Dr Barbara MacMahon

Senior lecturer in English language

I came to work at Sheffield Hallam in 2003 after working in English departments at several other universities (Huddersfield, Northampton, León) and studying for my M.Litt and PhD in Literary Linguistics at Strathclyde University in Glasgow.

I mainly teach on the BA degrees in English language and English. My teaching is in English language, linguistics, literary linguistics and pragmatics, and my modules include • describing language • language and literature • language and psychology • understanding meaning. I have also been an external examiner for various other institutions.

My research is in literary linguistics and pragmatics. In the past few years there have been two main strands in my research. In one of these I take a relevance theory approach to narrative voice in fiction, relating fiction itself and the use of voice within it to the capacity of the human mind to metarepresent and engage in other decoupled activities, a capacity much discussed in recent cognitive psychology. In the other strand I develop an account of the experience of reading sound-patterned poetry. Here I use relevance theory again, this time in conjunction with psycholinguistic models of lexical access and language processing, theories of synaesthesia and phonetics.

I am interested in supervising PhD students in any area of literary linguistics and pragmatics.

Alison Light

Visiting Professor

I am currently a full-time writer but have been teaching in universities since the mid-1980s; my last academic post was as Professor of Modern English Literature and Culture at Newcastle University (part-time), where I taught modern literature courses on both the undergraduate and postgraduate degrees; I also designed and taught, with the writer Jackie Kay, a course on memoir-writing for the MA in Creative Writing.

I’m currently working on an experimental family history, part-memoir, part-social history, tracking back across the lives of the English poor into the nineteenth century.

Since my first book, Forever England (1991) I have written widely on a number of issues concerning British culture; my articles have also appeared in a number of national publications including, Sight and Sound, The Guardian and Independent , and most recently the London Review of Books. I’ve worked as a consultant for BBC television programmes and have broadcast on radio and tv.

My last book Mrs Woolf and the Servants (Fig Tree/Penguin Press; Bloomsbury USA 2008) was longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Non-Fiction Prize; runner up for the Longman History Prize; and named as one of the top five books of 2009 – fiction or non-fiction by the Atlantic Monthly; ‘Book of the Year’ in the Sunday Times, Independent and the New York Times .

I also spent several years working with colleagues from the University of East London (where I was Honorary Prof), to establish the Raphael Samuel History Centre (UEL- Birbeck), a public archive and research hub. I am very committed to making links between the university and the wider community beyond its walls.

I first became involved with English at Sheffield Hallam through the conferences on ‘middlebrow’ literature and am now acting as an advisor for the new ‘Readerships and Literary Cultures 1900-1950’ Special Collection.

John Milne

Principal lecturer

John was educated at Ravensbourne College of Art and Design and

Chelsea School of Art, where he studied painting. He is a script writer and novelist.

He has worked in education since 2005 and teaches novel, historical novel, script and script editing to students at all levels. In the 1980s he was an Arts Council creative writing fellow at Cricklade College Hampshire.

His interests are in scriptwriting and the novel, most notable crime novels and historical novels. His novels include The Antigallican (as Tom Bowling), Alive and Kicking, Daddy’s Girl, The Moody Man, Wet Wickets and Dusty Balls (comic novel, as Ian Miller), Out of the Blue (won John Llewellwyn Rhys Prize), Dead Birds (adapted for BBC Radio as Woman’s Hour book of the week), London Fields,Tyro.

Non fiction; John wrote Pirates and Privateers 2007 (as Tom Bowling) which was published by Robinson Books.

As a TV dramatist John has written for many programs including Heartbeat (Yorkshire), Nostradamus (Discovery 2006), The Bill (ITV), Silent Witness (BBC) (winner of a Crime Writers of America ‘Edgar’ in 1998), Waking the Dead (BBC), Pie in the Sky (BBC SelecTV) Taggart (STV) (winner of a Writers’ Guild Award 1992),Maisie Raine (BBC), Holby (BBC), Futurecast, (2000, Channel 4 – Bafta nominated), The Hot Dog Wars, 1994 Central Television, Bergerac (BBC), Boon (Central TV), Sam Saturday (LWT), Lovejoy (BBC), East Enders (BBC), A Mind to Kill (S4C), Wycliffe (HTV), Crime Story (LWT).

