The Chichester Centre for Critical and Creative Writing

The Centre is run by and for a diverse range of staff and students at the University of Chichester, and its wider community.

Alongside its current academic lead, Dr Suzanne Joinson, postgraduate researchers Alessandro Pozzolo and Eleanor Piddington take a leading role in organising Centre events.

A full list of University staff associated with the Centre is given below.

Exploring how the written word is created, made possible, inherited and read

See our full list of publications on our ChiPrints page.

Astra

Engaging artists and audiences with social and environmental challenges

With its creative access, diverse cast, and themes of climate crisis, racism, disability rights and child sex abuse, ASTRA won the 2022 Brighton Fringe ONCA Green Curtain Award for work engaging artists and audiences with social and environmental challenges.

Naomi Foyle is now working with a transatlantic team to upscale ASTRA into an epic theatre experience directed by Peter Hinton-Davis, Order of Canada, renowned for his work in Canadian theatre and opera.

Transatlantic Ties

Following discoveries about the Sussex Declaration of American Independence, Professor Price collaborated with the West Sussex Record Office, representing the University on the Mellon-funded project, ‘Transatlantic Ties’.

The project involved the digitisation of the American Collection at the Record Office. These records can now be explored on this website which celebrates and promotes the many fascinating historical connections between America and West Sussex. The website also hosts learning resources for teachers based on selected documents from the American Collection.

The Transatlantic Ties project culminated in a symposium on 11th June 2022 at the University of Chichester. An exhibition about the project toured libraries around West Sussex from August 2022 to spring 2023.

Accelerated Times? Changing Public Understanding of Technological and Social Change

Professor Benjamin Noys coined the term ‘accelerationism’ in 2010 to define and challenge a way of thinking that expresses the desire to escape the insecurity of work by integrating human beings with technology. His ongoing critique of accelerationism as a mythical vision of technological change was developed into an impact case study for REF 2021.

Since then Noys has continued to research accelerationism and engage in public debate. In 2023-24 there was a resurgence of interest in accelerationism around the notion of ‘effective accelerationism’ (e/acc), proposed by the tech speculator Marc Andreesen. He repeated the tropes of earlier accelerationism, especially the turn to various forms of Futurism and notions of technological transcendence. Noys critically commented for Forbes and Business Insider, pointing to the limitations of this thinking due to its use of authoritarian myth-making, drawing on his most recent research on the topic (Noys 2022; 2023).

2023 ‘Planetary Technology and Reactionary Accelerationism’, in Reaction Formations: The Subject of Ethnonationationalism, ed. Joshua Branciforte and Ramsey MacGalzer (New York: Fordham University Press, 2023), pp.241–262.

2022 ‘Accelerationism: Adventures in Speed’, The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Posthumanism, ed. Stefan Herbrechter, Ivan Callus, Manuela Rossini, Marija Grech, Megen de Bruin-Molé and Christopher John Müller (Palgrave, 2022), 557–574.

Past Events

2026 Events

Celebrate World Poetry Day & National Year of Reading with Dr Zoe Mitchell in conversation with Dr Naomi Foyle

Wednesday, 25 March 2026, 4-5 pm, Cloisters, Bishop Otter Campus, University of Chichester. Free and open to all.

Zoe Mitchell is an alumna of the University of Chichester and has an MA and a PhD in Creative Writing. Her first collection, Hag, includes poems written while studying for the MA. Her latest collection, Untold Fortunes, was developed as part of her PhD. She has been published in a range of magazines including The Rialto and The London Magazine, and recently appeared on the Spoken Label poetry podcast.

Untold Fortunes is published by Animal Heart Press (USA). The poems in the collection explore the experiences of women, both mythological and real, giving voice to many who were so often silenced. The poems consider heroines and villains, and the society that created them as well as examining the role of magic in everyday life.

2025 Events

Prof. Benjamin Noys, ‘Malign Velocities’

Thursday 26 February 2026 | 4:15-5:30 p.m. | Cloisters
Bishop Otter Campus, University of Chichester

Benjamin Noys is launching the new classic edition of his bestselling book Malign Velocities, a critical history of accelerationism. In the current context of tech billionaires and AI hype, understanding and criticising the accelerationist embrace of technological solutions is more necessary than ever.

