Lynne Pearce), PhD awarded 2011

Sarah Dobbs, novel, Killing Daniel, Phd Awarded 2011

Muli Amaye, novel, A House with No Angels, PhD awarded 2012

Jenny Makumbi, novel, Kintu's Children, PhD awarded 2012

Angela Barry, novel, The Drowned Forest

Barbara Scoichet, novel, Bug Juice

Nomi Kruger, novella, Magpie

Meg Vandermerwe, novel, Chipo

Links

Guardian Review of Visibility: 'New & Selected Poems'

Graham's homepage

Graham's Books and Poetry Gallery

Graham's Entry on the UK Contemporary Writers Website

Crossing Borders African Writing Project

Radiophonics African Writing Project

Centre for Transcultural Writing and Research

• Radiophonics

  01/10/2007 →
  Graham Mort
  Developing British Council project to stimulate creative writing for African radio stations in Uganda and Nigeria that explores a range of social and political issues. ... Read more»

• Grand Finale of "Moving Manchester" Project

  06/03/2009
  Academics from across the world have signed up to attend an international conference marking the culmination of "Moving Manchester", a four year project about how migration has informed creative writi ... Read more»