Professor Chris Hopkins

Professor of English studies

I did my BA in English and Related Literature at the University of York, and then an MA and MPhil in English at the University of Warwick. After that I taught for the University of Warwick and the Open University until 1991 when I was appointed to a lectureship at Sheffield Hallam. In 2001 I gained a Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education from the Open University.

I've had a number of jobs in English since 1991, including admissions tutor and head of English, but I'm now head of humanities research. My teaching and research interests largely coincide. I'm interested in twentieth-century British literature, especially between the two world wars, and teach two third-year modules in those areas: literature in the twentieth century and fiction between two wars. I'm also interested in how English is best taught at degree level and have therefore taught a first-year module, introduction to English studies, since 1991.

I've been involved at various times with national bodies which have worked on university teaching or research. I was a Higher Education Academy accreditor from 2001-7 and a member of the English Subject Centre Advisory Board from 2003-8. I'm currently a member of the Arts and Humanities Research Council Peer Review College.

I have published Thinking About Texts – an Introduction to English Studies (Palgrave, 2001, revised edition 2009), which is used in universities in the UK, Europe, Australia and Japan, and has sections on English Literature, Language and Creative Writing. I have also published English Fiction in the 1930s: Language, Genre, History, (Continuum, 2006) and articles on first-world-war literature and women's writing in the nineteen-thirties. I'm currently writing a book about Walter Greenwood's Depression novel, Love on the Dole (1933).

Dr Matthew Steggle

Reader in English literature

After a DPhil at Oxford University, and various teaching jobs in Oxford, I came to Sheffield Hallam in 1999. I teach mainly modules on Renaissance literature, on Shakespeare, and on literature of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

I am fascinated by the plays of Shakespeare and of Shakespeare's contemporaries, an area in which I have published many scholarly articles and written three books. I am particularly interested in the work of Shakespeare's colleague Ben Jonson, whose comedy Cynthia's Revels I have edited for the forthcoming Cambridge Works of Ben Jonson.

A recurring theme in my research is the power of newly-developed computer databases, such as Early English Books Online, to enable discoveries about the detail of Renaissance literature. I am using such databases to work out the likely meaning of particular lines and phrases from texts of this period; to investigate questions of authorship; and to recover details of lost plays.

I edit the peer-reviewed electronic journal, Early Modern Literary Studies, and am involved in several other international projects, such as the Shakespeare Quartos Archive, which look to unlock the teaching and research power of computers in Renaissance literature.

I would welcome enquiries from potential MA and PhD students interested in Renaissance literature, digital humanities, scholarly editing, acoustic approaches, the Sidney circle, Jonson, Brome, and Shakespeare.

Professor Lisa Hopkins

Professor of English and head of the graduate school

I did my undergraduate degree at King’s College, Cambridge before going on to an MA and PhD in English Renaissance drama from the University of Warwick. I have taught at Sheffield Hallam since 1990, although I am now only part-time in the department. The rest of my time is taken up with heading the faculty graduate school and chairing the University research degrees sub-committee.

I co-edit Shakespeare, the journal of the British Shakespeare Association, and am also co-editor of the Continuum Renaissance Drama series. My own work has been mainly on Shakespeare, John Ford, and Christopher Marlowe, but I have also written about the influence of Darwinian theory on fiction and on film adaptations of literary texts. I am a vice-president of the Marlowe Society and a member of the Shakespeare Society of India, and usually speak in India once a year.

I welcome applications from prospective PhD students in any area of Renaissance drama. I have supervised nine PhD students to satisfactory completion, of whom three are now in full-time, permanent academic posts, and I am currently supervising three more.

Alison McHale

Senior lecturer in work-based learning in humanities

Leading modules in work based projects in the humanities draws upon my wide ranging teaching experience and qualifications.

Graduating with a first class Bachelor of Education degree (Sheffield City Polytechnic) in 1981 I taught English, geography and history in two comprehensive schools. Moving from Hastings to London to Bradford I returned to my favourite city and joined the Sheffield Pupil Referral Service working with young people removed from the school system challenging stuff! Further qualifications in TESOL and specific learning difficulties led me to work in local colleges teaching adults, a Somali women's group, EFL and a short spell of English language A level. For three years I worked in 'Parents as Partners' community education in three Sheffield schools supporting both parents and their children's learning which was intensely rewarding.

