Dr Jess Moriarty is Principal Lecturer in Creative Writing and Course Leader for the Creative Writing MA, and the new Creative Writing with Wellbeing BA at the University of Brighton. She is an experienced researcher and editor for the book series, Performance and Communities for Intellect Books. She has published extensively on creative writing pedagogy, autoethnography and community engagement. Her current book – Walking for Creative Recovery – adopts an autoethnographic approach and explores creative practice as a method for supporting well-being. Her pedagogic approach has a focus on diversity, personal story-telling and writing for change. Jess is the co-director of the Centre for Arts and Wellbeing Centre for Arts and Wellbeing (brighton.ac.uk) and on the board of directors for Lapidus. International. In 2022, Jess became a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

My research focuses on Creative Writing pedagogy, offering ideas for supporting students' confidence with writing and engaging them with community projects including working with archives, interviewing people in care homes and workshops promoting diversity in education and writing. I have published extensively on autoethnography and collaborative autoethnography, working with survivors of domestic abuse, artists and with academics from other disciplines including fine art, film, media and education. I am a member of the Centre for Arts and Wellbeing and the Research Enterprise Group - Performance and Communities.

One of my key passions is working with PhD students on creative practice, autoethnography and creative writing pedagogy. I have supported doctoral students working on transdisciplinary projects and work that seeks to challenge conventional academic discourse. At the moment, I am honoured to be working with students who are looking at queering the colonial, creativity and Bronte, Santiago de Cuba as moving archive, diverse narratives from Brexit, feminist romance, autoethnographic arts-based work, stories from care, autoethno-drag, identity and hybridity in fiction, and queer bodies in performance.

Creative writing needs supportive and dynamic spaces where students feel able to share their ideas and work and get feedback and ideas that inspires them to evolve as motivated, confident writers with a clear sense of their potential to uplift and move audiences and readers and also hold up a mirror to the world in order to raise awareness and promote meaningful change. I have over 15 years experience of working with students at every level and achieved my PGCE in Higher Education in 2005. I am keen to engage students with my research and writing so that they feel we are part of an inclusive community of practice. We connect students with writing placements that help them to develop skills and enhance their sense of why writing matters, why their stories matter and how those stories can and will enrich the world.