My research centres on the literature of the early-to-mid-twentieth-century, particularly Stevie Smith, Edith Sitwell, D. H. Lawrence, Gertrude Stein and Willa Cather. I work on writers who, in one way or another, disrupt narratives about what good literature should be or do: who present themselves variously as absurd, unrevealing, embarrassing or useless.

Traditional Academic Publishing

My first monograph, Hard Language (Oxford University Press, 2022), reframes short-form writing across the twentieth century, via a study of aphorism in the novels and poetry of Stevie Smith (1902-1971). Its findings offer new routes into work by twentieth-century women novelists such as Ivy Compton-Burnett. The book positions aphorism as a mode of marginalised communication in Smith’s enigmatic writing. It frames an original approach to Smith by drawing up a new theory of the aphorism—the form, I argue, fundamental to her aesthetic—as a tool for the social management of emotions, both displaying and concealing embarrassing feelings. 

• Hard Language was joint winner of the MSA First Book Prize in 2023.
• It won the University English Book Prize 2023.
• It was reviewed by Professor Lauryl Tucker in the Review of English Studies.

My new monograph in progress, Flat Feeling, had its initial research funded by the Leverhulme Trust. Intervening in queer, trauma and affect theory, and deeply attentive to diversities of bodily, mental and sexual experience, the monograph argues that novelists including D. H. Lawrence and Willa Cather use apparently dull and unrevealing flat landscapes in England and America as metaphors, and sites, to think through underacknowledged feelings and corporealities: to name a few, queered relationship without connection, passion without focus, inexplicable attachments, and the erotics of broken memory.

Radio

Alongside my academic work in traditional venues, I am an AHRC/BBC New Generation Thinker, making programmes for BBC Radio 3 and 4. These include appearances on 'In Our Time', 'Word Of Mouth', 'The Essay', 'Sunday Feature', 'Free Thinking', and the Proms. See 'Publications' for links to these programmes.

Creative Non-Fiction

I also write creative non-fiction. My book A Flat Place was published by Hamish Hamilton [Penguin] in the UK and Melville House in the US in 2023, and has been reviewed positively in the New York Times, the New Yorker, the Washington Post, the Financial Times, the Sunday Times, Times Literary Supplement, the New Statesman, the Chicago Review of Books, the i paper, the Big Issue, the Arts Desk, Five Books, De Nederlandse Boekengids, Scroll.in, The Crack, and Hyphen (plus a creative nonfiction response in The Insurgence). I have written associated essays for The Guardian, Aeon, Salon, Five Dials, CPRE, and Psychology Today, and been interviewed about the book for BBC Radio 3, STV, BBC Sheffield, BBC Cambridgeshire, Tolka, Critical Literary Consumption, Type on Paper, Better Known Podcast, Tender Buttons, Bad at Keeping Secrets, The Morecambe Bay Podcast, Xeno, and The Aesthetic Memoir. I have also been interviewed for the academic journal Postcolonial Text by Professor Claire Chambers.

• A Flat Place was shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Nonfiction 2024.
• It was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Young Writer of the Year Award 2024.
• It was shortlisted for the Jhalak Prize 2024.
• It was shortlisted for the RSL Ondaatje Prize 2024.
• It will be published in Italian (translation by Sara Reggiani) by add editore in September 2024.
• It was chosen as a 2023 Summer Read by Jenn Ashworth in the Guardian.
• The New Yorker listed it as a 'Best Book of 2023'.
• The Guardian listed it among 'The best memoirs and biographies of 2023'.
• The Sunday Times listed A Flat Place as one of its 'books of the year' (chosen by James McConnachie).
• Frieze listed A Flat Place as a 'Top Book of 2023' (chosen by Associate Editor Vanessa Peterson).
• Daljit Nagra, chair of the Royal Society of Literature, selected A Flat Place as his book of the year.
• The Institute of Development Studies chose A Flat Place as an 'Essential book for 2023'.
• The News On Sunday (Pakistan) selected it for their list of 'The best-loved books of 2023' (chosen by Naima Rashid).
• Nation.Cymru chose the book as one of their 'Culture Picks of 2023'.
• Lunate, Northern Soul and DESIblitz featured A Flat Place in their end-of-2023 roundups.
• A Flat Place was included in 'best of 2023' bookseller roundups by Gloucester Road Books, Heron Books, Stanfords Bristol, Storysmith, Libreria, Portobello Bookshop, Flyleaf Books, Mr B's Emporium, The Good Book Shop, and Galley Beggar Advent.

PhD Supervision

I currently first-supervise a PhD student in Creative Writing, and second-supervise two PhD students in English Literature. At present I am just about at capacity, so I am only taking on new supervisees where the project and/or supervisor match is exceptionally good. Do feel free to get in touch to discuss your project - but please don't be offended if I'm not able to say yes this time round.