Ross Raisin

Profile

I am a lecturer in Creative Writing, who joined the School of English in 2021. Previous to working here at Leeds, I was a lecturer at Goldsmiths, University of London. I graduated (MA) from Goldsmiths in 2004, and from Kings College, University of London (BA) in 2001.

I am the author of three novels: A Natural (2017), Waterline (2011) and God’s Own Country (2008), and have written short stories for Granta, Prospect, the Sunday Times, Esquire, BBC Radio 3 and 4, among others, and in 2018 published a book for the Read This series, on the practice of fiction writing: Read This if you Want to be a Great Writer. 

I also teach for the Guardian Masterclass programme and since 2009 have been a writer-in-residence for the education charity First Story, which places writers in unprivileged schools to deliver creative writing workshops and compile anthologies of the students’ work.

My new novel, A Hunger, will be published in August 2022. You can find more on me, my books and teaching on my website.

Research interests

Novels

• God's Own Country, 2008, Viking (Penguin), ISBN 978-0-141-03352-5
• Waterline, 2011, Viking (Penguin), ISBN 978-0-670-91735-8
• A Natural, 2017, Jonathan Cape (Random House), ISBN 978-1784702786
• A Hunger: scheduled for publication (Jonathan Cape/Random House) in August 2022

Short Fiction

A dozen short stories placed in publications such as Granta, Prospect, Esquire, the Sunday Times, Dazed and Confused, Freemans, and BBC Radio Three and Four, as well as for the anthologies Best British Short Stories (Editor Nicholas Royle, 2013, Salt Publishing, ISBN 978-1-907773-47-1) and A Kind of Compass: Stories on Distance (Editor Belinda McKeon, 2015, Tramp Press, ISBN 9780992817053).

Other

Read This If You Want To Be A Great Writer, Raisin, Ross, 2018, Laurence King, ISBN 978-1786271976

A Creative Writing book commissioned as part of the Read This... series. A guide intended both for creative writing students but also to engage a wider public in the process of fiction writing, with critical commentary and reflection on published work, and clear analysis on the methodology of creating a novel or a work of short fiction.

Introduction to the Picador Classic edition of The Butcher Boy, by Patrick McCabe. (McCabe, Patrick, The Butcher Boy, 1992. Picador Classic edition, 2015, ISBN 978-1-4472-7516-9)

Awards

• Royal Society of Literature Fellowship (2018)
• Folio Prize, longlist (2018)
• Society of Authors Scholarship (2017)
• Granta Best of Young British Novelists list (2013)
• International Dublin Literary Award, shortlist (2010)
• Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, winner (2009)
• Authors’ Club Award, shortlist (2009)
• Betty Trask, Award winner (2008)
• Guardian First Book Award, shortlist (2008)
• Dylan Thomas Prize, shortlist (2008)
• Guildford Literary Festival First Novel Award, winner (2008)
• John Llwellyn Rhys Prize, shortlist (2008)
• Portico Prize for Literature, shortlist (2008)

Literary Prize Judging

• BBC National Short Story Prize (2012)
• Rathbones Folio Prize (2020)

Qualifications

• BA English Language and Literature
• MA Creative and Life Writing