In 1998 I joined Sheffield Hallam University working on various community education initiatives involving outreach, course design and implementation including the Choices and Voices Conferences, the first Aim Higher Summer School and a maths bridging programme. During this time I worked in dyslexia support and education guidance for combined studies.

In 2004 I took the opportunity to study for the Postgraduate Diploma in Careers Guidance in H. E. whilst working as a careers adviser in the careers and employment team. This not only links me into the AGCAS professional body but extends my knowledge of the graduate market and wider contacts and connections. Working in careers guidance in a one-to-one confidential setting gives tremendous insight into the complexity of student decisions – it is a privilege to see their journey.

Building on this, in 2009, I moved half of my contract across to lead the work based projects in the humanities department bringing my external experience and careers/employment insight to the role. I really enjoy working directly with the students through tutorials as it gives them the opportunity to find their own voice and reflect upon their personal, academic and skills development in the context of their degree, future choices and life passions.

Research interests/activities
My research interests are in work based learning as part of the academic experience; skills acquisition and application and the employment prospects of students in English, history, stage and screen.

My teaching interests lie in maximising opportunities for my students, developing professional skills and behaviours, and reflective writing.

Recent publications
McHale, A. (2010) Work based projects in the humanities: autonomous learners and satisfied students? In: M. Bramall, C O’Leary and C. Corker (eds): CPLA Case Studies Vol. 2, pp. 159-168

David Harmer

Lecturer

I teach the writing for children module at both undergraduate and postgraduate level

I am a writer, performer, editor and primary drama specialist. My poems and stories appear in more than 100 books for children and I have published a number of poetry collections for adults.

I was a teacher for 29 years, 15 of them as headteacher of a primary school. I work nationally as a poet, drama specialist and Inset provider in both local authorities and schools.

My books are published mainly by Macmillans and the latest is a book of monster poems entitled It’s Behind You. Other books in print include The Truth About Teachers, The Truth About Parents and Pirate Poems.

I was a founder member of the performance poetry group Circus of Poets and nowadays, when not working alone, I perform in the poetry duo Spill The Beans.

My MA from Sheffield Hallam specialised in short story writing and currently, my research interests are located around the decisions writers make for different audiences, specifically when they write for both adults and children.

Dr Jill LeBihan

Principal lecturer in English literature

I completed my BA, MA by research and PhD at the University of Leeds. I studied for my PhD on Canadian women’s writing both at Leeds and at the University of Alberta in Canada. I also completed an MA in Psychoanalytic Studies at the University of Sheffield.

I have worked at Sheffield Hallam since 1991, where I teach specialist modules in critical theory, children’s literature and North American literature. I have had substantial departmental responsibilities for programme design in recent years, and I put the student experience at the top of my professional priorities.

My research has focused on Canadian literature, detective fiction, and children’s literature. I am also interested in memory and trauma, and psychoanalytic accounts of women’s sexuality. I am the co-author of Critical Theory and Practice, a popular course book, with my colleague Keith Green.

I welcome applications from prospective PhD students in any area of feminist critical or literary studies, on children’s literature or on contemporary fiction. I have supervised six research students to satisfactory completion, and I am currently supervising one candidate.

Dr Susan McPherson

Senior lecturer

After graduating from Cambridge University (PhD), I worked at Staffordshire University and the Open University before moving to Sheffield Hallam in 2007.

My teaching and research interests are in the long nineteenth-century, particularly the Victorian period. I have published work on life writing (autobiography and biography) including Women’s Theatrical Memoirs (2008, with Julia Swindells). I am also completing my monograph on Victorian life writing.

However, I have recently taken up a new line of research about the relationship between literature and education, focusing upon gender, class and pedagogy between 1870 and 1920. The first element of this new research will appear in The Masculine Middlebrow:What did Mr Miniver Read (Palgrave Macmillan, ed Kate Macdonald, 2011) and I have recently been invited to contribute to the Oxford University Press Handbook on the Georgian Playhouse.

I am module leader for Victorian literature and writers, readers, spectators, but also contribute to a range of undergraduate modules, including reading literature and race, slavery, empire.

More broadly, I have contributed to a number of non-academic public meetings, such as the Open Democracy Parliamentary Meeting on access to democracy (2009), speaking on culture and democracy, alongside former MP Tony Wright and former editor of the New Statesman, Professor Stuart Weir.

