• Warwick has a small number of places available in clearing in the Department of Film and Television Studies in 2016. Our clearing hotline number is 024 7653 3544 and it will open at 8am on Thursday 18th August.

Sarah Moss, author and Professor of English Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Warwick, has appeared on BBC television to discuss her latest novel.

In an interview on the programme Meet the Author with Rebecca Jones, Moss describes what inspired her to write The Tidal Zone, which centres on a family trying to rebuild a sense of normality after the teenage daughter almost dies from a mystery illness.

Moss argues that we use narratives to help us cope with the harsher realities in life, such as death and illness, and this is what she explores in her novels:

“I’m interested in stories which help us to live with difficult things, and of course the most difficult thing is the knowledge of mortality, but I’m also interested in how we live with quite ordinary small-scale traumas […] I’m interested in making stories that help us to hold those things and think about them,” Moss states.

Asked about teaching creative writing at Warwick, Moss explains that “teaching people to write is not just about getting publishing contracts and making a professional life in the literary world. It’s about controlling narratives, understanding how they’re constructed – it makes people good readers as much as it makes them good writers.”

To watch the episode on the BBC iPlayer, click on the image below:

August 10, 2016

Further information contact:

Luke Walton, International Press Officer

L dot Walton dot 1 at warwick dot ac dot uk

02476 150 868

07824 540 863