Kate Clanchy | |
---|---|
Born | 1965 (age 58–59) Glasgow, Scotland |
Alma mater | University of Oxford |
Occupation(s) | Poet, teacher, writer |
Parent(s) | Michael Clanchy Joan Clanchy |
Awards | Eric Gregory Award Forward Poetry Prize Scottish First Book of the Year BBC National Short Story Prize Orwell Prize for Political Writing |
Kate Clanchy MBE (born 1965) is a British poet, freelance writer and teacher.
She was born in 1965 in Glasgow to medieval historian Michael Clanchy and teacher Joan Clanchy (née Milne) [1] [2] She was educated at George Watson's College in Edinburgh and at the University of Oxford, where she studied English. [3]
She lived in London's East End for several years, before moving to Oxford where she was a fellow of Oxford Brookes University and served as City Poet. [4] She is Writer in Residence for Sanctuary Arts [5] at Mansfield College, Oxford.
In 2021 she wrote an essay about the deaths of both her parents from COVID-19. [6]
Clanchy qualified as a teacher in 1989 and has taught since in several different institutions. Her memoir of her teaching experience,Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me won the Orwell Prize for Political Writing in 2020. [7]
From 2009-2019 she combined employment as a teacher and a role as Writer in Residence at Oxford Spires Academy, a multicultural comprehensive school. Noted students included Mukahang Limbu, [8] Shukria Rezaei, [9] and Amineh Abou Kerech. [10] In 2018 she edited an anthology of poems written by her students, England: Poems from a School, which was widely reviewed. [11] [12] Over the lockdown period of 2020 Clanchy met on Zoom with her students and published their poems on Twitter where they became popular. [13] [14] In 2021 she published a self-help guide to writing poetry, How to Grow Your Own Poem.
Clanchy won an Eric Gregory Award in 1995. [15] She published three poetry collections between 1996 and 2004. They won a Forward Prize, [16] the Scottish First Book of the Year (then Saltire Prize) two Scottish Arts Council Book Awards, and a Somerset Maugham Award. [17] In 2008, she moved into non fiction with a memoir about her relationship with her Kosovan neighbour. What is She Doing Here? This was republished as Antigona and Me and won the Writers Guild Award. [18] In 2009 she won both the VS Pritchett and BBC National Short Story Award. [19] This was followed by a novel, Meeting the English, [20] which was shortlisted for the Costa Prize, and a collection of short stories, The Not Dead and the Saved. [21] Clanchy has written and adapted for BBC Radio since 2001 with 12 plays and serials produced, notably Hester, A Little Princess, [22] which starred Adjoa Andoh and Enduring Love. In 2015 her broadcast anthology of her pupils' work, We Are Writing a Poem About Home, [23] was shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award. [24] In 2018 she was awarded a Cholmondeley Award. [25]
In 2021, Clanchy posted on Twitter encouraging followers to report a Goodreads review of Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me, stating that they had "made up a racist quote and said it was in my book". [26] In a response published in The Guardian, Monisha Rajesh argued that although the exact quotes in question were not present, similar offensive stereotypes were present throughout the book. [27]
Clanchy was criticised by other authors, including Chimene Suleyman, Monisha Rajesh and Sunny Singh, who received large amounts of abuse in the following months. [28] [27] [29] An open letter signed by over 950 people from the publishing industry condemned the targeted harassment. [30] Clanchy's publishers, Picador, an imprint of Macmillan Publishing, issued three statements of apology in August 2021 and stated that the books would be rewritten. [27] [26] Further statements of apology were made following an interview [31] with Philip Gwyn Jones, Publisher of Picador, in the Daily Telegraph in December 2021. [32]
Clanchy was defended in articles by Sonia Sodha, who stated that 'the strand of anti-racist thinking that is obsessed with the blame and shame all white people should bear for structural discrimination is (so) corrosive to common cause and understanding' [33] and by Clive Davis, [34] Tomiwa Owolade, [35] Shukria Rezaei, [36] Carmen Callil [37] Amanda Craig and Philip Pullman. A group of her former students wrote that they had experienced no safeguarding issues and were 'disempowered and distressed' by the critics' allegations. [38]
In December 2021, Clanchy published an article in Prospect magazine on the personal impact of public cancellation. [39] Consequently, Picador her publisher announced they would no longer publish her books. [29] In an interview for UnHerd , Clanchy said that the apology put out by Pan Macmillan had been made "over her head" and without consulting her. [40] She subsequently wrote an article on sensitivity readers. [41] which continued to be discussed in the following years. [42] [43] [44] [45] especially in the context of the Roald Dahl revision controversy. Clanchy is now published by Swift Press. [46]
Clanchy was appointed a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2010 [47] and resigned her fellowship in 2023. [48]
Clanchy was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2018 Birthday Honours. [49]
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