Staff Profile
Caleb Klaces
Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing and English Literature
I am a poet and novelist. I teach across the undergraduate Creative Writing programmes, and supervise postgraduate projects in both poetry and prose.
My most recent book is the poetry collection, Away From Me (Protoype, 2021). In 2019 I published a novel, Fatherhood (Prototype), which won a Northern Fiction Award and was longlisted for the Republic of Consciousness Prize. My first poetry collection, Bottled Air (Eyewear, 2013), won the Melita Hume Prize and an Eric Gregory Award from the Society of Authors.
With my colleague Rebecca Tamás, I run the York Centre for Writing Poetry Series, which holds regular events on campus with BAME, queer, and working class writers.
I am particularly keen to hear from postgraduate students who are interested in writing between forms, ecology and literature, new approaches to globalisation and representations of complexity and scale.
- School – School of Humanities
- Email – c.klaces@yorksj.ac.uk
- Phone – 01904 876 689
- Research - View my work in RaY
- Postgraduate Research Supervisor
Further information
Teaching
I convene and/or teach on the following modules:
- Forms of Narrative
- Introduction to Creative Writing
- Writing to Order
- Introduction to Literary Studies
- Writing Fiction
- Writing Poetry
- Creative Research in Practice
- Dissertation projects
I also teach on postgraduate modules including:
- The Contemporary Writer
- Critical Approaches to Creative Writing
- MA Dissertation projects
Research
My current research has 2 main areas of focus. I am working on ideas first developed in the project ‘GM Hopkins: Genetically Modifying Poetry Fit for the 21st Century’, in which I collaborated with two talented York St John students to ‘genetically modify’ poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins, using a Python computer programme.
The other project focuses on representations of ageing and dementia in fiction. This began (for me) with a short story, 'You', broadcast on Radio 4. Some recent discussions around this work include ‘The Ethics of Writing Dementia Fiction’ at the Dementia Fiction Festival, 2021 and the Institute for Social Justice Podcast ‘Dementia, Personhood and Social Justice: The Role of Creativity’ with Helen Pleasance and Lucy Burke.
Publications
Books
Away From Me (Prototype 2021)
Fatherhood (Prototype 2019)
Bottled Air (Eyewear 2013)
Journal articles
‘Ben Lerner’s 10:04 and Climate Change’ (Textual Practice 2020)
Recent short stories
‘You’ (Radio 4 Short Works 2020)
‘Camelot’ (Granta 2020)
‘Love Story’ (Hotel 2019)
Talks and readings
Festivals and conferences including the BBC Proms, Conference of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (United States of America), Maastricht International Poetry Nights, Aldeburgh, Ledbury and Port Eliot.
Professional activities
I am an External Examiner for the MFA in Creative Writing at St Andrews University.