Lucy Newlyn

{{Infobox writer

|name = Lucy Newlyn

|image = Newlyn.JPG

|caption = Lucy Newlyn

|image_size = 200px

|birth_date = {{birth year and age|1956}}

|occupation = Literary critic, poet, professor at Oxford University

|alma_mater = Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford University

|subject = Poetry, Romanticism, Reception theory, Intertextuality

|education = Lawnswood High School

}}

Lucy Newlyn (born 1956) is a poet and academic. She is Emeritus Fellow in English at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, having retired as a professor of English Language and Literature at the University of Oxford in 2016.

Newlyn is a specialist in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century poetry.{{cite web |last1=Newlyn |first1=Lucy |title=Professor (Emeritus Fellow) |url=https://www.seh.ox.ac.uk/people/lucy-newlyn |website=St Edmund Hall |access-date=16 October 2020}}

Early life and education

Lucy Newlyn was born in 1956 in Kampala, Uganda.{{Cite web|title = Carcanet Press - Lucy Newlyn|url = http://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?owner_id=524|website = www.carcanet.co.uk|access-date = 6 November 2015}} She grew up in Leeds, where she attended Lawnswood High School, winning an open scholarship to read English at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, in 1974. She took up her Oxford place in 1975 and graduated with a congratulatory first in 1978. Her D.Phil. thesis, supervised by Dr Roy Park, was later published as an Oxford English Monograph by Oxford University Press.{{Cite web|title = Coleridge, Wordsworth, and the Language of Allusion: Paperback: Luc – Oxford University Press|url = http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199242597.do|website = ukcatalogue.oup.com|access-date = 7 November 2015}}

Career

In 1984 (after a year as a lecturer at Christ Church) Newlyn took up a Stipendiary Lectureship at St Edmund Hall.{{cite web |last1=Newlyn |first1=Lucy |title=St Edmund Hall |url=https://www.seh.ox.ac.uk/people/lucy-newlyn |access-date=16 October 2020}} Two years later, she was elected as the A.C. Cooper Fellow and Tutor in English there – a permanent post which she held in conjunction with a CUF Lecturership in the Oxford English Faculty. Newlyn gained the title Professor of English Language and Literature in 2005.{{cite web |last1=Newlyn |first1=Lucy |title=Professor of English Language and Literature |url=https://www.seh.ox.ac.uk/people/lucy-newlyn |access-date=16 October 2020}} She is Honorary Professor at the University of Aberystwyth, an Advisory Editor of the journal Romanticism,{{Cite web|title = Editorial Board - Edinburgh University Press|url = http://www.euppublishing.com/page/rom/editorialBoard|website = www.euppublishing.com|access-date = 6 November 2015}} a Fellow of the English Association,{{Cite web|title = Wordsworth's Power to "Think Into the Human Heart": A Q &A with Lucy Newlyn {{!}} Priscilla Gilman|url = http://priscillagilman.com/2014/01/wordsworths-power-to-think-into-the-human-heart-a-q-a-with-lucy-newlyn/|website = priscillagilman.com|access-date = 6 November 2015}} and a Patron of the Wordsworth Trust.{{Cite web|title = Patrons of the Wordsworth Trust - Wordsworth Trust|url = https://www.wordsworth.org.uk/support-us/supporters/patrons.html|website = www.wordsworth.org.uk|access-date = 7 November 2015}} She was literary editor of The Oxford Magazine from 2011 to 2018.{{Cite web|title = Home {{!}} St Edmund Hall|url = https://www.seh.ox.ac.uk/users/lucynewlyn|website = www.seh.ox.ac.uk|access-date = 8 November 2015}} She was co-founder, with Stuart Estell, of the Hall Writers' Forum, an online resource launched in 2013 for the exchange of writing and discussion of literature and the arts.{{Cite web|title = Hall Writers' Forum {{!}} St Edmund Hall|url = https://www.seh.ox.ac.uk/about-college/hall-writers-forum|website = www.seh.ox.ac.uk|access-date = 7 November 2015}} In 2015, she led the campaign to elect Wole Soyinka as Oxford Professor of Poetry.{{Cite web|url=https://www.seh.ox.ac.uk/news/election-oxford-professor-poetry-hall%E2%80%99s-english-fellow-leads-campaign-wole-soyinka|title=Election of the Oxford Professor of Poetry: Hall's English Fellow leads campaign for Wole Soyinka {{!}} St Edmund Hall|website=www.seh.ox.ac.uk|access-date=23 February 2017}}

