Personal profile

Summary

I am a Research Fellow currently working on a UKRI environmental research project funded by the Sustainable Management of Marine Resouces programme (SMMR). The Diverse Marine Values project brings together a transdisciplinary team of arts-based researchers, scientists, economists and policy practitioners to identify a range of values within communities in Portsmouth, Chepstow and Shetland. A range of arts-based approaches including filmed interviews, theatre, digital stories and photo essays, often excluded from marine policy contexts are being employed to elicit community-held values and to integrate them in marine management.

I am also part of the Revolution Plastics team which seeks to address the global plastic crisis through research and innovation. 

Biography

My studies and research are within the fields of environmental literature, folklore studies and creative writing. Many of my research interests found fruition in WetlandLIFE, an environmental research project funded by NERC, AHRC, ESRC and DEFRA under the Valuing Nature programme. Selected as a writer to join the team, the project explored the economic, environmental and cultural value of wetlands, allowing me to consider the role of narrative in generating value and connection to place. My outputs over the course of the project included short stories, narratological installations for exhibitions and the development of an initiative to transform bird hides into interactive creative writing spaces. 

I am also the author of a short story collection, Skein and Bone (Undertow Books) and a novel, Bodies of Water (Salt Publishing). I have taught creative writing workshops, including for the Arvon Foundation, and have been awarded fellowships for my writing at Hawthornden Castle in Scotland and the Saari Residence in Finland. My fiction has been shortlisted for the World Fantasy Award, the British Fantasy Award and the Shirley Jackson Prize. My non-fiction has appeared in History Today, The English Review and I am a regular contributor to the journal Gramarye.    

Research Interests

My research interests span environmental literature, place writing, folklore studies and New Woman literature, with a particular focus on marine and littoral space. My doctoral research explored the relationship between water, folklore and femininity in late nineteenth-century literature, examining fin de siecle re-imaginings of a coastal migratory legend. As a researcher and writer, I am also interested in revisionist and intertextual approaches to narrative craft. Much of the work I am currently engaged with explores the role of storytelling in environmental research and more broadly the integration of arts-based approaches in environmental scholarship.  

Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):

  • SDG 3 - Good Health and Well-being
  • SDG 10 - Reduced Inequalities
  • SDG 11 - Sustainable Cities and Communities
  • SDG 13 - Climate Action
  • SDG 14 - Life Below Water
  • SDG 15 - Life on Land

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