The Charles Causley Trust and Literature Works are delighted to announce their next Writer in Residence for 2018, Jen Hadfield, who has arrived all the way from Shetland to live at Cyprus Well, home of the late Charles Causley and now a retreat for writers and artists, managed by The Charles Causley Trust. The Writer in Residence programme is made possible by funding from Literature Works Literature Works and Arts Council England who support literature development in the South West.
Following two award-winning poetry collections, Almanacs and Nigh-No-Place, (Jen is the youngest person to be awarded the TS Eliot prize for her second collection, Nigh-No-Place, in 2008), Jen’s third book, Byssus, was published by Picador in February 2014. In Byssus Jen explored how we might make ourselves at home in the natural world, aspiring, as W.S.Graham said, to ‘know a wee bit about where I am now before I go away’.
Over the past 15 years, Jen’s poetry has found audiences in Berlin, Iceland, Faroe, across Canada, Bergen and Moscow, and closer to home, at venues and events including the Southbank Centre, the Queen’s Gallery and the Edinburgh Book Festival. In 2016, she joined a translation workshop in Russia with the British Council, and appeared at the Üsküdar Şiir Festival in Istanbul. De Tinkelboot, a selection of her poetry in Dutch translation, was launched at the Poetry International Festival in Rotterdam. Her work has been featured in BBC Radio 4’s ‘The Echo Chamber’ and in Spring 2014 she visited New Zealand with Commonwealth Poets United (Scottish Poetry Library). Her translation of the Kurdish poet Bejan Matur’s collection ‘If This is a Lament’ was published in July 2017.
Jen is a currently a tutor on Glasgow University’s Creative Writing MLitt and PhD programmes and was the Writer-in-Residence at Glasgow University and Glasgow School of Art 2016/2017.
During her time at in Cornwall, Jen will work with local community groups and schools and will also be taking time to write while she stays at Cyprus Well.
‘Suffice to say, we are thrilled beyond words to have Jen with us for the next three months and we can’t wait to see how some time spent living at Cyprus Well in Cornwall might impact on her future work’ said Kate Campbell, Programme Director of The Charles Causley Trust.
“It’s important for writers to have the time and space for their craft and it can be such an inspiration to soak up the atmosphere of a writers’ home like Charles Causley’s at Cyprus Well. Literature Works funds writers’ residencies at Cyprus Well for this and many other good reasons. Our writers in residence get immersed in local communities in Cornwall, working with schools and connecting with the south west writing scene. It’s especially exciting to welcome a poet as accomplished as Jen Hadfield, all the way from Shetland. We’re very excited about her residency.” Said Helen Chaloner, CEO of Literature Works.
Jen’s residency follows in the footsteps of writers and poets David Devanny, Cahal Dhalat, Alyson Hallet, Isobel Galleymore and Karen Hayes. Fuelling the Flame runs for two years until March 2020 and in addition to the Writers-in-Residence, will also support a wide range of events and activities to promote Causley’s legacy and engage with the local and wider community.