I am very passionate about ensuring research and teaching feed into wider public debates about the value of education, as well as being committed to helping to ensure that undergraduates are able to fulfil their potential as students and citizens.

Dr Annaliese Connolly

Senior lecturer

I completed my PhD at Sheffield Hallam in 2008 and was appointed as a permanent member of staff in the same year. My research interests include Renaissance literature, particularly drama of the Elizabethan period.

I am currently working on a book on the drama of the late 1580s and early 1590s, with particular emphasis upon the dramatist George Peele. I am co-editing a collection of essays entitled Essex: The Life and Career of an Elizabethan Courtier for MUP and will be editing a volume on Shakespeare's Richard III for the Continuum Renaissance drama series.

My teaching experience here at Sheffield Hallam reflects these research interests, with modules such as Shakespearean drama, Renaissance literature and tragedy of blood. I am also module leader for modern drama 1880-1990, as well as teaching on first year modules such as reading literature and introduction to English studies. I am course leader for BA (Hons) English Literature.

Since Sheffield is the home of the Crucible and Lyceum theatres, I encourage students to take advantage of the theatre on offer in the city and in the University's learning centre where they can make use of the large media collection to watch films and productions of a range of plays to enhance their learning.

Professor Sara Mills

Professor of linguistics

I teach mainly in linguistics. I teach some courses on my research interests of gender and language, politeness and others on general linguistics.

I research mainly gender and language and feminist linguistics and politeness. I have published books such as Language and Sexism; Gender and Politeness; I also research post-colonial theory and have written books such as Post Colonial Feminist Theory: A Reader; Gender and Colonial Space. My books on critical theory are Discourse; Michel Foucault.

I am a member of the International Gender and Language Association, and organise the International Gender and Language Association (IGALA) Book Prize. I was co-editor of the journal Gender and Language.

Dr Keith Green

Principal lecturer in English

I studied for a BA in English with American Studies, an MA in Critical Theory and a PhD in linguistics. As a result, I have a wide range of teaching interests, from the philosophy of language to contemporary poetry.

I am particularly drawn to inter and cross-disciplinary areas, shown in my own specialist modules such as language and music and language and education, where language forms the basis for investigations into other related areas. I also write poetry and am occasional tutor of creative writing.

As is the case with my teaching, I tend to research wherever my interest and knowledge takes me. I have published widely in literary theory and linguistics in particular, my most recent book being on the philosopher, political activist and sometime short story writer, Bertrand Russell. I am also completing a Masters degree in composition and have several of my compositions performed in recent years.

I have set a number of poems, including my own, to music, the most recent being William Blake’s The Chimney Sweeper for chamber ensemble, which was performed at Sheffield Cathedral. My latest research interest is in the relationship between poetry and music, while I am beginning an opera based on the life of Bertrand Russell.

I regularly feature on local radio discussing topical language issues.

Professor Jane Rogers

Professor of writing

I’m Professor of writing at Sheffield Hallam and teach on the MA Writing, specialising in novel and short story. I’m external examiner in creative writing at Goldsmiths and Newcastle University, and also course leader in creative writing for the Open College of the Arts.

I’ve taught writing in various places including the universities of Adelaide, Paris Sorbonne 4, and Warwick. In November I’m going to Uganda to work with a former MA student, Atuki Turner, and four other Ugandan writers, on a radio soap opera.

Writing
I’ve written eight novels, of which two are historical, five contemporary, and one set in the future.They include Mr Wroe’s Virgins, which I dramatised as a BBC drama serial, Island, which has recently been made into an independent film, and The Voyage Home, about a woman who meets an asylum seeker during a nightmareish voyage on a container ship. The new novel, The Testament of Jessie Lamb, will be published in spring 2011. I was made a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1996.

I also write for radio (drama and adaptations, including, most recently, Edith Wharton’s The Custom of the Country for Classic Serial) and short stories. Hitting Trees with sticks was shortlisted for the 2009 National Short story award.

Conor O'Callaghan

Senior lecturer in creative writing

Prior to coming to Sheffield Hallam, I taught for three years at Wake Forest University in North America. I teach mainly undergraduate poetry and fiction here. I also take the MA Writing poetry module and am developing a module in life-writing for the MA.

I have published three collections of poetry. The most recent, Fiction (Gallery, 2005), was a Poetry Book Society (PBS) Recommendation.

