Piecing Together the Past
- KEY HIGHLIGHTS
- FORTHCOMING EVENT – UNCOLLECTED: POETS
- OPEN DAYS AND WELCOME EVENING
- ARCHIVE LED TEACHING
- PUBLICATIONS & BROADCASTS
- ENQUIRIES - TOPICS AND THEMES
- STATISTICS - VISITS AND ENQUIRIES
KEY HIGHLIGHTS
UEA Archives’ Poet in Residence Jay Bernard at Great Yarmouth Library, 20 July
Our poet in residence Jay Bernard led a poetry workshop at Great Yarmouth public library as part of our Mellon Foundation funded project ‘Towards a Centre for Contemporary Poetry in the Archive’. Fourteen public participants engaged in reflecting on who makes history and wrote and shared some poetry of their own. Their work will be on display at The Enterprise Centre at UEA from 22 November when Jay Bernard returns to reflect on the outcomes of the project and read from a specially commissioned pamphlet.
Showcase Meeting with National Trust / Blickling Hall, 13 September
This interdisciplinary research meeting in The Enterprise Centre was held in order to extend UEA’s relationship with Blickling Hall, building on a range of projects already underway with them and with other National Trust venues.
Justine Mann gave a short presentation on Digital Technology: cataloguing, interpretation and engaging audiences. It is hoped that a broader formal partnership with the National Trust may be established, to underpin future research and innovation work.
Harwell Restoration Training - Effective Emergency Planning and Disaster Recovery, 20 September
Ditchley Park in Oxfordshire is an 18th Century manor house of splendid outlook and famous connections. A frequent haunt of UK Prime ministers with a stunning collection of art and heritage treasures it made the perfect setting for archivists to gather for training. Visitors to the archive are often surprised by our caution and protectiveness towards our collections, but it is less surprising when you see what could go wrong. Effective Emergency Planning and Practical Disaster Management is a fascinating and useful course on how to plan for and deal with every archivist’s nightmare. Harwell Restoration who ran the training have seen it all, flood, fire and civil unrest and gave us the tools we need to be ready, should disaster fall.
New microfilm machine
Our microfilm machine has been upgraded to a digital film scanner. Film can be scanned to a range of file formats including OCR PDF. Bookings can be made by email: archives@uea.ac.uk
FORTHCOMING EVENT – UNCOLLECTED: POETS
Join us on 22 November 2023 at The Enterprise Centre (UEA) / livestream to celebrate the launch of our exciting new archive collections from four dazzling voices in contemporary poetry: Jay Bernard, Anthony Vahni Capildeo, Gail McConnell and Joelle Taylor.
The poets will read from a new collection of their writing inspired by UEA's ‘Towards a Centre for Contemporary Poetry in the Archive’ project which has been funded by the Mellon Foundation's Public Knowledge programme. The project aims to change the way archives collect contemporary poetry by widening the representation of different styles and voices and encouraging community involvement.
Visiting Poetry Fellow Will Harris will join the poets in conversation to discuss their response to the archiving of their work. Unique items from the poets' archives will be on display, alongside poetry by participants in the creative writing workshops they led for Norfolk public libraries during summer 2023.
Registration essential: https://tinyurl.com/uncollectedpoets
OPEN DAYS AND WELCOME EVENING
UEA Open Days, 7 July and 9 September
We were delighted to welcome 158 visitors across two UEA Open Days on 7 July and 9 September.
Prospective students and their parents enjoyed visiting our Reading Rooms on Floor 02 of the Library to view our current exhibition and some tantalising gems from the archive. They were also able to explore a specially tailored display of our unique collections that showcases student engagement with the archive and highlights the varied opportunities they have, to engage with our collections and our activities during their time at UEA – from volunteering for our Unboxed programme to discovering original primary source material that links directly to their studies.
