Acclaimed author Laura Lam to teach on Creative Writing MA at Edinburgh Napier

Laura Lam • photo by Elizabeth May

We are delighted to announce that acclaimed author Laura Lam is now a part-time lecturer with the MA Creative Writing programme at Edinburgh Napier University in Scotland. She will be mentoring students and teaching on several modules 1.5 days a week until at least the end of this calendar year.

Laura has long been a friend of the course, appearing as a guest speaker several times since the 2013 publication of her first novel, the award-winning YA fantasy Pantomime - book one of the acclaimed Micah Grey trilogy. [The final volume, Masquerade, is out early 2017.]

Her career has blossomed in the past three years, with her speculative fiction thriller False Hearts published to stunning reviews in June this year and being chosen for the BBC Radio 2 Book Club.

The Creative Writing programme at Edinburgh Napier has been fortunate to host several outstanding writers in residence, including multi-award-winning science fiction visionary Ken MacLeod and Robert Shearman, who scripted the episode of Doctor Who that reintroduced the Daleks in 2005.

But Laura is the first addition to our teaching staff since the MA launched in 2009, joining former literary agent Sam Boyce and ex-2000AD editor David Bishop. We're absolutely delighted to welcome Laura to the course.

"I'm thrilled to join the team at Edinburgh Napier," she says. "I've loved visiting the Creative Writing MA here and interacting with such enthusiastic, talented genre fiction writers. I'm looking forward to meeting the new group of students when they arrive next month, sharing what I know with them, and watching them grow as writers."

Laura is represented by Juliet Mushens of United Talent Agency. If you'd like to know more about Laura and her writing, visit her website here. 

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Launched in 2009, the Creative Writing MA programme at Edinburgh Napier has won acclaimed for its innovative approach to teaching and learning. Eschewing peer review workshops and poetry, it focuses on genre fiction, crafting scripts for graphic novels, and experimental writing.

The MA is already full for this September, but will re-open on 10/10/2016 for applications to join the September 2017 cohort. If you want to know more about our unique selection process, click here - and if you're ready to apply, click the relevant button at the upper right hand side of this blog.

The House of Writers: @EdinburghNapier MA Creative Writing graduate publishes new novel

Hearty congratulations to MA Creative Writing graduate Mark Nicholls, whose new novel The House of Writers has just been unleashed by American publisher Sagging Meniscus Press.

The novel is set in the year 2050, when the publishing industry has collapsed, literature is now a micro-niche interest, and Scotland has become an enormous call centre. All the remaining writers live in a dilapidated tower block, where they hack out stories to please their small audiences and each floor houses a different genre. Can these scribes keep literature alive against all the odds?

A part-time student on the Creative Writing MA at Edinburgh Napier University, Mark graduated in 2011. He now lives in Glasgow, and blogs here. You can read more about The House of Writers here.

MA graduate's mentoring project becomes a @PlayPiePint show @OranMorGlasgow

Edinburgh Napier University MA graduate Jane Livingstone

Congratulations to MA Creative Writing graduate Jane Livingstone whose mentoring project Miss Veitch's Roses is being performed for a week at Òran Mór in Glasgow next month as part of the acclaimed drama strand A Play, A Pie and A Pint.

Jane says she's beyond thrilled her play is being staged from Monday 19th to Saturday 24th September, as part of a season featuring work by noted writers such as Muriel Gray, William McIlvanney and James Runcie. You can read more about Miss Veitch's Roses and book tickets here. We asked Jane how the project emerged from the MA programme's Creative and Editorial Development module.  

"I did some early work on Miss Veitch’s Roses with David Bishop in mentoring. It was conceived at that point as a radio play, but David thought it had commercial potential. In fact at our final Personal Development Plan mentoring session, it was a project he suggested I return to. So, it pays to keep your ears open when your teachers are trying to tell you something!"

Jane says it's a real honour to have her work produced at the prestigious Glasgow venue. "A Play, a Pie and a Pint has become a Scottish cultural institution and the roster of names who have written for it is staggering.  Oran Mor is a very relaxed theatre experience for the audience, but it’s a highly professional and disciplined production machine - that makes it a great learning opportunity." 

While Edinburgh Napier University's Creative Writing programme does not have a specialist module in playwrighting, Jane is not the first graduate from our MA to see their work featured at Òran Mór as part of A Play, A Pie and A Pint  - Anne Hogg had her play Butterfly staged there last year.