I have also published a book of prose non-fiction, Red Mist (Bloomsbury 2004), a comic memoir of public furore surrounding Ireland's campaign in the 2002 World Cup. The book was adapted into a hour-long documentary for Setanta TV in 2006. I have written lots of reviews for the Times Literary Supplement (TLS) and the Irish Times.

Dr Jodie Clark

Lecturer in English language

Prior to taking up a post with the English language team at Sheffield Hallam in 2008, I worked and studied in a number of universities in the UK, the US and France. Originally from the east coast of the USA, I taught English at the University of Paris and served as director for a study abroad programme with the University of Strasbourg before moving to the UK. My PhD is from Loughborough University.

I chose linguistics as an area of study when I discovered how much is revealed when you look closely at people’s everyday language use – particularly what is revealed about social injustices.

In my research I develop methods for identifying the forms of injustice and inequity that play out in different contexts. In my monograph Language, Sex and Social Structure (under contract with Palgrave MacMillan), I look at homophobia on a sports team. My argument in this book and other works is that any attempt to eradicate oppressive attitudes, such as gender inequity, racism and homophobia, will fail unless you take into account the structures that support these attitudes. My work in the area of linguistic politeness focuses on the ways in which these structures are linked to notions of what it means to behave appropriately. I am a member of the management group of the Linguistic Politeness Research Group.

I teach on a number of undergraduate and postgraduate modules, including language and social life, language and gender, politeness, language identity and power and approaches to discourse.

In my teaching my aim is to empower students to think critically about the relationships between social injustice and language use. Because I find students learn best through in-depth exploration of areas that interest them, many of the modules I teach require students to design and carry out independent research projects.

Professor Steven Earnshaw

Professor of English

I have been teaching and researching at Sheffield Hallam since 1995, and my interests in both are quite broad and often interrelated. I have taught on literature from the Renaissance to the present, and my research work has covered The Pub in Literature (2000), The Direction of Literary Theory (1996), and edited collections on postmodernism (1994-2000).

More recently I published Beginning Realism (2010), again partly deriving from teaching I have done over nearly twenty years on nineteenth and twentieth-century literature, and on the history of the novel genre.

A particular area of interest has been existentialism and literature, and the module I established over ten years ago on this topic continues to run. The joy of this is that students get to read some of the all-time great novels including Crime and Punishment, The Trial, and The Outsider and can often directly relate the ideas of Existentialism to their own lives. The seminars are frequently open ended, with more questions than answers, which to me is what education should be about. Largely as a result of this teaching, I wrote and published Existentialism: A Guide for the Perplexed (2006).

Creative writing has also played a large part in my time at Sheffield Hallam. I was once a course leader for the MA Writing, and have continued to be involved with it at various levels, helping out with some of its related publications including the Ictus pamphlet.

I oversee supervision of creative writing PhDs, degrees which bring together critical and creative work. From this longstanding interest in all things creative came The Handbook of Creative Writing (2007).

Dr Sarah Dredge

Senior lecturer in nineteenth-century literature

My teaching interests are predominantly nineteenth century, such as the Victorians, race, slavery and empire in nineteenth-century British and American literature. I also contribute to a range of period and specialist modules across the programme.

My research looks at well-known mid-nineteenth century novels in the more unfamiliar context of the Victorian women's movement. Works by George Eliot, the Brontës, and Elizabeth Gaskell are often assumed to be feminist, but my work examines what contemporary feminism looked like, and considers what part fictional texts could play in engaging with and contributing to the feminist arguments of their day.

I have published in this area, and am completing a book-length study. As a part of this work, and my ongoing research, I also study the nineteenth-century periodical press, and especially The English Woman's Journal, which was intended to be a focal point for feminist campaigns.

Many Victorian novels were first serialised in journals, and so this medium brings together fictional and political writing in a very direct way. This particular interest was developed by my previous post as a research fellow at Queen's University, Belfast, helping to produce the Clarendon edition of Dickens's Our Mutual Friend, which was originally published as a serial. I am currently doing research on intersections between women's writing (literary and political) and empire.

Dr Ana María Sánchez-Arce

Lecturer

I have a BA (Hons) in English Language and Literature, an MA in English studies from the University Autónoma of Barcelona, and an MA in Women and Literature and PhD in contemporary literature from the University of Hull.

