Paul
Ewen, the author currently garlanded for his novel ‘Francis Plug: How To Be A Public Author’, is joining the University
of Greenwich as Writer in Residence.
Paul will
be writing a new novel as part of his residency, which he says will be centred
in Greenwich and the university itself. However, he won’t say at this point whether
it will be narrated by his alter ego Francis Plug.
“The
novel will be born on campus. It’s a very exciting prospect, and I’m really
looking forward to cracking on with it. I’ve long had close links with Greenwich
and am genuinely honoured to be offered the position.”
Paul is
the university’s first Writer in Residence and students studying the BA in
Creative Writing, or one of the Joint Honours options, will hope to join his
seminars.
Dr Alex
Pheby, novelist and Creative Writing programme leader in the Faculty of Architecture,
Computing and Humanities, says: “It’s going to be great having a ‘wild writer’
around: students will be able to see what a real writer does.
“Paul’s
latest book is a comic novel that deals with the
literary world, using his dysfunctional and fictional alter-ego Francis Plug to
gently satirise Booker Prize-winning writers, writing and publishing. Perhaps
he’ll end up doing a similar thing in Greenwich with academic creative writers
and writing.”
Alex says
he is not anxious about the possibility of being lampooned: “Francis Plug takes
the brunt of the satire so hopefully it wouldn’t be too painful.”
Sam
Jordison, Ewen’s publisher at Galley Beggar Press, thinks this is the perfect
next step for Paul: “Francis Plug is being named one of 2014’s top reads. A
campus should provide rich material for Paul’s comic take on the world.”
The Guardian, the New Statesman, the Irish
Times, the Big Issue, the New Zealand Listener, and the New
Daily in Australia have all named the Plug novel as one of their ‘best books
of the year’. Booker Prize winners who featured in the book have also
praised it, including Hilary Mantel, who wrote:
‘One thinks of Goethe: one thinks of Shelley:
one thinks of Plug. He is a force of nature, he is sage, bard and prophet: he
is in addition a random menace, and at all times you need to know exactly where
he is. They say there are no statues to critics. But the fourth plinth awaits
Francis. Perhaps he can be chained to it.'
For more
about studying Creative Writing at the University of Greenwich go to: http://www2.gre.ac.uk/about/faculty/ach/study/llt/programmes
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