Dr Samantha Harvey

Personal statement

Samantha Harvey is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing on the MA at Bath Spa University, and a novelist. She teaches novel and prose writing workshops on the MA. Her PhD thesis centred on writing philosophical fiction, and her interests include (but aren’t in any way limited to) how to write deeply and innovatively, but also readably – how to be a daring writer in an increasingly conservative literary world.

She has taught on the MA at Bath Spa for eight years, and has published three novels with Jonathan Cape, which have, between them, been considered for various literary awards, including the Orange, Baileys and Booker Prizes.

Academic qualifications

• PhD Creative Writing.

Bath Spa employment

• 2012-present.

Course

• MA Creative Writing.

Other external roles

• External Examiner to PhDs at Exeter and UEA
• Tutor, Arvon
• Former tutor, Humber School of Writing, Toronto. 

Areas of expertise

• Literary fiction
• Philosophical fiction (how to write ideas into novels)
• Character-driven narratives
• Writing about memory and its unreliablility
• Unreliable narrators.  

Invited talks and guest lectures

• Edinburgh International Book Festival
• Bath Literature Festival
• Toronto International Festival of Authors
• Enniskillen International Beckett Festival
• London Literature Festival
• Keynote speech at the Abbeyfield Symposium of Spirituality and Older People (Windsor Castle)
• Talk: "The Challenges of Writing the Novel" at Humber School of Writing, Toronto.

Press

• Print: Guardian, Independent, Times, Telegraph, Scotsman, Daily Mail, New Yorker, Washington Post, New York Times (received reviews); New Yorker, Guardian, various online magazines (written reviews/articles/essays
• Radio: BBC R4 Open Book, BBC Radio4 Saturday Review, interviews on various local BBC stations, RTE (Ireland), CBC Writers & Company (Canada), Talk Radio Europe (Spain)
• TV: BBC’s Culture Show; CBC Canada.