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Mr Luke Williams

  • Overview

    Overview

    Biography

    Luke Williams is a lecturer teaching prose fiction and creative-critical work across all Birkbeck’s Creative Writing programmes. He has been involved, since its initiation, in Birkbeck’s Compass project, which supports people with backgrounds in forced migrancy who would like to continue their education at university. He works within literary, visual art and community contexts, and tries to integrate these elements in his practice.

    Luke is a graduate of the MA in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, where he met Natasha Soobramanien, with whom he now co-writes. Their novel Diego Garcia was published jointly by Fitzcarraldo Editions and Semiotext(e) in 2022 and won that year's Goldsmith's Prize. Their collaboration began with Luke’s first novel The Echo Chamber (Hamish Hamilton/Penguin 2011), for which Natasha wrote two chapters. The novel won the 2011 Saltire Award for Best First Book.

    Luke has been involved in a number of public projects engaged with the contested space between literature and art, such as the events series Plastic Words at Raven Row.

    Constituting publics and considering forms of community are increasingly central to his practice. In this he is influenced by Black Studies scholarship. Collaborative writing is one of the ways in which he tries to push back against forms of individualism.

    His experience of community projects began with Akwaaba, a social centre for refugees and migrants in Hackney, where he first worked on a bike maintenance project before setting up a storytellers’ group. The group went on to develop a collaborative text which was performed at Stoke Newington Literary Festival, and subsequently published in Tales of Two Londons.  


    Honours and awards

    • Goldsmith's Prize, Goldsmith's, September 2022
    • Saltire First Novel of the Year, Saltire Society Literary Awards, September 2011
  • Research

    Research

    Research overview

    Luke's research interests are collaborative writing, creative-critical writing and politics and narratives of migration. 

  • Supervision and teaching

    Supervision and teaching

    Supervision

    Current doctoral researchers

    • ROGELIO BRAGA

    Doctoral alumni since 2013-14

    • LILY DUNN

    Teaching

    Teaching modules

    • Fiction Workshop: The Contemporary Novel (AREN139S6)
    • Writing The Self (AREN238S7)
  • Publications

    Publications

    Article

    • Williams, Luke and Soobramanien, N. (2018) Emergency. Animal Shelter 5, pp. 151-164.
    • Williams, Luke and Soobramanien, N. (2017) G.. Starshipt 16, pp. 81-83.
    • Williams, Luke (2016) Individualism. BOMB Magazine 134, pp. 82-90. ISSN 0743-3204.
    • Williams, Luke and Soobramanien, N. (2016) The Swedish café. EROS 7, ISSN 2048-8351.
    • Williams, Luke and Soobramanien, N. (2014) Debt. The White Review 12, pp. 109-124.

    Book

    • Soobramanien, N. and Williams, Luke (2022) Diego Garcia: a novel. London: Fitzcarraldo Editions. ISBN 9781913097936.
    • Williams, Luke and Soobramanien, N. and Douglas Millar, J. and Musgrave, D. and Skrebowski, L. and Bailey, L., eds. (2015) Plastic words. London: Publication Studio. ISBN 9780993240508.
    • Williams, Luke A. (2011) The echo chamber. London, UK: Hamish Hamilton/Penguin. ISBN 9780241956946.

    Book Section

    • Williams, Luke (2015) Anechoic chamber. In: Herrington, T. (ed.) Epiphanies: Life Changing Encounters With Music. Strange Attractor Press. ISSN 9781907222214. ISBN 9781907222214.
    • Williams, Luke (2014) Massacre at Benin. In: Cadavere Quotidiano: The first Project X Projects Paperback. X-TRA Magazine. ISSN 978-0- 9886694-3- 7. ISBN 9780988669437.
    • Williams, Luke A. (2011) A watch on each wrist: twelve seminars with W.G. Sebald. In: Catling, J. and Hibbitt, R. (eds.) Saturn’s Moons: W. G. Sebald — A Handbook. Oxford, UK: Legenda. ISBN 9781906540029.

    Other