Clare Fisher

School of English

Lecturer in Creative Writing

Clare Fisher 2023 photo
Clare Fisher 2023 photo
Profile picture of Clare Fisher 2023 photo
clare.fisher@sheffield.ac.uk

Full contact details

Clare Fisher
School of English
Jessop West
1 Upper Hanover Street
Sheffield
S3 7RA
Profile

I'm a writer of contemporary literary fiction and creative non-fiction. My first novel, All the Good Things, was published by Viking in 2017 and won a Betty Trask Award. My short story collection, How the Light Gets In, was published in 2018 by Influx Press and longlisted for the Edgehill Short Story Award and the International Dylan Thomas Prize. My second collection of short fiction, The Moon is Trending, was published by Salt in 2023. My work has been translated into over six languages and has been published in journals such as TOLKA, The London Magazine, Lithub, Gertrude Press, and 3:AM. 

In 2023, I completed a practice-led PhD in Creative Writing, funded by the AHRC, at the University of Leeds. Titled, Awkward Positions: Experiments with Failure in Creative Writing, it uses queer theory and experimental writing methods to illuminate and subvert narratives of success and failure in contemporary publishing and Creative Writing Studies. It pays particular attention to the paradoxes of trying and failing to write from and with the body by placing critical and creative methodologies of reading and writing into productively awkward relation to one another. 

I have taught Creative Writing at the University of Leeds, Queen Mary University London, Goldsmiths College, University of London, and Leeds Arts University; I've also taught in schools, art galleries, community centres, and in a women's prison. I was a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the School of Law, University of Leeds, 2019 - 21. 
 

Qualifications

PhD in Creative Writing, University of Leeds (2023)
MA in Creative and Life Writing at Goldsmiths College, University of London (2011)
BA (Hons) in History at Exeter College, University of Oxford (2009)

Research interests

My research focuses on the methods and methodologies of contemporary prose writing. Whilst my background is primarily in fiction, I have become increasingly interested in creative non-fiction, creative-critical, hybrid, and otherwise category-resistant, prose. I am particularly interested interested in writing which foregrounds the difficulties, ambiguities and paradoxes of writing through and with the body, and for the implications of such a writing for established methodologies of reading in both Creative Writing and Literary Studies. I'm also interested in cross-disciplinary collaboration, the possibilities it provides for creative experimentation, and the relationship between such experiments and the numerous structural crises which mark the contemporary moment. 

I am open to new practice-led PhD projects in relevant fields. I am currently co-supervising a number of projects including queer fiction, experimental memoir, Buddhist science fiction, and reimagined illness narratives.

Publications

Books

  • FISHER C (2023) MOON IS TRENDING.. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Fisher CS (2018) How the Light Gets In. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Fisher C (2018) All the Good Things. RIS download Bibtex download

Journal articles

Chapters

  • Fisher C (2022) WTAF In Chandler J (Ed.), PROTOTYPE 4 (pp. 94-95). London: Prototype publishing. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Fisher C (2020) 'People Also Ask' (prose poetry) In Porter R (Ed.), A Queer Anthology of Wilderness RIS download Bibtex download

Exhibitions

  • Schrimshaw W & Fisher C (2023, November 13) Cracked and Blessed. Sheffield Cathedral. RIS download Bibtex download

Other

  • Fisher C (2023) Caterpillar. RIS download Bibtex download
Teaching interests

I currently convene the following modules: 

Undergraduate:
- EGH225: Writing Fiction 2: Short Fiction: Genre and Experiment
- EGH343: Writing Fiction 3: Creative and Destructive Writing

Postgraduate:
- EGH440: Fiction, Genre, Theory - Bodies and Landscapes
- EGH441:Prose, Ekphrasis, Ritual Writing - Prose Transformations

I also lecture on Mod Cons: Exploring the Long 20th Century and supervise creative writing dissertations at UG and MA level. 

Professional activities and memberships

External Examiner in Creative Writing, University of Manchester
Fellow of the Higher Education Association 
Bridge Fellow, Royal Literary Fund