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Prof. Andy Brown, ‘The Big Rip’

Monday 17 November, room AB1.01 4-5 p.m.
Free and open to all.

Join Prof. Andy Brown, acclaimed poet, novelist, and eco-critical writer, who will be reading from his collection The Big Rip (Worple Press, 2025). Brown is Professor of Creative & Critical Writing, and CW MA Director. His most recent books of poetry are Grace Notes (with Marc Woodward, Sea Crow Press); Baikal Zen (Muscaliet Press);  The Tin Lodes (with Marc Woodward, Indigo Dreams Publishing); Casket (Shearsman Books); Bloodlines (Worple Press); Watersong (Shearsman Books) and Exurbia (Worple Press).

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William Wootten, ‘Landline’

Monday 24 November, room AB1.01 4-5 p.m.
Free and open to all.

Join poet William Wootten as he launches his latest collection Landline. The collection takes us from Eden to Doomsday. Its poems circumnavigate the globe and journey to Venus and the Underworld, bringing arresting voices via intricate patterns of rhyme and metre. William Wootten teaches at the University of Bristol. He is currently writing a critical book on poetry and enchantment from S.T. Coleridge to Sylvia Plath.

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Olia Hercules, ‘Strong Roots’: A Ukrainian Family Story of War, Exile and Hope

In conversation with Dr Daria Mattingly, Lecturer in Contemporary International History (European)
Tuesday 25 November, 6-9 p.m. in the Mitre, Bishop Otter Campus,
University of Chichester. Free and open to all.

Join us for a powerful evening with acclaimed author and chef Olia Hercules, as she discusses her deeply personal and historically rich memoir, Strong Roots. Spanning four generations of her extraordinary Ukrainian family, Olia’s story traces a century of resilience from the brutal years of Russification and Stalinist deportations, to her aunt’s defiant school protest, and her own parents’ flight from Ukraine during the 2022 invasion. Olia will be in conversation with Dr Daria Mattingly, exploring themes of identity, resistance, and the enduring strength of family through times of upheaval.

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Meeting Above the Abyss: Palestine, Israel & Poetic Dialogue

Friday 27 June

Offering insight into the process of personal and literary dialogue in the shadow of annihilation, poets Basman Aldirawi (Gaza/Egypt) and Michal Rubin (Israel/America) shared their ongoing poetic conversation, initiated in 2024 and continued in their co-authored collection Your Stories Look Me in the Eyes (Fomite Press, 2025). Chaired by Dr Naomi Foyle, Reader in Critical Imaginative Writing, the event involved poetry and discussion concerning Gaza, the West Bank, Israel, occupation, apartheid, grief, intergenerational trauma, the Holocaust, the 1948 Nakba (Arabic for ‘catastrophe’) and the future. The event also considered the pitfalls and benefits of dialogue projects between Palestinians and Israelis, and concluded with a Q&A, moderated by Dr Tommy Lynch, Reader in Political Theology.

Basman Aldirawi (also published under Basman Derawi) is a Palestinian poet from Gaza. He has contributed dozens of stories/poems to the online platform We Are Not Numbers and other platforms including ArabLit, Mondoweiss and Vivamost and the print journal Critical Muslim. He has also participated as a co-author in the book Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire (2022) and the Arabic poetry anthology Gaza, the land of poetry (2021). Basman Aldirawi currently lives in Cairo.

Michal Rubin is an Israeli living in Columbia, South Carolina. She is a Psychotherapist, a Cantor and a poet. Her writing wrestles with the moral dilemmas of the Israeli occupation and of the continuous war in Gaza and its devastating impact. Her most recent work engages with Palestinian poetry, her way of joining the struggle to stop the war, release the hostages, and work towards reaching a just peace. She is the author of a chapbook, Home Visit, and a collection there are days that I am dead.

Meeting Above the Abyss was a Research Event, open to staff and students of the University of Chichester, and invited members of the event participants’ networks. Clips of the poems and Q&A are now available.

