Susan Fletcher
Poet, Novelist
About
Susan Fletcher is the author of six novels. Her first, Eve Green, was started on her Creative Writing MA course at the University of East Anglia. Published by 4th Estate, it won the 2005 Whitbread first novel award, the Betty Trask award, and was shortlisted for the LA Times book award. It also featured on Richard and Judy’s book club where it was voted Best Summer Read. Her second novel, Oystercatchers, was published to acclaim in 2007; the Guardian called it ‘profound, beautiful and redemptive.’ Her third novel, Witch Light, was shortlisted for the John Llewellyn Rees prize in 2010. The Silver Dark Sea followed in 2012, with the Young Adults’ novel A Little in Love in 2013.
Fletcher’s fifth novel – Let Me Tell You About a Man I Knew – was published by Virago in June 2016.
Aside from novels, Fletcher is also a keen poet. Poetry and the natural world both heavily inform her work, thematically and stylistically. In 2013, she was approached by Hexham book festival’s ‘Words Across Northumberland’ initiative to document the impact of flooding in the area through poetic form. Her nonfiction articles have appeared in the Independent and the Scotsman, and she has taught on the Curtis Brown Creative scheme.
Fletcher is currently working on her seventh novel, as yet untitled, which will be released in 2018. She lives in Stratford-upon-Avon.
More from Susan Fletcher
Susan Fletcher on outsiders in fiction – literal and imagined
I’ve always known that I’ve preferred to be outside. To be an outsider – literally, and, specifically, amongst wild places…
Writing versus Life, part 1
In the first of a two-part exploration of the knotty problem of ‘Writing versus life’, Royal Literary Fund fellows discuss…
Susan Fletcher – Getting Published: What No One Tells You
Publication is wonderful — both euphoric and humbling. But in the days and weeks that follow a book’s release, I…
How I Write, part 2
In ‘How I Write’, RLF writers discuss the different tools and technologies that help them produce their work. In this…
My Favourite Book, part 4
In ‘My Favourite Book’, RLF writers explain what their favourite books have taught them about the craft of writing. In…
Susan Fletcher – Inspiration
I love maps for their own intrinsic beauty — their colours and outlines. I love them for helping me to…
Susan Fletcher – Life-changing Literature
I felt swept away by Ondaatje’s prose, as if by water — often I would need to climb ashore or…
Susan Fletcher – Being Genre Fluid
The definition of ‘literary fiction’ is strange, vague and controversial, and the term does a poor job, I feel, of…
Susan Fletcher – The Writing Life
Perhaps, above all, this is the aspect of the writing life that I was most surprised by, and had never…
Susan Fletcher – Rejection
My first novel was rejected by over twenty imprints before finding a home. That novel won prizes in the end,…
Susan Fletcher – Writer’s Block
I was not lacking ideas, rather I woke to find that I had lost the ability to express them. I…
Susan Fletcher – Why I Write
This purpose, that landed inside me at eleven years old, in the wildest part of Wales, has never left. I…
Susan Fletcher
Susan Fletcher speaks with Caroline Sanderson about choosing her settings, writing outdoors and her love of nature. Susan Fletcher speaks…
Susan Fletcher & Lucy Flannery
Susan Fletcher considers outsiderhood in life and fiction, and Lucy Flannery writes a novel by mistake. Susan Fletcher explores the…
The Six Lives
Susan Fletcher on why we find the lives of Henry VIII’s six queens so interesting. Susan Fletcher recalls the moment…
Are You Being Served?
How writers supplement the income they get from writing. Most writers need to support themselves financially, one reason why the…
Digging
Susan Fletcher discovers how writing resembles archeology. The connections between writing and digging – as explored in Seamus Heaney’s eponymous…
Susan Fletcher
Poet, Novelist
Posts
- University of Worcester, 2020–2023
- University of Worcester, 2016–2018