Welcome Evening 'Getting to Know UEA', 20 September
On 20 September we joined UEA Library and the East Anglian Film Archive to welcome new students as part of a mini evening festival in the LCR. We shared opportunities to explore our collections and volunteer via the Unboxed scheme. It was great to see new faces and welcome students to the community, while sharing what’s in store when they visit us on Floor 02.
ARCHIVE LED TEACHING
Diss High School visit, 4 July
In July we were delighted to welcome a group of 11 A-Level year 12 students from Diss High School. They were embarking on their non-exam independent studies and wanted to see first-hand the manuscripts of Naomi Alderman. Getting to know the author, learning about how ‘The Power’ was written and finding out about what it’s like to study literature and creative writing at university made for an exciting afternoon on campus. Attendees:11.
City of Norwich School visit, 18 July
Year 12 A-Level students from CNS visited BACW to get inspired about literary archives. The group were introduced to the writing and personalities of Doris Lessing, Lee Child, Naomi Alderman and Sara Taylor through their archives. The students got to see what it takes to produce brilliant creative work and found out more about studying literature at UEA. Who says geography gets all the good field trips! Attendees: 24.
MA Crime Writing, 7 September
In September it was our privilege and pleasure to meet the final year crime writing MA students. As authors on the brink of publication themselves, examining the archive of Lee Child’s best selling Jack Reacher novels has particular meaning and significance. They were joined by Lee Child expert Elspeth Latimer who helped them navigate the brilliance and complexity of Child’s archive. Attendees: 9.
PUBLICATIONS & BROADCASTS
Lessing’s Early Letters: A Prolific Personal Voice by Nonia Williams. Critical Quarterly. Online, 9 July 2023. Originally presented at a special panel about Doris Lessing 100 at English Futures Conference 2022 (Manchester Met Uni).
Lessing’s Early Letters: A Prolific Personal Voice - Williams - Critical Quarterly - Wiley Online Library
Lessing’s Legacy Explored Through her Personal Archive by Justine Mann. Critical Quarterly, 23 Aug 2023. Based on the paper Mann delivered in Manchester 2022 at English Shared Futures, the article focuses on the Doris Lessing 100 exhibition and how the archive came to be provided in two tranches.
Lessing's Legacy Explored Through Her Personal Archive - Mann - Critical Quarterly - Wiley Online Library
ENQUIRIES - TOPICS AND THEMES
BACW COLLECTIONS
DORIS LESSING comparison of female authors like Ruth Prawer Jhabvala NAOMI ALDERMAN ‘The Power’ WG SEBALD recorded interviews
OTHER COLLECTIONS
PRITCHARD PAPERS the 1930s Penguin donkey bookcase; design blueprints by Marcel Breuer; the work of photographer Edith Tudor-Hart; the 1930s Isobar restaurant and Half Hundred dining club; the development plan for flats in Birmingham by Water Gropius and Maxwell Fry (1936) TINKLER & WILLIAMS THEATRE COLLECTION seaside entertainment UEA COLLECTION rock band U2; Edward Cave (founder of The Gentleman’s Magazine) and his work for the Norwich Post; UEA Drama Studio ZUCKERMAN Scientific Manpower Committee and mid-fifties brain drain.
