Tuesday, January 23, 2018

Award-winning author joins the MA Creative Writing programme team at Edinburgh Napier

Daniel Shand joins MA teaching team
We're delighted to announce that Daniel Shand has joined the teaching team for Edinburgh Napier University's acclaimed Creative Writing MA programme.

Daniel won the prestigious Betty Trask Prize in 2017 for his debut Fallow, published by Sandstone Press. He has a PhD in Creative Writing from University of Edinburgh, where he won the Sloan Prize for fiction in 2012.

Daniel joins programme leader David Bishop and lecturer Laura Lam on the teaching team, helping shape the MA's unique mix of genre and YA fiction, alongside popular narrative strands like writing graphic novels. The trio also delivers an undergraduate module in genre writing.

'I'm very pleased to be working with David and Laura,' Daniel says. 'Having looked at some of the ideas and materials we'll be working with, it's definitely an exciting and challenging course - I'm eager to get started.'

He won the Saltire Society International Travel Bursary for Literature in 2016, and his debut Fallow was shortlisted for the Saltire Literature Award for Best First Book last year. [Ironically, that prize went to Goblin, the debut novel by Ever Dundas, a graduate of the Creative Writing MA at Edinburgh Napier!] 

Daniel's arrival makes our teaching team three-strong again, following the departure of Sam Boyce. She was programme leader for eight years, creating the MA's unique approach to creative writing pedagogy from scratch with David Bishop. Sam is now running a highly successful writers' consultancy in Edinburgh, helping novelists and non-fiction writers finish their manuscripts - read all about it here.