Nollaig shona dhaoibh!
Merry Christmas!
Boldog karácsonyt!
Buon Natale!
Bon Noel!
Category Archives: Uncategorized
A Tide of Memory
I’ve blogged previously about how writers need to look to other art forms for inspiration. There’s nothing like it for creative energy, for ideas, for theme. The work of Liz Sutherland, a painter from North London whose studio I visited this weekend as part of the Wood Green Open Studios event, evokes an amorphous yet intense feeling linked to memory and its legacies. Her landscapes impress with a varied approach to paint application—sometimes slathered, sometimes dappled, or splashed—suggesting a focus on layers: of paint, time, lingering, palimpsestic images.
Both her landscapes and figurative works in oil display a buttery quality— which itself is smooth, yet elusive and an apt metaphor for the theme. The work is rich in emotion, blurred but familiar, much like memory. Greatly inspired by the sea, Sutherland explores the relationship between the coastline and the water—how they shape one another through layers of rock, wave, and water. Her depictions of Scotland’s empty yet beautiful beaches feel as warm and beguiling, and perhaps as misleading, as childhood memories.
Movement is a strong presence on these canvases. Sutherland’s figures are undefined— whether trudging, looming, balancing, or flying through memory and space. They seem like remnants of energy moving through landscapes, allowing the viewer to see both the present motion and peer back through time. Angles are strange and jarring. Dancers leap and twirl fantastically through the V&A. The sea pulls and thrashes onto the beach. Figures float, loom, recede, and hulk, all creating a dreamlike atmosphere that feels tied to childhood memories of the cold yet exotic Scottish coast. Sutherland’s ability to convey movement is remarkable.
Her work hints at the thrill of discovering new places, often tinged with a sense of discomfort. Her palette and occasional use of an iPad show clear influences of Hockney, while her bright Fauvist colours and carved figures perhaps nod to Gauguin, suggesting the uneasy legacy of colonisation, and as with Gauguin, there’s hidden black and murk present too.
As a committed cold-water swimmer, Sutherland’s connection to water even extends into her cityscapes. Her palette captures all shades of water—from cold blue-grey to near Caribbean greens and blues. Elsewhere, her colours are nebulous—luminous greens, pinks, and blues—creating otherworldly landscapes. At times, her works seem as though they might glow in the dark, adding a strange, haunting quality. Like memory, they are alien yet familiar. I loved this show.
Lincoln Shines Bright
I’m a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing and Programme Leader in Creative Writing at the University of Lincoln. The team and I are celebrating that we’ve achieved the dizzy heights of SECOND in the Guardian University rankings for Creative Writing. It’s such a good way to start the year. https://www.theguardian.com/education/ng-interactive/2024/sep/07/best-uk-universities-for-creative-writing-league-table
New Book on The Royal Court Theatre
I am very pleased and excited to announce that Prof. Harriet Devine and I are writing a book on the Royal Court Theatre, to be published by Methuen in 2026, marking the Court’s 70th anniversary. We’re enormously excited about this highly inclusive project. This study will be an appraisal of the theatre’s seven-decade journey from 1956 to today. We are assessing what this remarkable stage company has provided for theatre, nationally and internationally and in doing so, we measure the extent to which this institution has impacted today’s society, and we consider its present and future role. As an honest and thorough study, it will also platform voices critical of the Court and those who felt occluded or excluded or ignored in previous accounts of the Court’s history, and consider how and to what extent this aspect is changing. Will keep you all posted!
Up and Away!
Delighted to say I’m now a Senior Lecturer and Programme Leader at the University of Lincoln. Yay, send the balloons up! (Spotted in Budapest’s City Park yesterday).
I’m visiting Budapest, my second home where I spent a very significant 12 years bridging my 20s and 30s. I haven’t been back in 5 years (COVID and other reasons). So, returning now, I’m really struck by how it has changed. It’s a different city to the one I moved to not too long after the Berlin Wall had come down.
Taking stock of these changes prompts me to take inventory of my life, and examine future plans. And then, on cue, I’m notified that I’ve been promoted to Senior Lecturer at my University. Life is good. I’m grateful.
Me and Radio three
This Sunday (June 16th, Bloomsday, no less) I’m an interviewee for this BBC Radio 3 documentary programme, “A Most Queer House” – an address in Hammersmith that has strong associations with The Royal Court Theatre and with mid-century bohemian London in general. The house was most recently my late friend Donald Howarth’s home, and the property was previously owned by my friend Harriet Devine (also interviewed) and was where her renowned father, George Devine, set up the bones of The Royal Court. Tune in if you can!
Bravi a Tutti!
My first cohort of narrative students at the University of Turin have now completed their course. They couldn’t have been more lovely, or more engaged, more creative – and to deliver this level of work in English is so impressive. Italy, this is your next generation of writers! Bravi a tutti!
An Italian Job
Have arrived in Torino to take up my visiting professorship at the university. The river Po is at the end of my street! It’s a grey day, but you can still see the city’s beauty. I’m so very much looking forward to meeting my students, delivering courses, and exploring this old dame.
The Time of Their Lives
My Texan students having the time of their lives at Mamma Mia in London s West End before heading back stateside. Thanks to Roddy Maude-Roxby , Jamie Beamish , Harriet Devine for adding theatrical insight to their stay (and Thomas Ostermeier, of course ; ))
Jan. 6th – Nollaig na mBan (Women’s Christmas)
The most important of Irish Holidays is almost here! Tomorrow is Nollaig na mBan!
Nollaig na mBan is the day when Irish women own (and complete) Christmas. In Ireland, on this day, women would traditionally gather to feast and drink -and the men would take over the housework, and serve them food and beverages (an extraordinary reversal back in the day…). In modern Ireland, it’s simply a great excuse to celebrate all the female friendships in your life and have proper girlie knees-up. I love this holiday and think we should export it like we did St. Patrick’s Day and Hallowe’en. It’s too good to keep to ourselves. Who is up for spreading some Nollaig na mBan joy tomorrow? (Pronounced NUH-lig n’MON)
More info here:
https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2020/0102/1103975-the-roots-and-traditions-of-nollaig-na-mban/
...and this is me.
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suehealy 