STATISTICS - VISITS & ENQUIRIES
Archives: 141 (48 remote): UEA 48; UK 77; Int’l 16
Special Collections: 10
• KEY HIGHLIGHTS
• ARCHIVE LED TEACHING
• VISITING FELLOWS
• PUBLICATIONS & BROADCASTS
• ENQUIRIES - TOPICS AND THEMES
• STATISTICS - VISITS AND ENQUIRIES
KEY HIGHLIGHTS
Symposium: Poetry, Representation and the Archive, 25 May
As part of our Mellon Foundation funded project to build a pioneering collection of underrepresented poetries in the British Archive for Contemporary Writing (BACW) at UEA, we held a one-day symposium in the Training and Enterprise Centre that brought together fifty researchers working in the UK and internationally to discuss the kinds of questions such a project raises. The acclaimed and prize-winning poet, Bhanu Kapil, delivered the keynote, which will be available on our website soon. The symposium was followed in the evening by a public event with drinks reception and poetry readings to mark the launch of the archive of UEA alumna Sarah Maguire: feminist poet, critic, and founder of the Poetry Translation Centre. Further information: Events - Towards a Centre for Contemporary Poetry
Poet in Residence writing workshops throughout Norfolk
Our Mellon Foundation funded poets in residence - Anthony Vahni Capildeo, Joelle Taylor and Gail McConnell - have inspired the public to write and share poems as part of series of June writing workshops held in Cromer, Thetford and King’s Lynn public libraries. The participants’ work will feature in library exhibitions during July-August, and at UEA in November, and will be archived alongside the poets' archives at UEA. The poet Jay Bernard will hold their workshop ‘What Gets Remembered?’ in Great Yarmouth Library on 20 July. Further information: What Gets Remembered Workshop
Event co-ordinators, Justine Mann (UEA) and Eve Mathews (Norfolk Library and Information Service) spoke to BBC Radio Norfolk about the events on 16 June. Angelle Joseph - Sam Day sits in - BBC Sounds [40:19-50:16]
ARCHIVE LED TEACHING
Digital Media Theory and Practice Workshop Seminar UG, 9 May
A session looking in depth at the risks, challenges and opportunities presented by archival material; looking at the dangers of the obsolescence of analogue formats and how the archival community is learning to navigate digitising the unique material presented to them and preserving them for the future. Students handled archive originals and looked at case studies delving into the heritage sector from a practical perspective. Attendees: 4.
Publishing MA Module Seminar, 10 May
A session examining what the archive can tell us about the publishing industry. With examples of publisher - author relationships from the archives of Lee Child, Graham Greene, J.D. Salinger, Tash Aw, Roger Deakin, Mark Cocker and many more. Students examine every step of an author’s journey from first approach through to drafting and editing a work. Alongside supporting the creative process, we see the publisher’s role in marketing, publicity, managing intellectual property and rights for translations and adaptations. Taking the rough with the smooth, students see the role of publishers in the business of being a writer. Attendees: 7
Creative Writing MA. Writers and Archives Guest Speaker Panel: Creative Writing Research Methodology Day, 24 May
An all-star panel of archival authors came to speak to LDC MA students on the role of archives in their work. Sara Taylor author of The Shore and The Laura’s, Fiona Sinclair Writer in residence at BACW and Nonia Williams Academic Curator of the Doris Lessing Archive were joined by Justine Mann from BACW speaking about the new frontier of digital preservation. We heard about archives as inspiration, detail and a source of paid work and discussed what the future looked like for writer’s archives. Attendees: 72.
VISITING FELLOWS
In June we welcomed international visiting fellow Maya Kucherskaya from the University of Moscow. Maya has spent a month researching the development of creative writing courses starting with Malcom Bradbury’s archive at UEA. Further information on Archives and Collections Visiting Fellowships.
PUBLICATIONS & BROADCASTS
'The Swimmer: the Wild Life of Roger Deakin’ by Patrick Barkham
This wonderful biography, published in May, draws from Deakin’s notebooks, diaries, letters, recordings, published work and early drafts.
“The archivists have been fantastically helpful, and I thank them for giving me access to this fabulous trove in a time of coronavirus, for retrieving so much, and for making the UEA library a pleasure to work within.” [Patrick Barkham].
‘Great British Railway Journeys’
The literary archives at UEA featured in this recently aired BBC2 TV programme (series 14:9). Michael Portillo meets Jean McNeil (Professor of Creative Writing) and is shown some of the manuscripts deposited by former students of the celebrated MA Creative Writing course. He also participates in a creative writing workshop.
