Welcome to Falmouth, Jennifer!

We are very excited to welcome Dr Jennifer Young as the new Head of Writing and Journalism. Jennifer is a published writer and researcher with a keen interest in the pedagogy of Creative Writing. Her novel Cold Crash published by Cinnamon Press won their Debut Novel Prize in 2017. The Running Lie, the second novel in the trilogy, is slated to come out in May 2020.

Jennifer’s interests include collaborative writing, historical fiction and comedy women writers, for which she is working with Helen Lederer on the Comedy Women in Print (CWIP) prize, which offers both published and unpublished categories.

One of our lecturers, Sherezade Garcia Rangel, sat down with Jennifer to welcome her and introduce her to Falwriting.

Sherezade Garcia Rangel: Welcome to Falmouth, Jennifer! We had been looking forward to having you there.

Jennifer Young: Thank you! I had also been looking forward to being here.

SGR: We want to get to know you. Can you tell us a little about your time before Falmouth?

JY: Most recently, I moved to Falmouth from Kentish Town in London, where I had lived for 13 years so I brought a great amount of things on a lorry! I had been working in the University of Hertfordshire for that time.

I came to the UK in 2001 to do my MA in Cardiff University and then I went to Southampton to do my PhD in Creative Writing, my research then focused on Magical Realism. My research focus now is on the pedagogy of Creative Writing and also on genre fiction, specifically detective and thriller.

I’ve published the first of a trilogy called Cold Crash, which is a historical thriller set in 1952 in London and Scotland.

I grew up on a small textile town in North Carolina. It was a textile mill when I was growing up, but later on the mills were sold and taken down. It is now a research facility, the North Carolina Research Campus. It looks very different now when I go back!

SGR: You’ve had the chance to get to know quite a lot of the UK. What are your top 3 favourite things of the UK?

JY: Well, one of the things that brought me to the UK to do my MA was theater. The feeling of safety in the UK, the life style is another of the things I enjoy. Of the food, I like all the cream-based things and British chocolate is amazing!

SGR: Why did you want to come down to Falmouth?

JY: There are a few different things that brought me here. I love the idea of being in a University with a focus on the arts. Falwriting was really impressive, it looked like a fantastic place to work. And the friendliness of the staff when I came down for my interview made me feel it was such a warm place. The Lighthouse really impressed me, what a treasure!

SGR: It is, we love it! Now, just to wrap things up and something I can imagine we all want to know, what are you looking forward to?

JY: I’m really looking forward to meeting all the students and teaching Study Block 2. I’m also looking forward to getting to know the whole school and thinking about ways to make it an even better place to study.

SGR: Study Block 2 is going to be really interesting. Thanks for sitting down with me and answering my questions.

JY: Thank you.

by Sherezade Garcia Rangel