September: T2M Conference on Mobilities
It’s been a busy few months at the PhD coalface.
Back in September I delivered a paper at the T2M conference on mobilities, held in Leipzig with two of my colleagues from here at Northumbria. It was a fantastic event (and the food, the food! Best ever at a conference), and a great experience talking about my practice research to an audience of quite traditional academic researchers (although I did hear a groan from the historians when I mentioned phenomenology :)) It was brilliant to be able to position myself as both an artist writer and ‘serious’ scholar, something which has been troublingly difficult over the past two years. It was fun and there was a lot to learn from the hosts and the other delegates who were brilliant. It’s another lesson in the value of academia that goes *way* beyond whatever degree you’re taking. The sheer diversity of the people I get to work with and meet here is a constant source of joy and intellectual nourishment.
Short Story Publication
I’m delighted to announce that my new short story, The Graves, will appear in the January edition of The Belfast Review, a new journal based in Northern Ireland “shamelessly championing” the arts and new writers, especially those from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. I’m all in.
The Graves is a story of troubled lives and earning redemption through work, and I’m absolutely thrilled the story will make it into TBR. I will post a link as soon as it’s released!