An embroidery I made for dear friend and fellow Higher Education professional Rachel Reeds. It features a message to remember both when writing and in general – to be kind to yourself, because self-compassion is essential.
Fiction
Blodeuedd. In this collection of short stories, I have a piece that reworks an old Welsh tale from the Mabinogion called Blodeuedd, about a girl made of flowers. I update it into a story about growing up in rural north Wales in the early 2000s.
Poetry
In 2023 I was delighted to be shortlisted for the New Writers’ Poetry Competition when my poem No Added Sugar was in the top ten entries listed by head judge Andy Craven-Griffiths from 600 poems. I also got an honourable mention in the New Writers’ Autumn micro-fiction competition 2023.
Magazine Articles
My Favourite Fictional Academic. In this piece for the Times Higher Education, I reflect on my favourite fictional academic on screen – Professor Annalise Keating, who in the final episode of US television series How to Get Away with Murder (2014-20), tells us who she is: ‘I’m ambitious, black, bisexual, angry, sad, strong, sensitive, scared, fierce, talented, exhausted.’ Professor Keating is an antidote to the kind of white, male, commitment-free academic depicted in so many campus fictions, and I adore her. In this article I explore representations of gender, trauma and loss in the context of Higher Education in this fascinating television series.
Blogs
Five Books to Help if you are Dealing with Death and Bereavement. This blog for The Open University offers five different books that might provide insights, consolation and care in times of loss. I was also fortunate to be able to discuss this work and the five books in an interview with the BBC broadcast to BBC Three Counties Radio, BBC Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Essex on Babs Michel’s Breakfast Show on Sunday 15 December 2024.
The Benefits of the Long Haul Doctorate. This is a short blog published on the Thriving Part-Time website. It explores the challenges and rewards of taking a long time to complete a PhD whilst working in paid employment at a university and raising a young family.
My Journey Through Ideas In Education. I wrote this blog when I volunteered as a fellowship councillor for the Royal Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, Manufacture and Commerce (RSA). It reflected on a series of workshops I facilitated about ‘big ideas’ in education. Between June and December 2013 Fellows in the South Central region of the RSA offered their spaces, their time and their minds to the Ideas in Education series. In 2012 I had completed the UpRising leadership programme, which supports a diverse range of young people to access opportunities and undertake real-world learning. Through this, I was privileged to have the opportunity to apply for Fellowship of the RSA. After nine months of UpRising I was convinced that the best way to learn was to do, so I discussed this with the team at John Adam Street and they helped me to stand for the role of Fellowship Councillor in my region. I took advantage of the many train and bus journeys I took around the region to read the authors that Fellows recommended to me during the series. These included Richard Hoggart, W.E. Deming, Richard Sennett, Donald Schön, Paul Goodman and Shirley Brice Heath. Hoggart’s The Uses of Literacy struck a particular chord with me, as I have always felt somewhat ‘anxious and uprooted’ in my own formal education, initially at a bilingual comprehensive in Wales, then a private sixth form in Oxford, and then at university. The series reinforced my belief that education can be joyful but also difficult, requiring reflection and a willingness to challenge your own assumptions, to ‘climb out of your own skin’, as Hoggart says, and be challenged: to undertake personal exploration and be ready to fail and to persevere.