James Beavis, a former Biomedical Science student who gradated in 2016, spent his Christmas sleeping rough on the streets of London. His aim was to raise money for and to try to better understand the homeless community.

Read about his life on the streets in the Guardian: 'Spat on and ignored': what I've learned from a month sleeping rough in London

Alumna, Rebecca Tamas, has won this year's Manchester Writing Competition, with her poems 'Julian of Norwich'; 'Theresa of Ãvila'; 'Hildegard of Bingen'; 'Simone Weil'; and 'Marguerite Porete'. Rebecca studied English and Creative Writing, including the module Practice of Poetry. She is published by Salt Publishing. The University press release celebrating Rebecca is here.

'Elsa', a new play by English and Comparative Literary Studies alumna Isobel Rogers, will feature at the 'All the Right Notes' festival being held at the Camden People's Theatre in London during November. For more details and tickets see the theatre website.

'Elsa', a new play by English and Comparative Literary Studies alumna Isobel Rogers, will be performed at the Camden People's Theatre in London on November 15th as part of their 'All the Right Notes' festival.

For more details and tickets see the theatre website.

Kenilworth Arts Festival is an exciting new festival taking place across a range of venues in Kenilworth between the 12-18 September. There are close connections between the festival and the University, as not only is Warwick sponsoring the festival but two directors of the festival, Lewis Smith and Charlotte Thomas, are current students at Warwick, and a number of the artists are university staff and alumni. Here's the full schedule, and the University's own press release.

The programme features intimate gigs, poetry readings, talks, workshops and a free, open-air fiesta in the beautiful Abbey Fields including:

• David Morley (English Dept.) is curating an evening of poetry as part of the festival programme. Five other award-winning poets will appear alongside David, including a number of Warwick alumni (Claire Trévien, Luke Kennard and Jonathan Edwards)
• Kitty Macfarlane, Warwick alumni, singer-songwriter appearing at a concert in Kenilworth Castle on Saturday 17 September
• The illustrations that appear on the festival’s website and on promotional materials were produced by Warwick alumni Victoria Watson
• Warwick Arts Centre will be running interactive workshops at Fiesta, the free open-air event in Abbey Fields on Sunday 18 September
• Rebecca Omonira-Oyekanmi, writer-in-residence at Lacuna (a project stemming from the Centre for Human Rights in Practice at Warwick), is running a workshop on human rights journalism

Congratulations to Elizabeth Parker, ELCW alumna, on her recently published collection Antinopolis (Eyewear 2016).

"This is an exceptionally fresh debut collection. The originality, drama and memorability of Elizabeth Parker's poems work a potent magic. Antinopolis marks the arrival of an excellent new talent." David Morley

Lizzie has been shortlisted for The Bridport Prize and the Melita Hume Prize and has been published in Magma, Raceme, and The Stony Thursday Book. She lives in Bristol and is a member of the Bristol poetry group, The Spoke.

English and Theatre graduates’ companies Barrel Organ, Walrus and Breach made a huge splash at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2015 (after Barrel Organ also very acclaimed in 2014). Andrew Haydon writes in The Guardian, ‘What Is It about Warwick?’ on the significance of Warwick for the resurgence of British political theatre.

 
Ruth Lemon (MA History 2013-15) graduated from Warwick in July 2015, and is featured this month as the Warwick University Alumnus of the Month. She has been living in Cambodia for the past 18 months where she teaches English part time. She has volunteered and worked at Sovann Komar’s Children Village sporadically since 2009. Sovann Komar is an orphanage, home to 55 children who live with surrogate parents in a safe, clean, village-like community. She now runs SKOPE (Sovann Komar Outreach Program for Education) which is the part of their charity seeking to help others outside their orphanage. They locate poor, rural schools and provide vital education supplies such as exercise books, water wells, toilet blocks, teaching equipment, and stationery.

For more details, please see the Alumnus of the Month webpages.
 

Generous alumni donation to fund awards for the development of 'eco-friendly concrete' and 'sunlight monitoring in urban areas'.