ENQUIRIES - TOPICS AND THEMES
BACW COLLECTIONS
AP WATT publishing agents TASH AW Unpublished stories DORIS LESSING 1940s love letters to John Whitehorn; rights for a new foreign translation ROGER DEAKIN photographs
OTHER COLLECTIONS
JOHN HILL ARCHIVE Sotherton, Suffolk HUBERT LAMB ARCHIVE Funding of climate change research PRITCHARD PAPERS Business management in the 1930s; the Long Chair; image rights SOLLY ZUCKERMAN The merger of Bedford College with Royal Holloway; the Bernstein Israeli Trust STEFAN MUTHESIUS ARCHIVE University of Lancashire architecture TINKLER & WILLIAMS THEATRE ARCHIVES Great Yarmouth Hippodrome & Gilbert’s Circus
STATISTICS - VISITS & ENQUIRIES
Archives: 172 (28 remote): UEA 121; UK 28; Int’l 23
Special Collections: 12 (1 remote)
Microfilm: 1
• KEY HIGHLIGHTS
• ARCHIVE LED TEACHING
• UNBOXED
• SPECIAL COLLECTIONS
• APPOINTMENTS
• ENQUIRIES - TOPICS AND THEMES
• STATISTICS - VISITS AND ENQUIRIES
KEY HIGHLIGHTS
Visitors are Welcome!
The Eastern Daily Press released a Video tour of UEA's British Archive for Contemporary Writing | Eastern Daily Press (edp24.co.uk) featuring Dr Helen Busby and Dr Jeremy Noel-Tod highlighting our collections and issuing a warm invitation to the public to make an appointment to come and visit us! More information on Planning a Visit - British Archive For Contemporary Writing - Library (uea.ac.uk)
Research Libraries UK, 23 March
Project Archivist, Justine Mann, shared a ‘Shaping Inclusive Libraries’ panel session with colleagues from Waikato Library, New Zealand; Auckland University and Cambridge University Library at the RLUK Annual Conference 2023. Justine’s paper focused on our community led approach to building inclusive collectives of diverse poetry in the archive at UEA as part of our Mellon Foundation funded project. Watch the session: RLUK23 | Shaping Inclusive Libraries - YouTube. 245 attendees.
UEA Snoo Wilson Prize for Scriptwriting 2023, 23 March
Congratulations to the winners and shortlisted scriptwriters of this year’s Snoo Wilson Prize for Scriptwriting judged by Steve Waters, Adam Taylor and Claire Slater. The winners were revealed to a packed house at The Garage in Norwich following readings of extracts from all of the shortlisted plays. Snoo Wilson’s widow and former Time Out critic, Ann McFerran, attended and gave insightful critiques.
The winners were:
• Jonathan Massey (BA) - 'Leave a Part of Yourself Here' - a subtle study of characters in a Norfolk café during the lockdown year
• Kevin R. Carey (MA) - 'On Rainbow River' - a rich and personal drama about the death of a young man in a declining Scottish town
The other shortlistees were:
• Reena Denhardt (MA) - 'Guerillaz' - a sinister, satiric and lyrical play about climate change and race
• Claire Sullivan - (BA) 'We'll Call You' - a very funny film about two sisters from Northern Ireland trying to make it in their various spheres
ARCHIVE LED TEACHING
Time flies when you’re having fun, and that’s exactly what we’ve been doing this spring with a wide range of teaching sessions taking place in the Archives and online. We have welcomed 168 students across the semester, introducing them to treasures in our collections.
Creative Writing (UG) visit from University Centre Peterborough – ‘Sara Taylor’ novels, 10 January
Undergraduates had a fascinating time exploring the archive of Sara Taylor and the process behind Taylor’s first draft of a short story written as an undergraduate through its evolution into a published chapter in her first novel, ‘The Shore’. 8 attendees.
History (UG) visit. The Kenney Papers ‘History of Controversy & Debate’ (8 sessions) (UG), 27 Feb – 3 March
Asking a question at a political hustings in 1905 earned Annie Kenney 3 days in prison. History undergraduates visited the archive to discover her story as part of their module The History of Controversy and Debate. 88 attendees.
