City of University London - The centre for creative writing
As the Crime Thriller Novels MA launches in September 2012, we are currently assembling the teaching staff but we confidently expect our tutors to boast as much teaching experience and as many published works as the teaching staff for the Literary Novels MA. So far, on the team are:Martyn Waites was born and raised in Newcastle Upon Tyne. Before becoming a writer he worked as a barman, market trader, stand up comic and most notably as an actor. His first novel, Mary's Prayer, a hard-hitting gangland thriller set in the North East of England, came out in 1997. The second, Little Triggers, appeared a year later. A third, Candleland, followed in 2000. He then turned away from crime fiction and wrote a novel based around the miners' strike and its legacy, the critically acclaimed Born Under Punches. The White Room, set in Newcastle in the 1960s and based on the life of pre-teen child killer Mary Bell came out in 2004 and was one of The Guardian's books of the year. Bolstered by a CWA Dagger Award nomination in 2006 he began the Joe Donovan crime series, which features troubled investigative journalist Joe Donovan and his team.
His short stories have appeared in American anthologies such as World's Finest Mystery And Crime Stories and the forthcoming London Noir and his journalism in publications as far-ranging as Bizarre and The Big Issue to The Bookseller and the magazine for The Howard League For Penal Reform. He has co-written (along with actor/writer Robert Horwell) his first film script, Cold Harbour, and is hopeful that production will start on this very soon.
Martyn has taught on the MA in Creative Writing at Anglia Ruskin and also held two writing residencies, one at Huntercombe Young Offenders Insitution and one at HMP Chelmsford. He is, in partnership with Linda Waites, also Tania Carver.
Roger N. Morris is the author of a series of historical crime novels set in St Petersburg and featuring Porfiry Petrovich, the detective from Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment: including A Vengeful Longing (shortlisted for the 2008 Duncan Lawrie Gold Dagger) and The Cleansing Flames (shortlisted for the 2011 Ellis Peters Historical Dagger). His latest novel is Summon Up The Blood.Visit Roger N. Morris' website to find out more.