Fay Weldon

Fay Weldon is known as one of Britain’s most influential, best-read and versatile writers. As well as over 30 novels - her first in 1969 - she writes for stage, screen, opera, television and radio, and her work has been translated into most word languages. Her novel Life and Loves of a She Devil was a major Hollywood movie and a Bafta award-winning BBC series: she wrote the pilot episode of Upstairs-Downstairs, and her screen play of her opera version of Radiguet 's 1917 novel the Devil in the Flesh is currently in production in France. Her latest novel Kehua! (2011) has just been published to enthusiastic reviews. Her essays and reviews appear regularly in leading newspapers and journals in this country and abroad.  Her work travels and translates well she says, inasmuch as the three-way relationship between men, women and a rapidly changing society is pretty much the same everywhere.

She has a reputation, albeit a controversial one, as one of the formative influences in Britain's feminist revolution of the seventies and eighties. She has been awarded a doctorate of literature by several British universities.

Fay has a CBE for services to literature, and is a familiar face on British TV, and as a voice on BBC radio.

Research Interests

Research, for the writer, means the next book, play, article, lecture –mining the human condition for its resources. There is no end to the raw material available: the problem is only where to start digging. The top of a bus can be fruitful: so can a vox pop overheard in a news report. Your own life can be used, but comes with a severe warning – real life tends to make bad art.

Teaching Activity

Fay teaches creative writing to third year undergraduates, the Novel MA to postgraduates, and steers PhD students to their desired goal - for the most part that being publication. There are no rules when it comes to writing fiction, she says, only what works, what makes readers turn the page. No-one can make anyone a great writer if they don’t have it in them, but the art of using written language to good effect - whether in literary or genre fiction, writing a company report or a Health and Safety pamphlet- can be taught, and she much enjoys doing it.

Writing fiction is admittedly a highly competitive business, but the persuasive skills developed in learning how it’s done are also highly transferable – and are welcomed by employers not just within the publishing industry itself, but in government, the public service, advertising and so on.

Wikilink: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fay_Weldon

Recent novels include Kehua! (Corvus) 2010, an exercise in metafiction, Chalcot Crescent (Corvus) 2010,a dystopia with jokes, the Step Mother’s Diary (Quercus) 2009, a novel which reverses the traditional role of the wicked stepmother. She is currently working on a historical novel, Habits of the House, set in the last few weeks of 1899.

Publications

Journal Papers

(2009) Weldon, F., On assessing creative writing, New Writing: The International Journal for the Practice and Theory of Creative Writing 6 (3) : 168- 174

(2009) Weldon, F., Voices in the head, New Writing: The International Journal for the Practice and Theory of Creative Writing 6 (3) : 300- 305

Books

(Accepted) Weldon, F., Kehua!.

(2010) Weldon, F., Chalcot Crescent (Canadian trade p/b).

(2010) Weldon, F., Chalcot Crescent (The Netherlands). Uitgeverij Contact

(2010) Weldon, F., Livet for let øvede (Danish).

(2009) Weldon, F., Gestrikt [Mantrapped] (Germany).

(2009) Weldon, F., Chalcot Crescent (Trade p/b).

(2009) Weldon, F., Chalcot Crescent (Hard back).

(2009) Weldon, F., The Stepmother's Diary (airport edition).

(2009) Weldon, F., The Stepmother's Diary (Latvia). Lindhardt og Ringhof

(2009) Weldon, F., The life and loves of a she-devil (Estonia). Varrak

(2008) Weldon, F., The Stepmother's Diary (trade p/b: airport edition).

(2008) Weldon, F., The Spa Decameron.

(2008) Weldon, F., The stepmother's diary. Quercus Books

(2008) Weldon, F., The life and loves of a she-devil (China). Net and Books Co

(2005) Weldon, F., She may not leave. London: Fourth Estate

(2004) Weldon, F., Mantrapped. London: Fourth Estate

(2001) Weldon, F., The Bulgari connection. London: Flamingo