Lecturers from the English Department launch their latest books at the Chester Literature Festival

As part of Uni at the Fest, Dr William Stephenson and Dr Ian Seed launched their new collections of poetry at the Garrett Theatre, Storyhouse, Chester.

Ian Seed read from New York Hotel (Shearsman 2018), his latest book of prose poems, which was recently selected as a 2018 TLS Book of the Year.  Mark Ford, writing in the TLS, comments: 'I greatly enjoyed the latest collection of Ian Seed's beautifully-crafted prose poems, New York Hotel.  Seed's micro-narratives and oblique parables are at once droll and haunting, as unpredictable as quicksand, and as elegant as the work of those masters of the prose poem, Max Jacob and pierre Reverdy.'


Ian is Senior Lecturer in the Department of English at the University of Chester.  His poetry appears in a number of anthologies, including The Forward Book of Poetry 2017 (Faber & Faber) and The Best British Poetry 2014 (Salt), and has been featured by the BBC on their Radio 3 Programme, The Verb, hosted by Ian McMillan.


William Stephenson read from his first full poetry collection Travellers and Avatars (Live Canon, 2018), which was shortlisted for the Live Canon First Collection Prize.  He is currently working on the manuscript of a second collection,  The Butterfly Factory.  Reviewers have described his work as 'quirky, refreshingly different and wide-ranging in its cultural references.  Data made interesting in a way I would never have expected or anticipated in poetic form' (Sarah James) and as setting up a world where 'words slip away from their original meanings, become jargon, trademarks, or symbols on a broken keyboard' (Tim Love).  'What his poetry 'does very well is convey the time lag, the stutter that any technology has (especially in its less mature phase) in trying to render reality' (Rishi Dastidar).  He has taught English Literature at the University of Chester since 2001.


The reading was followed by an informal book signing event.


Photo: Sarah Lee
Blog post: Dr Ian Seed, Programme Leader for Creative Writing


To find out more about Creative Writing at the University of Chester, go to:
https://www1.chester.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/creative-writing-combined/201809