The event will take place in person, on the 22nd of February at 6.30pm, in FAB0.19.

Tom Crewe was born in Middlesbrough in 1989. He has a PhD in nineteenth century British history from the University of Cambridge. Since 2015, he has been an editor at the London Review of Books, to which he contributes essays on politics, art, history and fiction. In 2023 he was named one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists.

The New Life, his first novel, is out now from Chatto & Windus and Scribner. It is the winner of both the 2023 Orwell Prize for Political Fiction and the 2023 Southbank Sky Arts Award for Literature. The novel has been or is being translated into French, German, Spanish, Dutch and Italian.

About The New Life 

After a lifetime spent navigating his desires, John Addington, married to Catherine, has met Frank, a working-class printer.
Meanwhile Henry Ellis's wife Edith has fallen in love with Angelica - and Angelica wants Edith all to herself.

When in 1894 John and Henry decide to write a revolutionary book together, intended to challenge convention and the law, they are both caught in relationships stalked by guilt and shame. Yet they share a vision of a better world, one that will expand possibilities for men and women everywhere.

Their daring book threatens to throw John and Henry, and all those around them, into danger. How far should they go to win personal freedoms? And how high a price are they willing to pay for a new way of living?

‘Filled with nuance and tenderness... charting the lives of men and women who inspired not only political progress but an entire new way of living and loving’ Colm Tóibín

Sponsored by the Writing Programme and the Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies Department

This book presents the innovative pedagogy of Writing Fantasy: a method for exploring and shifting one’s identity as a writer. The book draws on qualitative research with undergraduate creative writing students and fills a gap in the literature exploring creative writing pedagogy and creative writing exercises. Based on the potential to shift writer identity through creative writing exercises and the common ground that these share with the stance of the Lacanian analyst, the author provides a set of guidelines, exercises and case studies to trace writing fantasy, evidenced in one’s creative writing texts and responses about creative writing. This innovative work offers fresh insights for scholars of creativity, Lacan and psychosocial studies, and a valuable new resource for students and teachers of creative writing.