![]() |
Martin J. Goodman (born in Leicester in 1956) is an English journalist and writer.
Martin Goodman went to Loughborough Grammar School.[ citation needed ] He is Emeritus professor at the University of Hull, where he was Professor Creative Writing 2009-2019. Before moving to Hull, Martin Goodman was lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Plymouth. [1] He completed his PhD in Creative Writing at Lancaster University in 2007, [2] and now teaches at the University of Hull, where he was appointed Professor of Creative Writing and Director of the Philip Larkin Centre [3] [4] for Poetry and Creative Writing in 2009. [5]
Martin Goodman writes both fiction and nonfiction. His most recent book of nonfiction is Client Earth: Building an Ecological Civilization, May 2017, from Scribe Publications. [6] This tells the story of ecolawyers saving the planet, and was co-written with his husband the environmental lawyer James Thornton. They presented the work at the Sydney Opera House's Antidote Festival in September 2017. [7] They were interviewed about the book on BBC Parliament's BOOKtalk in July 2017. [8] Granta Magazine profiled their life and work together in an interview in July 2017. [9] He is Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Hull. [10] He is the publisher of Barbican Press. [11] Recent novels are J SS Bach, Wrecking Ball Press, 2018, and Forever Konrad, PS Publishing, 2017.
Martin Goodman once taught on the distance learning MA at Lancaster University, where he worked on the British Council Crossing Borders scheme as a mentor to writers in Kenya and Zimbabwe. Goodman's novel On Bended Knees (Macmillan, 1992) was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award (won by Jeff Torrington's Swing Hammer Swing). [12]
His next books published were all non-fiction, often on a spiritual theme and published at first in America. He wrote a biography of Mother Meera, In Search of the Divine Mother (1998). [13] His 2001 book I Was Carlos Castaneda [14] recounted his experiences with shamanism and the plant hallucinogen ayahuasca. On Sacred Mountains (2002) is a round-the-world travelogue and journey of spiritual awakening; The Guardian review stated: "Either an important spiritual document, or an admonitory example of the effects of oxygen deprivation." [15]
His next novels were Slippery When Wet (2006), from Transita in Oxford; Look Who's Watching (2011) from Caffeine Nights, and Ectopia (2014) from Barbican Press. He started Barbican Press with the slogan "Writing from the Discomfort Zone", with a list of novels written as PhDs inspired by his being external examiner for D.D. Johnston at the University of Gloucestershire. The first novel published was Johnston's The Deconstruction of Professor Thrub. [16]
He was one of the AHRC / BBC New Generation Thinkers in 2012–13. [17] 2014 saw BBC Radio 4 broadcast his documentary on the writer Alan Garner, The Bronze Age Man of Jodrell Bank [18] His two-part Radio 4 series show The New North aired in 2013 [19] and he wrote about the buildings in the North of England in the BBC online news magazine. [20] Martin Goodman gave a reading from his new novel on vampires at the Bram Stoker Birthday Conference in Whitby in November 2013. [21] This was published as Forever Konrad: A Vampire's Vampire in November 2017. [22] As Director of the Philip Larkin Centre he ran major public interview sessions in Hull with writers such as Hilary Mantel, Steven Saylor, Christopher Hampton, Emma Thompson, Irene Sabatini, [23] Kate Mosse, David Almond, Lachlan Mackinnon, Edna O'Brien. He started the Annual Children's Writing Event in Hull, working first of all with Emma Thompson [24] and the Hull Children's Flood Project [25] and then with David Almond hosted by students of Sidney Smith School [26] and Malorie Blackman, who wrote the introduction to a book of resulting stories by Hull children. [27]
In 2011 he joined the Man Booker Prize Foundation University Initiative, [28] bringing D.B.C. Pierre to Hull to speak about his 2003 novel Vernon God Little , after distributing a copy of the book to all first-year students at Hull [29] and on film at Scarborough. [30] Julian Barnes was his Man Booker guest in 2013. [31]
Client Earth, written jointly with his husband James Thornton (environmentalist), was Winner of the Judge's Choice, Business Book of the Year in the Business Book of the Year Awards, 2018. is biography of the Scottish scientist and serial self-experimenter John Scott Haldane, Suffer and Survive, won 1st Prize, Basis of Medicine [32] in the 2008 BMA Book Awards [33] Martin Goodman has been awarded a Scottish Arts Council Writer's Bursary, and Travel Awards from the Scottish Arts Council and the Society of Authors.[ citation needed ] His first novel On Bended Knees was shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize. [34] [ citation needed ] He was awarded a British Academy Small Research Grant in 2010 for a biography of Taezan Maezumi Roshi. [35] His play Feeding the Roses won in Virtual Theatre's "Pen is a Mighty Sword" international playwriting competition in 2007, for "innovative plays that question the status quo and shed light on today's challenges". [36] A major two-year research grant, from the MacIntosh Foundation of Washington DC, USA, funded a life-writing project (2013–15), detailing how a group of public interest lawyers are working throughout Europe and West Africa to tackle urgent environmental issues such as loss of biodiversity and climate change. [37] This was published in the UK and Australia as Client Earth in 2017, with sections by James Thornton interleaving Goodman's narrative. [38]
Philip Arthur Larkin was an English poet, novelist, and librarian. His first book of poetry, The North Ship, was published in 1945, followed by two novels, Jill (1946) and A Girl in Winter (1947), and he came to prominence in 1955 with the publication of his second collection of poems, The Less Deceived, followed by The Whitsun Weddings (1964) and High Windows (1974). He contributed to The Daily Telegraph as its jazz critic from 1961 to 1971, with his articles gathered in All What Jazz: A Record Diary 1961–71 (1985), and edited The Oxford Book of Twentieth Century English Verse (1973). His many honours include the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry. He was offered, but declined, the position of Poet Laureate in 1984, following the death of Sir John Betjeman.