Work

Lucy Newlyn's longstanding research interests are eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century literature, especially poetry and non-fictional prose in the Romantic period; influences on Romanticism; the reception of Romanticism; creativity and multiple authorship; allusion and intertextuality; reader-response and reception theory.{{Cite web|title = Newlyn, Lucy {{!}} Faculty of English|url = http://www.english.ox.ac.uk/about-faculty/faculty-members/romantic-period/newlyn-professor-lucy|website = www.english.ox.ac.uk|access-date = 8 November 2015}} She is an authority on Wordsworth and Coleridge, and has published extensively in the field of English Romantic literature, including four books with Oxford University Press and the Cambridge Companion to Coleridge.{{Cite web|title = Search Results - Oxford University Press|url = https://global.oup.com/academic/search?q=lucy+newlyn&cc=us&lang=en|website = global.oup.com|access-date = 8 November 2015}}{{Cite web|url=http://universitypublishingonline.org/cambridge/companions/ebook.jsf?bid=CBO9780511999352|title=The Cambridge Companion to Coleridge|website=universitypublishingonline.org|access-date=8 November 2015}} Her book Reading, Writing, and Romanticism: The Anxiety of Reception won the British Academy’s Rose Mary Crawshay prize in 2001: 'a signal contribution to British Romantic studies and literary theory'.{{Cite web|title = Rose Mary Crawshay Prize 2001 - British Academy|url = http://www.britac.ac.uk/about/medals/Rose_Mary_Crawshay_Prize_2001.cfm|website = www.britac.ac.uk|access-date = 8 November 2015}}

Since 2003, Newlyn has been researching the prose of Edward Thomas. Her edition of his book Oxford came out in 2005.{{cite book|author=Edward Thomas|title=Oxford|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=E0WxDlKNAKsC|year=2005|publisher=Signal Books|isbn=978-1-902669-85-4|pages=ix-lvi}} This was followed by several articles on Thomas, as well as Branch-Lines: Edward Thomas and Contemporary Poetry, co-edited with Guy Cuthbertson.{{cite book|author=Edward Thomas|title=Branch-lines: Edward Thomas and Contemporary Poetry|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-HNlAAAAMAAJ|year=2008|publisher=Enitharmon Press|isbn=978-1-904634-35-5}} She is general co-editor of Edward Thomas, Selected Prose Writings, a six-volume edition for Oxford University Press.{{Cite book|title = Edward Thomas: Prose Writings: A Selected Edition: Guy Cuthbertson - Oxford University Press|url = http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199558261.do|website = ukcatalogue.oup.com|series = Edward Thomas Prose Writing Selected Edition|date = 17 December 2011|publisher = Oxford University Press|isbn = 978-0-19-955826-1|access-date = 8 November 2015}} Together, she and Cuthbertson edited England and Wales. Newlyn's 2013 scholarly work, her book William and Dorothy Wordsworth: All in Each Other (2013), brought together many of her research interests.{{Cite book|title = William and Dorothy Wordsworth: Hardback: Lucy Newlyn - Oxford University Press|url = http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199696390.do|website = ukcatalogue.oup.com|date = December 2013|publisher = Oxford University Press|isbn = 978-0-19-969639-0|access-date = 8 November 2015}}

Poetry

Newlyn is a published poet and anthologist, as well as an academic. Her first collection, Ginnel (Oxford Poets/Carcanet, 2005) concerns her ‘intense local attachment’ to the streets and alleys of Headingley in Leeds, where she grew up.{{Cite web|title = Carcanet Press - Ginnel|url = http://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?product=9781903039748|website = www.carcanet.co.uk|access-date = 19 November 2015}} ‘Baking’ was ‘Highly Commended’ by the judges of the Forward Prize and re-printed in The Forward Book of Poetry (Faber and Faber, 2005).{{cite web |title = Professor Lucy Newlyn |url=https://www.seh.ox.ac.uk/people/lucy-newlyn |website=St Edmund Hall |access-date=16 October 2020}} Poems from the collection have also appeared in The Guardian, The Independent, The Yorkshire Post, Oxford Today, The English Review, and The Oxford Magazine.{{Cite web|title = Eleven-plus by Lucy Newlyn|url = https://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/jul/16/featuresreviews.guardianreview14|website = The Guardian|date = 16 July 2005|access-date = 19 November 2015}} A recording of Ginnel, read by Sherry Baines, has been published as a ‘Daisy Book’ CD by the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB).

