Henry Sutton is Professor of Creative Writing and Crime Fiction in the School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing. He is director of Creative Writing MA (Crime Fiction), and was Director of Creative Writing/Head of Department, 2018-2021. He has been a member of faculty since January 2012. Previously he was the UEA Creative Writing Fellow in 2008, Writer-In-Residence at BCLT, UEA Summer School 2009, and an associate tutor. He has taught all levels of undergraduate and postgraduate creative writing and supervises (and examines internationally) creative critical PhDs. He is the author of 14 novels - Good Dark Night (Corsair/Little Brown 2019) under the pseudonym Harry Brett, and The Hotel Inspector (Kampa Verlag, 2022) most recently. Other novels include My Criminal World (Harvill Secker/Vintage, 2013/2014), Get Me Out of Here (Harvill Secker 2010/Vintage 2011), and a collection of short stories, Thong Nation (Serpent's Tail, 2005). He is the co-author of the top 10 bestseller First Frost (Bantam/Corgi, 2011), under the pseudonym James Henry. His work has been published in many languages.

His critical work includes the co-edited, with Dr Laura Joyce, Domestic Noir: The New Face of 21st Century Crime Fiction, for Palgrave Macmillan (2018). He his currently working on a monograph for Manchester University Press on crime writing pedagogy. He is also series editor, with Dr Margot Douaihy (Franklin Pierce) and Dr Catherine Ross Nickerson (Emory), on 'Elements in Crime Narratives', a 30 short monograph series for Cambridge University Press. 

He is lead on UEA's Future and Form of Literature creative technology project funded by Arts Council England and other partners (www.futureandform.net). 

He was awarded the J. B. Priestley Award in 2004. Kids’ Stuff was the recipient of an Arts Council Writers’ Award in 2002, and was also made into a stage play in Riga, Latvia.

He is the co-founder and a director of the 'Noirwich Crime Writing Festival', run in partnership with the National Centre for Writing, and was previously the director of the UEA Literary Festival.

He has judged numerous literary awards, including the John Lewellyn Rhys Prize and the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year.  He has been the Literary Editor of Esquire magazine, and the Books Editor of the Daily Mirror. Originally he trained as a journalist.

Prose style, new narrative forms, narrative perspective and plot within the novel are particular interests; also, the ever evolving crime/thriller genre and concepts of contemporary literary value. Creative work currently centres on crime fiction, and the crime series (with particularly emphasis on the criminal perspective and setting), while critical work addresses the contemporary crime genre, social relevance and aspects of plot and new narrative forms.

Director of Creative Writing (Head of Department within the School of Literature, Drama and Creative Writing)

Convenor, MA in Creative Writing (Crime Fiction)

Admissions tutor, MA in Creative Writing (Crime Fiction)

Co-director 'Noirwich Crime Writing Festival', part of an Impact Case Study

British Archive for Contemporary Writing board member

Creative Writing Committee member

PGT Committee member