Hannah Vincent

Hannah Vincent is an award-winning playwright. She has also written two novels, Alarm Girl (2014) and The Weaning (2018) and a short story collection, She Clown & Other Stories (2020), which was shortlisted for the 2021 Edgehill Prize.

Hannah’s second novel, The Weaning formed the creative component of her PhD in Creative and Critical Writing, awarded by the University of Sussex in 2019. Her thesis explores female autobiographic practice. She has presented papers at numerous academic conferences and co-authored a book chapter on female mobility in London novels with Dr Lesley Murray, University of Brighton (in Researching and Representing Mobilities, Palgrave 2014).

Hannah teaches Creative Writing for the Open University and wrote course materials for the script strand of their MA. She also teaches for The Creative Writing Programme and co-designed their Creative Non-Fiction modules. Earlier in her career, she worked as a BBC Drama television script editor on original series (Babyfather, Close Relations) and classic adaptations (Great Expectations, Crime and Punishment). Her own radio drama Come to Grief, a version of a stage play she wrote while writer-in-residence at the Royal National Theatre Studio, won the 2015 BBC Audio award for ‘best adaptation’.

Hannah’s first stage play was an adaptation of Kafka’s short story ‘The Burrow’ (Comparative Criticism, Cambridge University Press 1992) and was produced as part of the Royal Court Young Writers Festival. It was subsequently performed at the Sydney Opera House as part of a British Council tour to the 1988 International Festival of Young Playwrights. She went on to write several plays in the Joint Stock method, which makes use of personal testimony to create character. This gave her an interest in nurturing the individual voice, an interest she brings to her work as a Royal Literary Fund Fellow.

Hannah is a novelist, short story writer and playwright. She has a PhD from the University of Sussex and was Royal Literary Fund Fellow at the University of Sussex and then at the University of Brighton, working with undergraduate and post-graduate students across a wide range of subjects including History, Psychology, Paramedic Science, Zoology, Economics and Art History. She is now an Advisory Fellow, supporting colleagues at Sussex, Brighton, Kent and Chichester universities. Her work for the RLF Bridge scheme demonstrates her belief that with clear, practical advice and trust in the writing process, writing well is possible for everyone.