Newlyn's second collection, Earth's Almanac (Enitharmon Press, 2015) was written in the fifteen years after the death of her sister.{{Cite web|title = Earth's Almanac|url =https://enitharmon.co.uk/product/earths-almanac-lucy-newlyn/|website = Enitharmon Editions|access-date = 17 August 2020}} In 2019, Newlyn's collection of 135 sonnets about the Wordsworths, Vital Stream, was published by Carcanet, in association with the Wordsworth Trust. In 2020, Newlyn's collection, The Marriage Hearse, was published by Maytree Press.{{cite web|title = The Marriage Hearse|url=https://maytreepress.co.uk/2020/02/14/the-marriage-hearse/ |website = Maytree Press|date=14 February 2020 |access-date = 17 August 2020}} The collection explores the impact of infertility on an imaginary Edwardian couple.

In 2021, she published The Craft of Poetry: A Primer in Verse, a handbook on how to write poetry, written as poetry,{{Cite web|url=https://yalebooks.co.uk/display.asp?K=9780300251913|title=The Craft of Poetry by Lucy Newlyn}} and in 2022, her collection Quicksilver was published by Lapwing Publications in Belfast.[http://www.lapwingpoetry.com Quicksilver]

In addition to her own poetry, Newlyn has published several anthologies of poetry and coordinated a number of collaborative writing projects. Together with Jenny Lewis, she was awarded a grant from Oxford University’s Institute for the Advancement of University Learning in 2002 to undertake research based on workshops at St Edmund Hall.{{Cite web|title = Wednesday Workshops {{!}} St Edmund Hall|url = https://www.seh.ox.ac.uk/about-college/wednesday-workshops|website = www.seh.ox.ac.uk|access-date = 19 November 2015}} Their findings (together with the students’ writing) were published in Synergies: Creative Writing in Academic Practice (2003; 2004).{{Cite web|title = Imaginative leap|url = https://www.theguardian.com/education/2003/jun/24/highereducation.news|website = The Guardian|date = 24 June 2003|access-date = 19 November 2015}} Newlyn was poet-in-residence for The Guardian in November 2005.{{Cite web|title = Lucy Newlyn's workshop|url = https://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/nov/21/poetry|website = The Guardian|date = 21 November 2005|access-date = 19 November 2015}} She ran university workshops on ‘The Craft of Writing’ with Christopher Ricks during his tenure as Professor of Poetry; between 2001 and 2016 she ran regular writing workshops for students at St Edmund Hall. Her Facebook group The Craft of Poetry was a writing workshop which ran for one year after the publication of that book.

Memoir

Newlyn's personal experience of bipolar disorder is described in her fifteen-year memoir, Diary of a Bipolar Explorer.{{Cite web|url=https://www.signalbooks.co.uk/2017/10/diary-of-a-bipolar-explorer/|title=Signal Books {{!}} Diary of a Bipolar Explorer|website=www.signalbooks.co.uk|language=en-US|access-date=2018-04-28}} The book combines poetry with prose, and seeks to de-stigmatise mental illness.{{Cite news|url=https://toofulltowrite.com/2018/04/14/author-interview-lucy-newlyn/|title=Author Interview – Lucy Newlyn – Diary of a Bipolar Explorer (Mental Illness/Memoir/Poetry & Prose)|date=2018-04-14|work=toofulltowrite (I've started so I'll finish)|access-date=2018-04-28|language=en-US}}

Personal life

Married to economist Martin Slater, Lucy Newlyn has two step children and one daughter.{{Cite web|title = Carcanet Press - Lucy Newlyn|url = http://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?owner_id=524|website = www.carcanet.co.uk|access-date = 24 November 2015}}