Thornton Niven Wilder was an American playwright and novelist. He won three Pulitzer Prizes — for the novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey and for the plays Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth — and a U.S. National Book Award for the novel The Eighth Day.
Martin Louis Amis is a British novelist, essayist, memoirist, and screenwriter. He is best known for his novels Money (1984) and London Fields (1989). He received the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his memoir Experience and has been listed for the Booker Prize twice. Amis served as the Professor of Creative Writing at the Centre for New Writing at the University of Manchester until 2011. In 2008, The Times named him one of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945.
The University of East Anglia (UEA) is a public research university in Norwich, England. Established in 1963 on a 320-acre (130-hectare) campus west of the city centre, the university has four faculties and 26 schools of study. The annual income of the institution for 2016–17 was £273.7 million, of which £35.6 million was from research grants and contracts, with an expenditure of £262.6 million, and has an acceptance rate of around 20%.
Sir Andrew Motion is an English poet, novelist, and biographer, who was Poet Laureate from 1999 to 2009. During the period of his laureateship, Motion founded the Poetry Archive, an online resource of poems and audio recordings of poets reading their own work. In 2012, he became President of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, taking over from Bill Bryson.
Ian James Rankin is a Scottish crime writer, best known for his Inspector Rebus novels.
Sir Malcolm Stanley Bradbury, was an English author and academic.
Paul Magrs is a writer and lecturer. He was born in Jarrow, England, and now lives in Manchester with his partner, author and lecturer Jeremy Hoad.
Sarah Ann Waters is a Welsh novelist. She is best known for her novels set in Victorian society and featuring lesbian protagonists, such as Tipping the Velvet and Fingersmith.
Andrew Brooke Miller FRSL is an English novelist.
Jacob Polley is a British poet and novelist. He has published four collections of poetry. His novel, Talk of the Town, won the Somerset Maugham Award in 2009. His latest poetry collection, Jackself, won the T.S. Eliot Prize in 2016. Polley has co-written two short films and collaborated on multimedia poetry installations in the United Kingdom.
Carol Birch is an English novelist, lecturer and book critic. She also teaches creative writing.
Adam Johnson is an American novelist and short story writer. He won the Pulitzer Prize for his 2012 novel, The Orphan Master's Son, and the National Book Award for his 2015 story collection Fortune Smiles. He is also a professor of English at Stanford University with a focus on creative writing.
Colin W. Sargent, Ph.D., is an American author, magazine publisher, and playwright. His best-known works include his debut novel Museum of Human Beings, included in the National American Indian Heritage Month Booklist, which delves into the heart-wrenching life of Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau, the son of Sacagawea; the play 100 Percent American Girl; and poetry books Luftwaffe Snowshoes, Blush, and Undertow. His novel, The Boston Castrato, was published in 2016 by Barbican Press of London and Hull, UK. According to London's Morning Star: "An extraordinary literary expression of the American nightmare." His newest book, Red Hands, is an account of the Romanian revolution in the voice of Nicolae Ceaușescu’s daughter-in-law. The novel is derived from eight hundred hours of unique interviews with Iordana Ceaușescu, and told in her voice. Published in Great Britain in 2020, the U.S. launch is due for February 1, 2022.
Andrew Cowan is an English novelist and former director of the creative writing programme at the University of East Anglia.
Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi is a Ugandan novelist and short story writer. Her doctoral novel, The Kintu Saga, was shortlisted and won the Kwani? Manuscript Project in 2013. It was published by Kwani Trust in 2014 under the title Kintu. Her short story collection, "Manchester Happened", was published in 2019. She was shortlisted for the 2014 Commonwealth Short Story Prize for her story "Let's Tell This Story Properly", and emerged Regional Winner, Africa region. She was the Overall Winner of the 2014 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. She was longlisted for the 2014 Etisalat Prize for Literature. She is a lecturer in Creative Writing at Lancaster University. In 2018 she was awarded a Windham-Campbell Prize in the fiction category. In 2021, her novel The First Woman won the Jhalak Prize.
Angela Barry is a Bermudian writer and educator. She spent more than 20 years living abroad – in England, France, The Gambia, Senegal and Seychelles – before returning to Bermuda, where she has primarily worked as a lecturer since the 1990s. Her creative writing reflects her connections with the African diaspora, and as a PhD student at Lancaster University she worked on cross-cultural projects. She was married to Senegalese Abdoulaye Barry and they have two sons, Ibou and Douds, although eventually divorcing.
Barbican Press is an independent publishing house launched in 2013 by Martin J. Goodman for "innovative novels that are just too edgy for the mainstream but allow people to break all bounds and find a unique voice."
Alison MacLeod is a Canadian-British writer. She is most noted for her 2013 novel Unexploded, which was a longlisted nominee for the 2013 Man Booker Prize, and her 2017 short story collection All the Beloved Ghosts, which was a shortlisted finalist for the Governor General's Award for English-language fiction at the 2017 Governor General's Awards.
Carl Tighe was a prolific British writer, academic, essayist, novelist, and poet. He taught in Poland during the Cold War and was the first Professor of Creative Writing in the UK at the University of Derby.