Andrew Cowan (born 1960) is an English novelist and nonfiction author, who directed the creative writing programme at the University of East Anglia in 2008–18.[1] His six novels include Pig (1994).
Biography
editAndrew Cowan was born in Corby, Northamptonshire, in 1960, and educated at Beanfield Comprehensive and the University of East Anglia (UEA).[2] He graduated from UEA with a BA in English & American Studies in 1983 and an MA in creative writing in 1985. His teachers on the MA were Malcolm Bradbury and Angela Carter.
He was a tutor for the Arvon Foundation, and later the Royal Literary Fund Writing Fellow at UEA for three years.[3] He was appointed to the UEA faculty in 2004,[4] and was the director of the UEA Creative Writing programme in 2008–18; he was promoted to a chair in 2012.[5] He retired in 2023.[2]
He is also a potter.[6]
Writings
editHis first novel, Pig (1994), won a Betty Trask Award, the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, the Authors' Club First Novel Award, a Scottish Arts Council Book Award, the Ruth Hadden Memorial Award, and was shortlisted for five other literary awards.[7] Common Ground (1996) and Crustaceans (2000) both received Arts Council bursaries.[citation needed] What I Know was the recipient of an Arts Council Writers' Award and was published in 2005.[citation needed] His fifth novel, Worthless Men, was published in 2013, and his sixth novel, Your Fault, in 2019.[8]
His creative writing guidebook, The Art of Writing Fiction, was published in 2011, with a revised edition appearing in 2023. His monograph Against Creative Writing was published in 2022.
References
edit- ^ "Author John Fowles's home to be used by student writers". BBC News. 9 May 2013. Retrieved 10 March 2021.
- ^ a b "Bio | Andrew Cowan website". www.andrew-cowan.com. Retrieved 26 September 2023.
- ^ "Andrew Cowan". Retrieved 20 August 2015.
- ^ "Teaching | Andrew Cowan website". www.andrew-cowan.com. Retrieved 26 September 2023.
- ^ "Creative Writing - UEA". www.uea.ac.uk. Retrieved 20 August 2015.
- ^ "Bio | Andrew Cowan website". www.andrew-cowan.com. Retrieved 26 September 2023.
- ^ Andrew Cowan (10 August 2002). "Paperback writer: From flop to top: How the fickle hand of publishing finally gave Andrew Cowan the thumbs up". The Guardian. p. 25.
- ^ McAloon, Jonathan (6 July 2019). "Your Fault: A snapshot of a vanishing postwar working-class world". Irish Times. Retrieved 10 March 2021.
