Rosalind Brown

Rosalind (Ros) Brown is a Creative-Critical PhD candidate at the University of East Anglia. Her project investigates the theme of discipline as a lived experience and as a literary quality. She is writing two novels about different aspects of discipline and self-discipline – the first following a young woman trying to stick to a strict, solitary routine in her undergraduate bedroom; and the second picking up her story years later when she decides to undertake a silent retreat at a country estate. The critical component of her PhD argues that a discourse of 'writerly discipline' is particularly prevalent in late twentieth-century and twenty-first century discussions about creative writing, and reveals hidden assumptions about what 'good writing' is, and even about the nature of creativity and writing itself.

Before studying for the MA in Creative Writing at UEA, Ros worked as an English teacher in secondary schools and then in alumni fundraising and communications. Her short fiction has appeared in Lighthouse (2016), Best British Short Stories 2017 (2017), and Ambit (2018).

Ros was one of the organisers of Love Takes Risks: The Poetics of Contemporary Small-Press Fiction, a symposium at UEA in March 2019.

2005-08 - BA in English Language and Literature (first class), University of Oxford

2009-10 - PGDE in Secondary Education (English), University of Edinburgh

2014-16 - MA in Creative Writing (Prose) (distinction), University of East Anglia

• Lived and fictionalised experiences of discipline in contemporary and historical contexts (monastic, scholarly, sexual)
• The theory of 'discipline' and as a writerly and stylistic quality

Ongoing interests:

• Wildlife and the countryside, nature writing, agriculture and rural enterprise
• Art music and music performance
• Sexuality studies, masochism studies