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The Seamus Heaney Centre

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  • Home
  • About
    • The Centre
    • The Blackbird
    • The Heaney Community
    • Literary Belfast
  • Our People
    • The SHC Fellows
    • Featured Alumni
    • Fulbright Scholars
    • Children's Writing Fellow
    • Visiting International Poetry Fellows
    • Writers' Rooms
  • Study
    • The Poetry Summer School
    • Student Showcases
    • Future Screens
    • Writing Groups
  • First Collection Poetry Prize
    • Poetry Prize 2020
  • Resources
    • The SHC Podcast
    • SHC Publications
    • Criticism
    • Music
    • Films & Virtual Events
    • Interview: with Anna Burns
  • News
  • Events
    • Write Night
    • SHC Presents...
    • Ekphrasis: Writing & Art
    • The Book Club Series
    • International Poets' Series
    • Masterclasses
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The SHC Fellows

Building on a literary heritage at Queen’s that stretches back to the 1960s Belfast Group, we are part of a worldwide network of writers and critics, and support the development of creative and interdisciplinary collaborations.

Visiting Fellows contribute to life at the Centre through workshops and masterclasses, one-to-one tutorials with our students, and public events. We offer a place for writers to work on an adhoc basis, and keep in close contact with our growing network of extraordinary alumni, so you never know who you'll meet in our corridors. 

The SHC Fellows

Three Seamus Heaney Centre Fellows are selected each year from worlds of Poetry, Fiction, Music, Film & Television. They work with students and audiences to explore creative writing in all its forms. Each writer demonstrates excellence in their field, as well as an openness to learn from their engagement with students, and it is hoped that their time at the Centre will inform their future practice.  

SHC Fellows 2019/20

Anna Burns

Anna Burns was born in Belfast and is the author of three novels and one novella. Her first book won the Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize, and her third novel, Milkman (Faber, 2018) won the Man Booker Prize 2018, the US National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction 2019 and The Orwell Prize for Fiction 2019. 
Image Credit: Eleni Stefanou

Vahni Capildeo

Trinidadian Scottish writer Vahni Capildeo’s books and pamphlets extend from prose poetry into immersive theatre. Vahni is a Contributing Editor at the Caribbean Review of Books and has held numerous prestigious academic Fellowships.

 

Their work has been honoured by the Cholmondeley Award and the Forward Poetry Prize for Best Collection. Recent works include Venus as a Bear (Carcanet, 2018), Skin Can Hold (Carcanet, 2019), and Odyssey Calling (Sad Press, 2020). The forthcoming collection Light Sites will be published with Periplum. 

Jed Mercurio

British screenwriter Jed Mercurio's productions, Bodyguard and Line of Duty, have broken records in the UK. Other credits include Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Strike Back, Bodies, and The Grimleys. He has won awards at the Royal Television Society Awards, the Broadcasting Press Guild, and the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain. Line of Duty has been nominated for 10 BAFTAs. He is a former physician and RAF officer.

SHC Fellows 2018/19

Iain Archer

Iain Archer is a Grammy nominated musician from Bangor, who has written and produced for artists such as Snow Patrol, Jake Bugg, Liam Gallagher and James Bay. He has received two Ivor Novello Awards and a third nomination. As well as his critically acclaimed solo career, Iain is a member of the band Tired Pony.

Lucy Caldwell

Lucy Caldwell is a Belfast-born author of three novels, several stage plays and radio dramas, and a collection of short stories. She is the editor of the forthcoming anthology Being Various: New Irish Short Stories (Faber, 2019). She has won the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, the Irish Writers’ and Screenwriters’ Guild Award, the Commonwealth Writers’ Award (Canada & Europe),and a Major Individual Artist Award from the ACNI.

Lisa McGee

Lisa McGee is a stage and screen writer. Born in Derry-Londonderry, she studied Drama at Queen's University Belfast. She was writer on attachment with the Royal National Theatre in London in 2006. Her plays include The Heights, Nineteen Ninety Two, and Girls and Dolls, for which she won the Stewart Parker Trust New Playwright Bursary 2007, and Jump, which has been adapted into a film. Lisa is the writer and creator behind the hit Channel 4 sitcom’s London Irish and Derry Girls.

SHC Fellows 2017/18

Jo Baker

Jo Baker, who is the author of six novels, most recently A Country Road, A Tree, said the Fellowship represents a kind of homecoming: “I’m a former student of Queen’s, and my time there, within the English Department, and as a member of the Writers’ Group, was absolutely transformative for me.

Doireann Ni Ghriofa

Doireann Ní Ghríofa, who writes in Irish and English and won the 2016 Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, added she was excited at the prospect of spending time in Belfast: “I've been following the literary vibrancy of the city from afar for some time. I'm immensely grateful to be offered this opportunity.”

Peter Wilson

Duke Special’s latest release on CD and vinyl – Hallow – is based on the poetry of Michael Longley. Speaking about the appointment Peter Wilson, commented: “I am delighted and honoured to have been offered a Fellowship at the Seamus Heaney Centre. For the last decade, I have been exploring the places where art forms collide, between music, photography, theatre, fiction and poetry.”

In This Section
The SHC Fellows
  • Our People
  • Anna Burns
  • Jed Mercurio
  • Vahni Capildeo
  • Lucy Caldwell
  • Lisa McGee
  • Iain Archer
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