Dr Naomi Foyle
Reader in Critical Imaginative Writing
About
She holds a PhD in Creative Writing from the University of Wales and has also taught at Goldsmiths College. She has published three collections of poetry, including The Night Pavilion, a 2008 Poetry Book Society Recommendation, and Adamantine, which was launched in the UK, USA and Canada. Also a verse dramatist and librettist, her work for theatre has been produced in London and Toronto. Her first novel, cyberchiller Seoul Survivors was published by Jo Fletcher Books (Quercus) in Feb 2013, followed by Astra (2014), Rook Song (2015) The Blood of the Hoopoe (2016) and Stained Light, which together comprise The Gaia Chronicles, a post-apocalyptic eco-science fantasy quartet. She is the CW Editor of Gramarye, the journal of the Chichester Centre for Fantasy, Fairy Tale and Speculative Fiction, and the Dept of Humanities Equality and Diversity Champion.
Professional
TEACHING INTERESTS
Y1: Introduction to Poetry
Y2: Poetry Form & Freedom
Y3: Making it Strange: Writing the Science Fiction, Fantasy and Modern Gothic Novel
MA: Metaphor & the Imagination
Sources & Transformations
PhD: She has supervised CW doctoral topics including Witches in Poetry, Diverse Worldbuilding in SFF, Displacement in the Postcolonial Novel, and is open to any project within her research interests
AWARDS AND PRIZES
‘The Phand’ was longlisted in the 2018 BBC National Short Story Award.
‘And Then I Drank Two Midnight Hot Toddies, Went Home and Watched that Viral Video on the Starving Polar Bear’ was longlisted in the 2018 National Poetry Competition.
‘On Advising a Young Man from Galway to do a Second MA in Biodiversity’ Won the Additional Prize in the 2012 RSPB/The Rialto Nature Poetry Competition
‘Shaking the Bottle’ was a runner-up in the 2010 Academi Cardiff International Poetry Prize.
The Night Pavilion (Waterloo Press, 2008) was an Autumn 2008 Poetry Book Society Recommendation
Red Hot & Bothered won the 2008 Apples & Snakes The Book Bites Back competition.
‘The Holiday’ was long-listed in the Bridport Poetry Prize 2006.
‘The Geneva Conventions’ was long-listed in the Bridport Poetry Prize 2005.
Good Definition won First Prize in the 2004 Hastings Word About Town Literary Festival filmpoem competition.
For her poetry and essays about Ukraine, the Hyrhorii Skovoroda Prize, 2014 (Ukraine)
Key Publications
Novels
Stained Light (Jo Fletcher Books, 2018)
The Blood of the Hoopoe (Jo Fletcher Books, 2016)
Rook Song (Jo Fletcher Books, 2015)
Astra (Jo Fletcher Books, 2014)
Seoul Survivors (Jo Fletcher Books, 2013)
Poetry Collections
Adamantine (Red Hen/Pighog Press, 2019). Collection.
No Enemy but Time (Waterloo Press, 2017). Pamphlet.
The World Cup (Waterloo Press, 2010). Collection.
Grace of the Gamblers (Waterloo Press, 2010). Pamphlet.
The Night Pavilion (Waterloo Press, 2008) Collection.
Red Hot & Bothered (Lansdowne Press, 2003). Pamphlet.
Poetry Anthologies and Translations
A Blade of Grass: New Palestinian Poetry (Smokestack Books 2017). Edited by Naomi Foyle.
Enemies Outside / Enemigos Afuera by Mori Ponsowy (Waterloo Press, 2010). Translated by Mori Ponsowy and Naomi Foyle.
Verse Drama and Libretti
‘The Strange Wife’ in Sixty-Six Books: 20th Century Writers Speak to the King James Bible. (Oberon Books, 2011). Verse drama produced at The Bush Theatre 2011.
Hush: An Opera in Two Bestial Acts. Libretto for a chamber opera, produced at Theatre Passe Muraille, Toronto 1990.
