for academics
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Creative writers and marketing: some thoughts and observations
Marketing isn’t just about selling books—it’s about finding the right readers, refining your creative process, and sharing your work with confidence. In this blog, we explore marketing in the publishing industry through the lens of the writer as a healer, teacher, researcher, and reflective practitioner.
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Using publishing tools to create thriving creative writing communities and cultures
Publishing isn’t just about books—it’s about shaping identity, community, and activism. This blog explores how the MA Creative Writing and Education at Goldsmiths uses publishing as a pedagogical tool, from internal dialogues between the Writer, Publisher, and Healer within us, to global projects like GlobalGRACE and Creative Voices, which use storytelling, theatre, and art to amplify marginalised voices. Discover how publishing extends beyond the page to empower writers, challenge dominant narratives, and foster creative communities. Read more about how publishing can be a process of transformation, resistance, and education.
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Learning to write, publish and teach, all in one go!
This blog explores how learning to write, publish and teach can help creative writers in multiple ways; they can hone the craft of their writing and pedagogy by using publishing as a pedagogical tool. A truly innovative approach…
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Towards a methodology for creative writing educators to use publishing to develop their writing and teaching
An article which discusses how creative writing educators might develop their own methodologies so that they can become fruitful creative writers who use publishing to develop the literary and pedagogical practices that work for them.
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The History of Publishing in 7 Objects
This article explores the Publishing Industry in 7 objects. It starts with the dawn of humanity to the present day.
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Five key lessons about S.E. Hinton’s ‘The Outsiders’ and publishing
This article explores how and why outsiders, in the form of writers, readers and texts, came to shape the publishing industry, particularly Young Adult novels.
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Will Labour’s policy of adding VAT to private school fees improve educational standards?
This blog post briefly explores the benefits of reducing spending upon private education and boosting spending on public education. It includes an interview I did on LBC’s Iain Dale programme, December 2024.
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Towards boundary crossing: primary and secondary school teachers teaching creative writing and its redrafting
This academic article, written by Professor Tom Dobson and I, explores the research we did looking at primary and secondary school teachers attitudes towards creative writing and redrafting. This is a rare piece of research which compares primary and secondary school teachers’ approaches to teaching creative writing. It shows that primary school teachers can be formulaic in the way they teach creative writing, using product approaches. However, in secondary schools the picture is different: teachers, particularly those, who are writers themselves, give students more agency in redrafting and shaping their writing. This indicates how professional development should involve primary and secondary school teachers in dialogue with one another to cross boundaries of practice.
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Four reasons there is a Connected Curriculum at Goldsmiths
Why bring all the students at a university together to learn critical thinking and research skills?
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Of Note- Four Ways Taking Notes have Enriched My Life
Notes have helped me remember; they’re my safe space; they’re therapeutic; and they’ve liberated my imagination
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Freeing Creative Voice
An anthology investigating how educators, creatives, and learners can liberate and uplift their voices through writing, teaching, investigating, and intentional everyday living.
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Creative Power: Investigating Creative Writing & Its Value
An instructive and inspiring collection written by Masters’ students at Goldsmiths’ university, and pupils from South London schools. Essential reading for anyone interested in finding ways of thriving in a fractured world.
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Diversity and Inspiration: a fantastic anthology for creative writers & teachers
This book contains many tips for helping teachers of creative writing, written by my students on the MA Creative Writing and Education at Goldsmiths.
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Four ways education can make the world more socially just
Abstract or Description This article enumerates four ways that education can make the world more socially just, drawing upon the expertise of the educationalist in the Department of Educational Studies at Goldsmiths. Reference: Gilbert, Francis. 2024. Four ways education can make the world more socially just. Educational Studies blog, [Article] TextSocial Justice Feb 2024.pdf – Accepted VersionAvailable […]
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A Century of Teaching Creative Writing in Schools: the Newbolt Report and teaching creative writing
Newbolt strongly advocates imaginative ways of teaching writing, championing self-expression above rote-learning.
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Becoming the falconer: productive feedback for the redrafting of creative writing
Aspects of the neoliberal education system can preclude the development of young writers. Feedback can be unempathetic, but it can also be productive, creating an internal dialogue that develops the writer over time.
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‘I need you to jump out of your seat and go plant more flowers!’
What do primary school children in Lambeth want for their local parks? It’s February 2024, and a cold, rainy morning outside Hillmead Primary School, but inside their assembly hall, the Year 3/4 (8-9 year olds) pupils are happy and engaged. Some of their classmates are delivering speeches about what they want from their local parks […]
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Teaching Mindfulness in an Unmindful System
A case study of a mindfulness teacher, Beth, and her experiences of teaching mindfulness to 11- to 16-year-olds in several English schools
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Angela Kreeger: Subject of the miracle of modern medicine and psychoanalysis
It is a cold January Sunday afternoon in 2022, but Angela Kreeger’s living room feels gorgeous, and I’m eating far too many slices of a delicious almond cake.
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Why and how should we encourage young people to research their local parks and green spaces?
Our parks have a problem with young people. Older children, particularly those from poorer backgrounds, feel unwelcome and unfairly blamed for things like anti-social behaviour.