Sarah Moss Explained

Sarah Moss (born 1975)[1] is an English writer and academic. She has published six novels, as well as a number of non-fiction works and academic texts. Her work has been nominated three times for the Wellcome Book Prize.[2] She was appointed Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at University College Dublin's School of English, Drama and Film in the Republic of Ireland with effect from September 2020.[3]

Biography

Sarah Moss was born in Glasgow, Scotland, and at the age of two moved with her family to Manchester, where she lived until at the age of 18, when she went to study at the University of Oxford.[4] During the ten years she spent in Oxford, she earned a BA, Master of Studies and D.Phil in English Literature, and then held a postdoctoral research fellowship. From 2004 to 2009 she was a lecturer at the University of Kent. Following the publication in 2009 of her first novel, Cold Earth, Moss went to teach for a year at the University of Iceland. She then took up a post as Senior Lecturer in Literature and Place at University of Exeter's Penryn Campus in Cornwall, and subsequently moved to the University of Warwick, becoming Director of the Warwick Writing Programme, teaching creative writing.[5] [6]

Ghost Wall

Moss creates a motif of light at the outset of her Ondaatje Prize-nominated text, Ghost Wall, as a female character is brought out, ‘not blindfolded’, but with her ‘eyes widened’ to ‘the last light’ of the day and also quite possibly of her life. This foreshadowing narrative at the outset is an historic representation of a social evil that occurred in medieval England many centuries ago amongst those communities that practiced human sacrifice.

As the novel continues, we meet the Hampton family, who are involved in a re-enactment of life in northern England 2500 years ago, whilst the insidious influence of the racist and sexist Englishman Bill Hampton upon his wife Alison and his smart, seventeen-year-old Silvie, is slowly revealed.

This text is intended to 'shake up' the reader with its presentation of the nefarious role that personal power politics plays in domestic abuse, a highly pertinent theme for today.https://www.enhanceacademic.com.au/newtexts/

Awards

Moss's 2011 novel Night Waking won the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize. Her non-fiction book Names for the Sea: Strangers in Iceland was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature's Ondaatje Prize in 2013. In 2015 her novel Bodies of Light was shortlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize, and her novels Signs for Lost Children and The Tidal Zone were also shortlisted for the same award in 2016 and 2017 respectively. Her 2018 novel Ghost Wall was shortlisted for the Ondaatje Prize and the Polari Prize, and was longlisted for the 2019 Women's Prize for Fiction.[7] [8]

Bibliography

Novels

Non-fiction

Critical studies and reviews of Moss' work

Summerwater

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Notes

External links

Notes and References

  1. News: Interview: 'You can’t abandon your reader in a howling wasteland'. Sarah . Crown. The Guardian. 2 July 2016. 19 July 2020.
  2. Web site: Sarah Moss . Wellcome Book Prize .
  3. Web site: Acclaimed Author Sarah Moss to join UCD. 28 November 2019. UCD. 21 August 2020.
  4. Web site: About. Sarah Moss. 19 July 2020.
  5. Web site: Professor Sarah Moss . University of Warwick .
  6. Web site: About Sarah Moss. en-US. 3 November 2019.
  7. Web site: A Q&A with Sarah Moss. Women's Prize for Fiction.
  8. Web site: Sarah Moss. Women's Prize for Fiction. 19 July 2020.
  9. News: Cold Earth by Sarah Moss . Megan. Walsh. 11 June 2009. The Times .
  10. News: Night Waking . Louise . Welsh . 28 February 2011. Financial Times .
  11. News: Bodies of Light by Sarah Moss . Fiona. Wilson. 24 May 2014. The Times .
  12. News: Signs For Lost Children by Sarah Moss: An astute study of the sins of the mother. Lucy . Scholes. 23 July 2015 . The Independent .
  13. News: The Tidal Zone by Sarah Moss review – a portrait of parental anxiety . Penelope . Lively. 9 July 2016 . The Guardian .
  14. Web site: Sarah Moss: The Tidal Zone - Book review - The Skinny . 2024-11-17 . www.theskinny.co.uk . en.
  15. News: Sarah Moss's 'Ghost Wall,' a Slender Novel That Evokes Existential Dread. Margaret. Talbot. 2 January 2019 . The New Yorker.
  16. Web site: Summerwater by Sarah Moss. Pan Macmillan. en. 17 May 2020.
  17. Web site: The Fell by Sarah Moss. Pan Macmillan. en. 10 November 2021.
  18. Polar Research . 26 . 2 . 2007 . Review of Scott's last biscuit: the literature of polar exploration, by Sarah Moss . P. J.. Capelotti . 10.3402/polar.v26i2.6214 . free .
  19. Spilling the Beans: Eating, Cooking, Reading and Writing in British Women's Fiction, 1770–1830 . Claire . Grogan. European Journal of English Studies. 83–84 . 16. 1. 2012 . 10.1080/13825577.2012.655162 .
  20. News: Et cetera: Steven Poole's non-fiction roundup . Steven . Poole. 19 December 2009 . The Guardian .
  21. News: Names for the Sea: Strangers in Iceland by Sarah Moss – review . Kathleen . Jamie. 2 November 2012 . The Guardian .
  22. Web site: Brownrigg . Sylvia . October 25, 2024 . From a Novelist, a Chilling True Fable of Anorexia . 2 November 2024 . The New York Times.
  23. News: Peirson-Hagger . Ellen . 2024-09-15 . My Good Bright Wolf: A Memoir by Sarah Moss review – an interrogation of an eating disorder . 2024-11-17 . The Observer . en-GB . 0029-7712.
  24. Web site: Berry . Lorraine . 2024-10-24 . Two extraordinary memoirs chronicle the ways mental illness carves chasms in a life . 2024-11-17 . Los Angeles Times . en-US.
  25. Online version is titled "In Sarah Moss's fiction, there’s no holiday from history".

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