28th March 2022 // Lancaster University
the 2022 Writing Summit
About the Event
The Summit is aimed at postgraduate students in the Arts and Humanities interested in advancing their writing skills.
Writing for a multitude of audiences is an invaluable skill for students, whether they foresee a career in academia or not. The EPOCH Writing Summit brings together writers and academics, including Sunday Times bestselling author Marc Morris, to help us think about audience, style, tone, and the treatment of history.
The Writing Summit will offer students from across the globe practical training in public engagement by facilitating writing workshops and seminars that explore how specialist research can permeate public spheres. The summit will bring together experts in a number of fields, including popular history, to examine the skills necessary to restructure written research in order to disseminate critical innovation in the humanities across these genres.
The Summit took place on the 28th March 2022.
Keep an eye on our website for news about future events.
28/03/2022
Programme
Time
Event
Location
08:45 - 9:15
09:15 - 09:30
09:30 - 11:00
11:00 - 11:15
11:15 - 12:45
12:45 - 14:00
14:00 - 15:30
15:30 - 16:00
16:00 - 17:00
17:00 - 17:15
Registration
Welcome
Morning Workshops
Break
Public History Panel
Lunch
Afternoon Workshops
Break
Marc Morris Interview and Q&A
Plenary
Management School LT 3
Management School LT 3
Management School LT 9 & 11
Management School LT 3
Management School LT 9 & 11
Management School LT 3
Management School LT 3
All sessions are held within the Management School (MAN).
A full map of Lancaster campus can be found here.
Tea and coffee will be provided throughout the day, and there are many excellent food outlets on our campus for lunch. We recommend Deli, GoBurrito, and Pizzetta.
There is also a Costa Coffee in Alexandra Square.
A PDF of the programme is available here.
16:00 - 17:00 | Management School LT 3
Marc Morris
Sunday Times bestselling author Marc Morris will be joining us for an extended Q&A session in the afternoon to help us think about audience, style, tone, and the treatment of history.
There will be an opportunity to talk to Marc about his own experiences, and the process of producing history that is both academically rigorous and highly enjoyable to read.
11:15 - 12:45 | Management School LT 3
Rachael Bowers
Museum Manager at Lancaster City Museum
Rachael Bowers is Museum Manager at Lancaster City Museum and is also the Curator of Exhibitions at the King’s Own Royal Regiment Museum. She studied Modern History and Social Anthropology before completing a Masters degree in Heritage Education and Interpretation.
In her 11 years working in heritage and museums, she has worked for English Heritage, York Minster, and York Museums Trust, spanning Roman history right through to the Cold War. She has created interpretation on nuclear warfare, the First World War, social history, doll’s houses and Vivienne Westwood shoes!
Sophie Parker
BBC Radio Journalist
Sophie is a History Masters graduate and radio journalist, with experience in newsreading, producing, reporting and presenting. She has hands-on experience with many different writing styles for different audiences.
Sophie Merrix
EPOCH Editor and PhD Candidate
Sophie Merrix is a PhD student researching the lives of Africans in Stuart England. Throughout her PhD, Sophie has worked with heritage partners including The National Civil War Centre and Lancaster Maritime Museum. She has also published with EPOCH Magazine, the National Civil War Centre, and BBC History Revealed. She currently works as a historical consultant for New Forest Films.
Public History Panel
This panel seeks to generate a discussion on the dissemination of historical knowledge to a wide public audience. The panel was designed around three interlinked pillars: education, media, and heritage. With these panelists, EPOCH hopes to explore how we can best engage with the past and the public in a mutually beneficial way.
Workshops
01
9:30 - 11:00 | Management School LT 9
Selling Your Ideas: Writing for Job,
Postdoc, and Grant Applications
Lecturer and Author of Aesthetic Science
In this session, we’ll think about how to sell your ideas to the scariest audience of them all – the people reading your job, postdoc, and grant applications. There’s no magic formula for writing successful applications, especially in this tough job market. But in this session we’ll look at strategies for maximizing your chances. In particular, we’ll focus on the links between writing for the wider public and writing for applications. While there are differences between the two genres, there are also crucial similarities – most notably the task of explaining your ideas to people who know little or nothing about your field, and the need to convince readers that your ideas are important before they start getting bored. What’s more, there’s the delicate balancing act of writing for experts and non-experts at the same time. How do you write for a broader public while remaining credible to those in the know?
To participate in this session, come prepared to workshop a 250 word statement of your research and its broader significance. Together, we’ll work on writing a powerful statement that rapidly tells the reader what you work on, what question(s) you seek to answer, and why they are important.
02
9:30 - 11:00 | Management School LT 11
In Pursuit of Print
with Emma Gallon, University of London Press' Books Manager
In this workshop, the University of London Press’ Books Manger will discuss with attendees the processes involved in academic publishing. If you want a publisher’s perspective on getting your work published, then this is perfect for you. The University of London Press builds on a century of publishing tradition by disseminating distinctive scholarship at the forefront of the humanities. Based at the School of Advanced Study, the press seeks to facilitate collaborative, inclusive, open access, scholar-led interchange, within and beyond the academy. Emma has extensive experience within academic publishing, having worked for Ashgate Publishing, Routledge, the University of Roehampton, and Epigeum.
03
14:00 - 15:30 | Management School LT 9
Crafting the Perfect EPOCH Article
with Karianne Robinson, EPOCH Editorial Team
In this session, we will take the process of submitting and writing for a magazine from the first pitch to the finished piece. This will include how to choose an appropriate topic, how to focus your ideas, and how to select material for a short-form article. We will discuss how to turn academic writing into an accessible and exciting magazine article and the techniques that we can use to make our research as interesting to a wider audience as it is to us!
We invite attendees to submit their pitches to EPOCH for publication in subsequent issues. Come to the session with a rough idea of an article you think could work.
04
14:00 - 15:30 | Management School LT 11
Writing out of the Box
with Meredith Guthrie, EPOCH Editorial Team
In this session, we'll be unpicking the 'rules' of writing, and exploring what could
be holding your writing back. More info to come.