Introduction

In one way or another, my writing life has been bound up with the Creative Writing programme at the University of East Anglia, so this is a personal anthology with UEA as its theme. It isn’t intended as a plug for the programme. In part, it’s an acknowledgement of my indebtedness, since it’s been such a privilege to work with the writers I’ve worked with. I only regret having to leave out some personal favourites for whom I can’t invent a UEA connection: Richard Ford, Anthony Giardina, Tessa Hadley, James Kelman, Jhumpa Lahiri, Agnes Owens, and a recent discovery, Alix Ohlin.