Stephen Seabridge

Biography

I began my study at Keele University in 2012 enrolled on the English & Media, Communication and Culture (MCC) Dual Honours program where I was initially awarded the Keele Excellence Scholarship of £6000 for a result of three A* A-level grades at Newcastle-Under-Lyme College. I completed my Degree with a First Class grading and received the Ken Loach Prize in MCC for outstanding commitment to the course. I stayed on at Keele, where I achieved PSS funding of £10000 to enrol on a Creative Writing Masters Degree. During my MA I specialised in poetry writing and life writing under poet James Sheard and novelists Emma Henderson and Gwendoline Riley. My MA research and practice focussed mainly on poetic responses to late life illness and Dementia. I completed the MA with a Distinction and proceeded onto doctoral study in the department of Creative Writing at Keele in Autumn 2016. During the second year of my PhD I was appointed to the position of the first Poet Laureate for the city of Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, my home city. Since then I have been introducing myself to the city, with one of my Laureate objectives concerned with raising the awareness of poetry throughout the region.

My doctoral study is comprised of two components; one creative and one critical. The creative aspect focuses on poetic responses to the city of Stoke-on-Trent and growing up as a Midlander in Staffordshire. My critical dissertation uses geopoetics, psychogeography, hauntology and rhythmanalysis to investigate Stoke-on-Trent as a post-industrial, edgeland space.

My research is funded by a Graduate Teaching Assistantship. My principal supervisor is Mr. James Sheard and my secondary supervisor is Dr. Ceri Morgan.

Twitter: @S_Seabridge

Research and scholarship

My research and practice is split into three distinct strands, often overlapping. The first of these is my doctoral creative and critical writing concerning spatiality, geopoetics and psychogeography/hauntology applied to the Stoke-on-Trent city region and the county of Staffordshire. Another is the creative exploration, through poetry, of masculinity, working class boyhood and the ontologies of manhood in the post-industrial context. The final of these is an exploration of representations of dementia and late life psychological disorder, with particular interest paid to the working-class dementia subject and the interconnection between recollection, place and the memoryscape. Each of these strands is supplemented by my interest in biopolitics/mind-politics, semiotics, nostalgia studies and the cardinal posts: post-structuralism, postcolonialism and postmodernism.

Other Projects:

• The Empty Chair: Deconstructing Representations of Dementia Through Creative Practice: In November 2016 Emma Henderson (Lecturer in Creative Writing and author of Grace Williams Says it Loud and The Valentine House) and I undertook a research trip to Weesp, Amsterdam where we toured the Hogeweyk dementia care facility and attended the late-life themed IDFA. Since, we have explored the problematic, declinist narratives of dementia life through the production of poetry, life writing and fiction, using creative practice to investigate trope and cliché in the emerging ‘genre’ of dementia care and experience. This research has also resulted in another conversation exploring the benefits of research between practitioners of divergent generations. In September 2018 this research will be showcased at the Live Age Festival, in association with the New Vic Theatre. This research was funded by the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at Keele University and the Keele Postgraduate Association.

• The Dawdlers at Keele: Founded as both a regular social gathering and walking research group, I am a founding member of the Dawdlers walking collective at Keele University, exploring collective responses to space both inside and outside the campus setting.

• Seams and Memories of Mining: I have been part of Dr. Ceri Morgan’s Memories of Mining project (exhibited at Silverdale Library in 2017), celebrating local mining heritage in the Potteries and paying tribute to the 1966 Aberfan disaster through a collaborative performance co-created with Restoke and performed as part of the Social History Society’s annual conference in June 2018 at the Keele University Chapel.

Prizes

• Shortlisted for the Bangor Literary Prize 2018 
• Shortlisted for the Roy Fisher Prize 2018

Teaching

I teach, or have taught, in the Creative Writing department and the School of English in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences on the following modules:

• Creative Writing ISP (collaborative consultation only).
• Poetry Through Practice
• Fiction Through Practice
• Creative Writing: Poetry and Prose
• Writing Genre and Mode
• Becoming a Critic

Further information

Media Appearances

Stephen becomes first poet laureate of the Potteries (June 2018), at: https://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/whats-on/stephen-becomes-first-poet-laureate-1655851

Keele student to champion creative writing as city’s first poet laureate (July 2018), at: https://www.keele.ac.uk/discover/news/2018/june/keele-student/citys-first-poet-laureate.php

MCC graduate Stephen Seabridge accepts the Ken Loach Prize (November 2015), at: https://mcckeele.wordpress.com/2015/12/11/stephen-accepts-the-ken-loach-prize/

Other Positions:

August 2017 – Assistant Poetry Editor for the Keele Creative Writing Society.

September 2017 - present. Event organiser and panel chair. Keele Humanities Work in Progress Seminar Series (Keele University). Alongside Aimee Merrydew and Sylvia Crawley.

January - May 2018. Event organiser and panel chair. Humanities Postgraduate Research Symposium (Keele University). Alongside Aimee Merrydew and Sylvia Crawley.

2017. Peer Reviewer for Under Construction @ Keele 4 (1) (Keele University).

2017 - Present. Higher Horizons+ Outreach Seminar Tutor (Keele University).

(Seminars: Introduction to Contemporary Poetry Writing for Year 9 and 10 and Poetry Patronuses: Approaching KS3 Environmentally Aware and Ecocritical Writing through Contemporary Fantasy and First American Totemism.)