15 September 2006

New Chair in Creative Writing In English

The University of Dundee has appointed the award-winning novelist Kirsty Gunn to its prestigious new Chair of Creative Writing.

Kirsty will take up her post in September, heading up the Department of English’s exciting new venture to construct a degree programme in English and Creative Writing, the first such programme for undergraduates in Scotland.

Professor Peter Kitson, head of the Department of English, said, "We are absolutely delighted to have secured the talents and services of such a distinguished writer as Kirsty Gunn to front our new Creative Writing programme."

"Kirsty is one of the most distinctive young voices in contemporary fiction, and this appointment adds lustre and depth to our established strengths in 20th-century and contemporary writing."

Kirsty was born in New Zealand and educated at Queen Margaret College and Victoria University, Wellington, and at Oxford. Kirsty’s fiction includes the acclaimed first novel `Rain’, for which she won a London Arts Board Literature Award. Further novels including `The Keepsake’ and `Featherstone’ have also brought acclaim. Her latest book is The Boy and the Sea (Faber and Faber, 2006).

She is also author of This Place You Return To Is Home (Granta, 1999), a collection of short stories, and in 2001 she was awarded a Scottish Arts Council Writer's Bursary.

Kirsty's first novel was also made into an acclaimed film, nominated in several prize categories at the Cannes Film Festival.

The degree programme in English and Creative Writing is projected to begin in autumn 2007. However, modules in Creative Writing will be offered to students in the academic session beginning in September 2006.

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Anna Day
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University of Dundee
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