POEMS
‘Good News Comes for Eman’ – Basman Aldirawi
‘Peace and Love for Gaza’ – Basman Aldirawi
[Untitled] – Michal Rubin
‘The Daily Brief’ – Michal Rubin
Poems in Conversation – Michal Rubin and Basman Aldirawi

Q&A
Red Lines – with Basman Aldirawi
Our Readership – with Michal Rubin
Poetry and Activism – with Basman Aldirawi and Michal Rubin
Why Poetry? – with Basman Aldirawi and Michal Rubin

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Cutting-edge new writing from Chichester

Tuesday 17 June 2025 6.00-7:30 p.m.
The Mitre lecture theatre, University of Chichester, Bishop Otter Campus, PO19 6PE

Get ready for an evening filled with exciting new works from talented writers in Chichester! Join us at the Mitre Lecture Theatre, University of Chichester for a showcase of innovative storytelling and creative expression. Whether you’re a seasoned literary enthusiast or just looking for some fresh inspiration, this event is sure to ignite your imagination. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to experience the diverse voices shaping the future of writing in our community.

Reserve your free ticket at https://tinyurl.com/cuttingchi

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Book Launch

Wednesday 25 June 2025 7.00-8:30 p.m.
Cloisters, University of Chichester, Bishop Otter Campus, PO19 6PE

Join Karen Stevens to celebrate the publication of her debut short story collection Brilliant Blue.

Welcome to the infamous Duncock Estate. Nestled on the South English coast, it is a place where identity matters; where people hold down jobs and do their best. Where taboos are broken and problems can’t be wished away. But even tragedy can be tinged with fragile hopes and humour.

“Bold, beautiful and ebullient” – Alison MacLeod

“Perfectly constructed, wonderfully written stories” – Suzanne Joinson

“Moving and powerful. This is such an important book.” – Ed Hogan

Free event. No booking required. Car parking charge at flat rate (paybyphone.co.uk).

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The Department of Humanities Presents – Publishing Panel Event

Wednesday 7 May, 5.00 – 7.00pm
Room E124, University of Chichester, Bishop Otter Campus, PO19 6PE

Are you curious about how a book makes its way into print? To lift the veil on the often-mysterious world of publishing, the University of Chichester’s legendary Annual Publishing Panel Event returns.

The evening will consist of a panel discussion and a Q&A session, in which the audience will have the opportunity to ask any burning questions on getting published.

Here’s our exciting line-up for this year:

• Martin Goodman, founder and head Publisher of Barbican Press;
• Laura Williams, Literary Agent at Greene & Heaton Ltd;
• Sara Langham, Literary Agent at David Higham Associates;
• Salma Begum, Literary Agent at Greyhound Literary.

Chair: Karen Stevens, Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing.

Any queries, please contact Karen at K.Stevens@chi.ac.uk

Free event. No booking required. Car parking charge at flat rate (paybyphone.co.uk).

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Art, Poetry & Prose Tour

Thursday 6 March, 6.30 – 7.30pm at Pallant House Gallery

Connect with the works of Dora Carrington, Maggi Hambling and others through the beauty of spoken word. Join Creative Writing students from the University of Chichester for a tour of our current exhibitions.

As you are led through the Gallery, students will share their poetry and prose inspired by our art and the natural world.

Sign up at the front desk for tours, which run from 6.30-7.30pm, as part of our Late event on Thursday 6th March.
Entry is half price at £7 only, which enables full access to all exhibition spaces. Free entry for students.

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BOOK LAUNCH – A fundraiser for equine therapy in Ukraine

5-6 pm Thurs Mar 13th | Cloisters, Bishop Otter Campus | Free

Chair: Dr Naomi Foyle. Book sales on the night will benefit the Sport-Elite charity activities.

Viacheslav Musiienko, a member of the Ukrainian Writers Union, is in Chichester to launch In Search of Hay for Horses and Lovers: A Diary in a Time of War, translated by Mykola Melenevskyi and Filipp Miroshnichenko for Waterloo Press (2025).

This contemporary war memoir shines a compassionate light on the experiences of people and animals during the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, including bombings, blackouts, and the evacuation of family members and horses.

Viacheslav Musiienko will present the book in conversation with Dr Daria Mattingly, Lecturer in Contemporary International History (European) at the University of Chichester, who will open the event with a short talk on the historical and political context of the memoir. Electricity in Kyiv permitting, literary scholar Dmytro Drozdovskyi PhD will join the conversation online.

