Past Events
Seminar Series: Helen Foster, Telling Tales
- Venue: Armstrong Building G.08, Newcastle University
- Start: Wed, 12 Dec 2018 17:30:00 GMT
- End: Wed, 12 Dec 2018 19:00:00 GMT
Oral history archives are a rich source of inspiration for creative writers. According to anthropologists, such as Tedlock (1983), ‘conversational narratives THEMSELVES […] / have poetical qualities of their OWN’. Voices from the past spark creative journeys through metaphor and imagery; they lend authenticity to fiction through representations of place and language, such as accent, dialect and regional idioms.
In writing a novel for my PhD, set against the historical backdrop of the East Midlands machine-lace industry, I drew on an archive of oral testimonies from machine-lace workers recorded in the 1980s, to reimagine an early twentieth-century (fictional) lace town. This presentation will explore my engagement with this archive and the challenges I encountered as a writer, as well as the creative possibilities.
Helen Foster is an AHRC-funded PhD candidate in Creative Writing at the University of Strathclyde. Her practiceled research explores how a writer can draw on extant oral histories as an inspiration for historical fiction. Her research interests include oral history archives and their interpretation, fictional place-making, verbatim and found poetry and reminiscence practice. Her short fiction has been published by Mslexia magazine and her novel is currently out on submission to publishers.
The Oral History Seminar Series brings leading figures in the field of oral history to Newcastle to discuss their work and the ideas that inform it. Each event aims to provide a thought-provoking forum for conversation and debate. Whatever your experience or interest in oral history, we will be pleased to see you there.