Creative Writing (UG) Sara Taylor archive, 8 & 9 March
19 attendees.
MA Contemporary Fiction (Tash Aw archive), 23 March
LDC students have spent time with BACW discovering the creative process of Tash Aw and Sara Taylor. Seeing the multiple drafts, publisher’s comments and correspondence gives an insight into the business of being a writer. 8 attendees.
Digital Archiving
“When is it going online?” this semester we busted digital archive myths with students from AMA and HUM PhD students visiting the archives for a cultural heritage knowledge injection
• Cultural Heritage in the Digital Age (PGT) Lecture and Workshop, 21 & 24 February
7 remote lecture attendees; 8 workshop attendees.
• Digital Media, Theory & Practice Lecture (online), 20 March
4 attendees.
• Digital Archives (PPD session with Grant Young), 21 March
6 attendees.
UNBOXED (Volunteer blogging programme)
Our volunteering programme got off to a fantastic start with inductions and a blog writing training session from journalist, academic and author Dr Claire Hynes. Students from a wide range of disciplines are currently researching material and will be publishing their articles in the coming months.
• Induction 30 & 31 January
14 attendees.
• Blog Writing training with Claire Hynes 7 & 8 February
11 attendees.
SPECIAL COLLECTIONS
Process and Product in Translation, 23 March (Group visit)
Consultation of: Tom Phillips’s ‘A Treated Victorian Novel‘. 8 attendees (1 statistic).
Students discussed the translation process in Phillips’ work and began the process of translating poetry. They also looked at poetry translation in the Sarah Maguire Archive.
The Roman Empire, 24 March (Group visit)
Consultation of Cicero manuscript. 27 attendees (1 statistic).
We enjoyed a wonderful morning sharing our 15th century Cicero manuscript with several groups of enthusiastic Y2 History students.
APPOINTMENTS
We are delighted to announce the appointment of four Curatorial Researchers, funded by the Mellon Foundation as part of our project: ‘Towards a Centre for Contemporary Poetry in the Archive’. They are UEA PGR students: Jake Reynolds; Vyvyan René; Libby Hamling; Viv Kemp. The researchers will work during April and May with recent archive deposits from Joelle Taylor, Anthony Vahni Capildeo and Gail McConnell to develop physical and digital exhibits for display at the launch of the Centre in November 2023.
Georgina Colby – Writer, Researcher, Academic was appointed as Senior Research Associate as part of the Mellon Foundation Poetry Archives project. Georgina is working on the project for six months. Her role is to research small poetry archives and present recommendations as part of the project's final report.
ENQUIRIES - TOPICS AND THEMES
BACW COLLECTIONS
LEE CHILD The novel ‘Killing Floor’ NAOMI ALDERMAN ‘The Power’ SARA TAYLOR The novel ‘The Shore’ SNOO WILSON plays: ‘HRH’ and ‘The Grass Widow’ TASH AW Unpublished short stories.
OTHER COLLECTIONS
GS CALLENDER photo of amateur meteorologist supplied for a MOOC on climate HH LAMB weather and famine PRITCHARD PAPERS Impington Village College architectural design; modernist furniture design ROGER DEAKIN wild swimming; Oliver Bernard (poet &translator) TINKLER COLLECTION Gilbert’s Circus and Gt Yarmouth Hippodrome UEA COLLECTION Earlham Estate; University Challenge 1973-74; Concrete student newspaper; the Students’ Union ZUCKERMAN aviation engines in WWII; defence regulations in 1939 and their effect on civil liberties in Hull; the German retreat across the Seine, 1944; the TSR-2 strike & reconnaissance aircraft; 1930s primate research at the Zoological Society of London.
STATISTICS - VISITS & ENQUIRIES
Archives: 280 (62 remote): UEA 209; UK 61; Int’l 10
Special Collections: 26 (3 remote).
Microfilm: 2