Viacheslav will also talk about his and his wife Irene Musiienko’s work at the Sport-Elite equestrian club, which currently organises charitable day camps for the children of military personnel and evacuees from Mariupol. Horses belonging to the club also take part in hippotherapy programmes for injured soldiers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Written with journalistic clarity, Musiienko’s book brings home the harsh realities of war, while also affirming the importance of humanistic and ecological values. Ultimately, this uplifting and heart-wrenching story is a testament to the enduring power of love.

– Dmytro Drozdovskyi, PhD, Managing Editor-in-Chief of Vsesvit Magazine

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PROF. BEN NOYS – Book Launch

Wednesday 2 April 2025 | 5-7 p.m. | Cloisters, Bishop Otter Campus, University of Chichester

What is the relationship between literature, life, and reality? On the occasion of the publication of his three books – The Matter of Language (2023), Crisis and Criticism (2004), and Envisioning the Good Life (2025) – Professor Benjamin Noys reflects on how we might re-envision life, literature, and reality as a collective transformation of the world.

Envisioning the Good Life: The Limits of Contemporary Vitalism (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2025) urges us to rediscover the vision of the good life in the collective and to grasp our own powers to transform our lives and the world.

Crisis and Criticism: Literary, Cultural and Political Essays, 2009–2021 (Leiden: Brill, 2024) is a series of interventions from 2009 to 2021 engaging with the literary, cultural and political responses to the capitalist crisis of 2007–8.

The Matter of Language: Abstraction & Poetry (London: Seagull Books, 2023) reconceives notions of alienation and class struggle as essential modes of reading and analysis for our fractured present.

Free and open to all.

2024 Events

Creative Writing and English: collaboration, connection, crossovers

7 March 2024
A roundtable discussion about crossover areas of interest and concern for the National Association of Writers in Education and EA.

Core discussion points:

Key implications of REF 28 for the disciplines of Creative Writing and English.
QAA Subject benchmarking – wider crossovers.
AOB, opportunities and ways of working together in the future.
Chair: Dr Suzanne Joinson, Reader in Creative Writing, convener of The Chichester Centre for Critical and Creative Writing, University of Chichester

More Information

A book launch with the Department of Humanities

20 March 2024, 4–5 p.m. Free and open to all
Academic Building 1.01, University of Chichester, Bishop Otter Campus, PO19 6PE
Andy Brown, co-author with Marc Woodward of Grace Notes And Other Poems (Sea Crow Press), is Professor of English & Creative Writing at Exeter University and known widely as a distinguished poet and writing tutor.

Here he will launch The Midnight Mechanic, a pacy, Dickensian foray into the sewers of Victorian London that explores a man’s relentless pursuit to better himself, to escape the muck and make amends, while raising pressing environmental issues that are still pertinent today.

Writing in Real Life

Friday 8 November 2024

A symposium celebrating writing that engages with real life, real people and the ups and downs of creating stories about the self.

Sessions 1-3 free, Session 4 £5 – reserve your ticket at https://tinyurl.com/writingirl

2.00 – 3.30 p.m. Session One (The Mitre)

Dr Tamarin Norwood, author of The Song of the Whole Wide World, will run a workshop on writing about birth, loss and bereavement. How does ‘Life Writing’ allow space to provide guidelines for individuals to navigate birth, birthing or death in scholarship or life? Open to both beginner and experienced writers.

4.00 – 4.50 p.m. Session Two (The Mitre)

Dr Suzanne Joinson, author of The Museum of Lost and Fragile Things, will be in conversation with her editor, Susie Nicklin from The Indigo Press. Suzy will talk about her experience writing the memoir and Susie will talk about the commissioning, editing and publishing experience of working with autobiographical materials.

5.00 – 5.50 p.m. Session Three (The Mitre)

Ennatu Domingo, author of Burnt Eucalyptus Wood and an MP in the Parliament of Catalonia, will be in conversation with Dr Daria Mattingly discussing Ennatu’s life writing and life story. Torn between forgetting and remembering, Ennatu explores the dilemma of international adoptees and migrant children and their quest for belonging in a book destined to be a classic of its genre.

7 p.m. Session Four (Show Room)

Join award-winning Irish singer, Cara Dillon, for this special event in which she’ll be discussing her debut book, Coming Home, a deeply personal narrative that offers readers a glimpse into the life and soul of one of Ireland’s brightest musical talents. Will include live performance and audience Q&A.