Before teaching at Sheffield Hallam I taught at the University of Hull and the University of Reading. I currently teach a variety of undergraduate and postgraduate modules on contemporary literature, postcolonial writing in Britain, censorship in literature and experimental writing. I also teach children's language and literature and Gothic literature.

The main focus of my research is identity and form. I work particularly on contemporary British literature, migrant writing and women's writing. I am also editing a book on identity and form in 20th and 21st century literature. I am co-editor of European Intertexts. Women's Writing in English in a European Context (2005) and have written articles on authenticity, identity politics and the marketing of contemporary literature and on many contemporary writers.

I am also interested in film and am currently finishing a book on the filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar for Manchester University Press.

Professor Maurice Riordan

Professor of poetry

At Sheffield Hallam I teach poetry on the Writing MA and I teach short story and poetry at undergraduate level.

I have a special interest in poetry and science. I have engaged in several collaborative projects in this area, commissioning poems from poets such as Seamus Heaney, Simon Armitage, Julia Copus, James Fenton, Andrew Motion, and involving scientists such as Sir John Sulston and Sir David Attenborough.

My books of poems include A Word from the Loki (1995), Floods (2000) and The Holy Land (2007), which won the Michael Hartnett Award.

I’ve also published Confidential Reports, translations from the Maltese of Immanuel Mifsud (Southword Editions, 2005); and, for children, The Moon Has Written You a Poem, adapted from the Portuguese of José Letria (Winged Chariot, 2005).

Among several anthologies of poems I’ve edited are A Quark for Mister: 101 Poems About Science and Dark Matter, co-edited with Jocelyn Bell Burnell, the astronomer who discovered pulsars.

My poems have been broadcast on radio and you can listen to me reading online at http://www.rte.ie/radio1/thebookonone/2010-08-30.html and http://www.poetcasting.co.uk/?p=112

Felicity Skelton

Lecturer

I teach writing, literature and language. I write short stories, novels, plays and poetry. I'm especially interested in the short story and how it works, and in women's writing. My collection of stories Eating A Sandwich was published in 1997.

I've been teaching here for a long time and over the years have taught dozens of different topics. Reading books and talking about them - what could be better? Or writing them and helping others write them. Or looking at how the English language works, how it constitutes the texts we read every day, and how using it makes us see things in different ways. It's a dangerous and fascinating tool, and we should be aware of how it affects us.

Before coming to Sheffield Hallam I worked in professional theatre for twenty years. My previous job was as a theatre director.

Dr Chris Jones

Head of BA Creative Writing

I started writing poetry when I was 14 and won the Cadbury's National Poetry Award four years later. In my twenties I won an Eric Gregory Award for my work (1996) and began publishing poems in various magazines and journals. Running alongside my creative writing life, I wrote a PhD on the poetry of Thom Gunn at Sheffield University. I went on to be a writer-in-residence in HMP Nottingham. I was also employed as a literature development officer for five years, and worked as a freelance literature specialist organising poetry festivals. I received a permanent contract from Sheffield Hallam University in 2007, working as a lecturer in creative writing. I am currently the head of BA Creative Writing within the English department.

I have published a number of poetry collections Hard on the Knuckle (2003), The Safe House (2007), and Miniatures (2007). Over the past six years I have been increasingly involved in public art work, commissions and artistic collaborations. These projects have appeared in the Millennium Galleries, Sheffield, and in other art spaces around the city and beyond. I am particularly interested in the role of poetry in the sphere of public art, and how writers collaborate with other artists (digital, fine art etc.) I am always looking for new ways of finding an audience for the texts I create in partnership with artists. I continue to publish work in anthologies/magazines and look to have a new collection of work out by 2012. I enjoy teaching creative writing (with an onus on poetry), as well as teaching English literature.

Mike Harris

Lecturer

I'm a script writer and theatre director with over 100 scripts written for BBC Radio Drama, stage and TV (The Bill). The scripts have been performed, or broadcast, in Germany, France, Holland, Canada, Russia and elsewhere.

I work across forms and genres, writing (and generally directing) large scale community plays, children’s theatre and youth theatre, as well as more ‘standard’ work for BBC Radio 4 Drama, professional touring companies, theatre in education companies, street theatre companies, and so on.

As a director and writer, I have a special interest in putting on work in non-standard venues, such as shopping malls, old factories and schools, and playing to non-theatre-going audiences. As a writer I aim to be accessible and funny but also challenging and provocative.

