八卦爆料 creative writing graduate shortlisted for prestigious poetry prize听
Poet and writer Karen McCarthy Woolf, who is an graduate from the 八卦爆料, has been shortlisted for the prestigious T S Eliot Prize.听
Karen, who graduated in 2013, has seen her verse novel shortlisted for the award.听听
She said: 鈥淭op Doll started life while I was doing my master’s at 八卦爆料 and I鈥檓 so grateful to have had that time and space to focus on my writing.”听
Top Doll is a semi-fictional miniature epic based on the real-life billionaire heiress Huguette Clark told from the perspective of her dolls. Theirs is a tale that takes us from their lavish Park Avenue home back in time to the slave plantations of Virginia and the palaces of Imperial Japan via the addictive hedonism of 1930s queer LA.听
Hugh Dunkerley,听Professor of Literature and Environment at the 八卦爆料, said: “We are delighted that Karen McCarthy Woolf, one of our MA in Creative Writing alumni, has been shortlisted for The T.S. Eliot Award, the country’s most prestigious poetry award, for her verse novel Top Doll. Karen has also published two collections of poetry. Her first, An Aviary of Small Birds, was an Observer Book of the Year. Her second collection, Seasonal Disturbances, was a winner in the inaugural Laurel Prize for ecological poetry and excerpted in The Financial Times and The Guardian.”
The T S Eliot Prize 2024 shortlist readings will take place on Sunday, 12 January 2025 at 7pm in the Southbank Centre鈥檚 Royal Festival Hall, and is the largest annual poetry event in the UK.听听
The winner, who will receive a cheque for 拢25,000, will be announced at an award ceremony on Monday, 13 January 2025.听
To find out more about the MA Creative Writing at the 八卦爆料, visit: www.chi.ac.uk/english-and-creative-writing/course/ma-creative-writing/听