Selected Academic Articles
‘Govegate and the Postcolonial Professor’ in Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Study (Vol 20, Issue 1, 2018)
‘The Ballad as Site of Rebellion: Gender, Orality and the Granuaile Aislingi’ in Interfaces of the Oral, the Written, and Other Verbal Media, ed Susan Gingell and Wendy Roy. (Wilfred Laurier UP, 2012)
‘Or Daughter’, chapter from Astra, in MaMSIE: Studies in the Maternal (London, 2012)
Selected Reviews and Other Literary Articles
‘Belfast Poet Mairtin Crawford Remembered’ on the BBC Radio Ulster website (May 2020)
‘Cancer: Key to Utopia’ in Critical Muslim: Utopias (Summer 2017)
‘Palestine and (Human) Nature’ in Critical Muslim: Nature (Summer 2016)
‘Steps on the Silk Road: My Approach to Islamic SF’ in Critical Muslim: Educational Reform (Summer 2015)
‘Writing in Foreign Blood: A Visit to Ukraine’ in pulsemedia.org (Jan 2015)
Review of Out of It by Selma Dabbagh (Bloomsbury 2011) in Critical Muslim 3 (Autumn 2012)
Introduction to Selected Poems: Mairtín Crawford (Lagan Press, Belfast, 2005).
Online articles for the Linen Hall Library on five contemporary Northern Irish poets: Medbh McGuckian, Mairtín Crawford, Martin Mooney, Moyra Donaldson, and Brendan Cleary.
www.culturenorthernireland.org.uk (Spring 2005)
‘The Petting Zoo’: literary manifesto in The Big Spoon, Spring 2002.
‘Art and War’: personal statement in Fortnight Special Supplement (August 2001)
Tribute to Allen Ginsberg in The Big Spoon, Summer 1997 (Belfast).
SELECTED CONTRIBUTIONS TO ANTHOLOGIES
2020 ‘2020’ and ‘Lockdown’ in Plague Poetry, edited by Peter Pegnall (Lagan Press)
2020 ‘Last of His Tribe’, ‘but who’s counting’, ‘collective haibun’ and ‘welcome’ in fabric-ation: slip back to source, a journey of materials, edited by Kay Syrad and Claire Whistler (Elephant Press)
2019 ‘Your Summer Arm’, with accompanying critical appreciation by Carol Rumens, in Smart Devices: 52 Poems from the Guardian ‘Poem of the Week’, edited by Carol Rumens (Carcanet Press)
2019 ‘Iatrogenic Sex’ in When They Start to Love You as a Machine You Should Run (New Rivers Press)
2016 ‘Hebe’s Ocean’ in The Jo Fletcher Anthology (Jo Fletcher Books, London)
2014 ‘Animal, Vegetable, Mineral’ in The Poetry of Sex (Viking/Penguin)
1998 ‘Star Pitch’ in Suspect Device: A Reader in Hard Edged Fiction, ed. Stewart Home (Serpent’s Tail, London UK, 1998)
Research
Contemporary poetry, poetry in translation, experimental fiction, world SFF, Middle Eastern literature, Israel-Palestine, eco-literature, feminism, cultural diversity and disability studies.
Research Output
Articles
Foyle, N. (2018) Govegate and the Postcolonial Professor. Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, 20 (1). pp. 100-105. ISSN 1369-801X 10.1080/1369801x.2017.1401941
Foyle, N. (2015) Writing With Foreign Blood: A Visit to Ukraine. Pulse Media [pulsemedia.org].
Book Sections
Foyle, N. (2019) Adamantine. In: Adamantine. Red Hen Press, Pasadena, USA. ISBN 9781906309411
Foyle, N. (2015) Seeking Ilm on the Silk Road. In: Critical Muslim: Educational Reform. Hurst and Co., London. ISBN 978-1849045421
Books
Foyle, N. (2018) Stained Light. The Gaia Chronicles, Four . Jo Fletcher Books, London, UK. ISBN 9781782069270
Foyle, N. (2017) A Blade of Grass: New Palestinian Poetry. Smokestack Books, Ripon, UK. ISBN 9780995767539
Foyle, N. (2016) The Blood of the Hoopoe. The Gaia Chronicles, Three . Jo Fletcher Books, London, UK. ISBN 9781782069225
Foyle, N. (2015) Rook Song. The Gaia Chronicles, Two . Jo Fletcher Books, London, UK. ISBN 9781782069195
Foyle, N. (2014) Astra. The Gaia Chronicles, One . Jo Fletcher Books, London, UK. ISBN 9781780876344