Selected publications

{{Cite book|title = Coleridge's Imagination: Essays in Memory of Pete Laver|publisher = Cambridge University Press|year = 1985|isbn = 9780521033992|location = Cambridge|editor-last = Newlyn|editor-first = Lucy|editor-last2 = Gravil|editor-first2 = Richard|editor-last3 = Roe|editor-first3 = Nicholas}}
{{Cite book|title = Coleridge, Wordsworth, and the Language of Allusion = registration|last = Newlyn|first = Lucy|publisher = Oxford University Press|year = 1986|isbn = 9780199242597|location = Oxford|edition = 2001 paperback}}
{{Cite book|title = "Paradise Lost" and the Romantic Reader|last = Newlyn|first = Lucy|publisher = Oxford University Press|year = 1993|isbn = 9780199242580|location = Oxford|edition = 2001 paperback}}
{{Cite book|title = Reading, Writing, and Romanticism: The Anxiety of Reception|last = Newlyn|first = Lucy|publisher = Oxford University Press|year = 2000|isbn = 9780198187110|location = Oxford|series = Winner of the British Academy's Rose Mary Crawshay prize, 2001|edition = 2003 paperback}}
{{Cite book|title = The Cambridge Companion to Coleridge|publisher = Cambridge University Press|year = 2002|isbn = 9780521659093|location = Cambridge|editor-last = Newlyn|editor-first = Lucy = registration}}
{{Cite book|title = Synergies: Creative Writing in Academic Practice|publisher = Holywell Press|year = 2002|isbn = 9780954508401|location = Oxford|editor-last = Newlyn|editor-first = Lucy|editor-last2 = Lewis|editor-first2 = Jenny|volume = 1}}
{{Cite book|title = Synergies: Creative Writing in Academic Practice|publisher = Holywell Press|year = 2004|isbn = 9780954508401|location = Oxford|editor-last = Newlyn|editor-first = Lucy|editor-last2 = Lewis|editor-first2 = Jenny|volume = 2}}
{{Cite book|title = Ginnel|last = Newlyn|first = Lucy|publisher = Carcanet|year = 2005|isbn = 9781903039748|series = Oxford Poets}}
{{Cite book|title = Edward Thomas: Oxford|publisher = Signal Books|year = 2005|isbn = 1902669851|editor-last = Newlyn|editor-first = Lucy}}
{{Cite book|title = Branch-Lines: Edward Thomas and Contemporary Poetry|publisher = Enitharmon|year = 2007|isbn = 9781904634355|editor-last = Newlyn|editor-first = Lucy|editor-last2 = Cuthbertson|editor-first2 = Guy}}
{{Cite book|title = Edward Thomas: Prose Writings: A Selected Edition, England and Wales|publisher = Oxford University Press|year = 2011|isbn = 9780199558261|location = Oxford|editor-last = Newlyn|editor-first = Lucy|editor-last2 = Cuthbertson|editor-first2 = Guy|volume = 2}}
{{Cite book|title = William and Dorothy Wordsworth: 'All in Each Other'|last = Newlyn|first = Lucy|publisher = Oxford University Press|year = 2013|isbn = 9780199696390|location = Oxford}}
{{Cite book|title = Earth's Almanac|last = Newlyn|first = Lucy|publisher = Enitharmon|year = 2015|isbn = 9781910392102}}
{{Cite news|url=https://www.timeshighereducation.com/opinion/selecting-oxfords-professor-of-poetry-should-not-be-trial-by-media|title=Selecting Oxford's professor of poetry should not be trial by media|last=Newlyn|first=Lucy|date=9 July 2015|newspaper=Times Higher Education}}
{{Cite book|title=Dorothy Wordsworth: The Grasmere Journal|publisher=The Folio Society|year=2016|editor-last=Newlyn|editor-first=Lucy}}
{{Cite book|title=May Their Shadows Never Shrink: Wole Soyinka and the Oxford Professorship of Poetry|publisher=Ayebia Clarke|year=2016|isbn=9780992843670|editor-last=Newlyn|editor-first=Lucy|location=Banbury|editor-last2=Agyeman-Duah|editor-first2=Ivor}}
{{Cite book|title = Diary of a Bipolar Explorer|last = Newlyn|first = Lucy|publisher = Signal Books|year = 2018|isbn = 9781909930636|location =Oxford }}
{{Cite book|title = Vital Stream|last = Newlyn|first = Lucy|publisher = Carcanet|year = 2019|isbn = 9781909930636|location =Manchester }}
{{Cite book|title = The Marriage Hearse|last = Newlyn|first = Lucy|publisher = Maytree Press|year = 2020|isbn = 9781916038196|location = }}
{{Cite book|title = The Craft of Poetry: A Primer in Verse|last = Newlyn|first = Lucy|publisher = Yale University Press|year = 2021|isbn = 9780300251913|location =New Haven and London}}
{{Cite book|title = Quicksilver|last = Newlyn|first = Lucy|publisher = Lapwing Publications|year = 2022|isbn = 9781739793883|location =Belfast }}