I have also worked as a journalist in Africa, as a labourer, and a nurse. I have run drama and writing workshops for many organisations including the Workers' Educational Association (WEA), The National Association of Writers in Education, for the Arvon foundation at Lumb Bank and Totley Barton, and for the British Council in Malaysia and Nigeria. I have been writer-in-residence at HMP’s Wakefield and New Hall, at University College Cork, and at The Lemon Tree Arts Centre in Aberdeen.

I contributed chapters on script writing and radio drama to The Handbook of Creative Writing (E.U.P. 2007) and was assistant editor of The Good Fiction Guide (O.U.P. 2002).

I am currently researching into the theory and practice of ‘creative’ writing, and I have given papers on this subject for the November 2008 Australian Association of Writing Programmes (AWP) conference in Sydney, and the June 2009 'Great Writing' Creative Writing conference in Bangor, Wales. Versions of these papers have been published on the AAWP Creativity and Uncertainty papers web page and on the UK English studies centre website and in the AAWP journal TEXT.

Dr Alice Bell

Senior lecturer in English language and literature

Since joining Sheffield Hallam in 2007, I have taught on a range of linguistic and literature modules across the English programme at both undergraduate and postgraduate level.

My teaching and scholarship interests are mainly in linguistic approaches to literature and contemporary fiction. Reflecting those areas, I teach on modules such as literature in the twentieth century, language and literature as well as a final year specialist module, entitled digital fiction, in which students analyse the effect that digital media can have on narrative fiction.

My research interests are digital literature, narrative theory and linguistic approaches to literature.

I have published a monograph, entitled The Possible Worlds of Hypertext Fiction, and several articles in which I offer a range of analytical approaches to digital fiction. I am the principal investigator of the Digital Fiction International Network which is an international research collaboration aimed at providing an arena for a new generation of scholars to collaborate on integral theoretical and analytical issues within digital fiction research.

My recent work has focussed on what are known as unnatural narratives which are texts which present physically or logically impossible scenarios or events. In that research I am interested in the way that a digital context alters the way in which unnatural elements operate.

Dr Mary Peace

Lecturer

My specialist area is the literature of the period 1740-1830. My doctoral research was on the

figure of the prostitute in eighteenth century sentimental literature and I have published widely on the representation of economics, prostitution and desire in the sentimental literature of this period.

For many of us the eighteenth century is a lost century, a no man's land between the English Civil War and the Industrial Revolution; between Milton and Austen. My teaching and research is driven by a commitment to putting the eighteenth century firmly back on the cultural and historical map.

My students encounter the eighteenth century as the cradle of our modern world – the century when shopping, banks, insurance, novels and magazines, advertising and the idea of rights for women and men found their way into everyday life. To have a grasp of the eighteenth century is to have an understanding of the aesthetic and cultural values that we live with today. At undergraduate level I teach on the literature of the eighteenth century and romantic era course and on a specialist Gothic literature module.

I am also very interested in modern cultural and aesthetic theory and teach on the core critical module of the MA Writing: What is Contemporary?

Linda Lee Welch

Lecturer

I came to Britain from the USA to do a short course in acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), joined a band when I finished studying and ended up staying. My professional life has been a varied and exciting blend of writing, music, performance, and teaching.

I'm a senior lecturer in creative writing at Sheffield Hallam, teaching on the BA and MA English programmes. I cover most genres at undergraduate level, but teach the novel at MA level. I am admissions tutor for our BA (Hons) Creative Writing, and lead several modules.

I have had two novels published by Virago Press: The Leader of the Swans (2003) and The Artist of Eikando (2005). A third is in the pipeline. I've had poems published in Staple, Ambit, The New Writer, and many other magazines and anthologies. For the past year I've been working on a screenplay with a script agent in London.

I've also been working a lot on music/writing collaborations, particularly with Animat DJ/composer The Only Michael. Our musical poem sequence, Flossie Paper Doll, has been performed at festivals and various other venues many times. Our latest project, The Woods, was premiered at the Off the Shelf Festival and previewed at the Big Chill festival.

My first commission as a collaborator came in 2001 with Beyond Childhood. I performed this with my band – a combination of poetry, script, and song.

I am a member of the Society of Authors, Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists, and Novelists (PEN), the Performing Right Society (PRS), and British Actors Equity.