Professor Andrew McMillan
Professor of Contemporary Writing
My profile
Biography
McMillan’s first collection, physical (Jonathan Cape, 2015), was the first poetry collection to win the Guardian First Book Award. It also won a Somerset Maugham Award, an Eric Gregory Award, a Northern Writers’ Award and the Aldeburgh First Collection Prize. It saw him shortlisted for the International Dylan Thomas Prize, the Forward Prize for Best First Collection, the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, the Roehampton Poetry Prize and the Polari First Book Prize. In 2019 it was voted as one of the top 25 poetry books of the past 25 years by the Booksellers Association. His second collection, playtime (Jonathan Cape, 2018), won the inaugural Polari Prize.
He is a senior lecturer at the Manchester Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His latest collection is pandemonium, published by Jonathan Cape in 2021. His poetry has been published or is forthcoming in French, German, Galician, Norwegian and Slovak translations. A novel, pity, will be published by Canongate in 2024.
Interests and expertise
I teach poetry across undergraduate and postgraduate levels, as well as supervising PhD’s; I am interested in research focussing on the body, masculinity, and queer writing. I also run the Teaching Creative Writing option unit at MA level
Impact
Teaching
Why do I teach?
Because I love it! It’s vital for any writer to stay in touch with a new generation of readers and writers, and to be constantly engaged in conversations around literature, both our understanding of it and the creation of it.
Postgraduate teaching
Literature and Creative Writing- Poetry
Research outputs
Masculinity, Sexuality, The Body, Contemporary British and American Poetry
-
Performances
McMillan, A. Dorian. [Performance] Proper Job Theatre Company,
-
Books (authored/edited/special issues)
McMillan, A. (2024) Pity.
Chan, M.J., McMillan, A. (2022) 100 Queer Poems. Vintage.
McMillan, A. (2021) pandemonium. Random House.
McMillan, A. (2018) Playtime. Jonathan Cape.
McMillan, A. (2018) Fisico: Galician Translation of Physical.
McMillan, A. (2018) Le Corps Des Hommes. Editions Grasset.
McMillan, A. (2017) Fysisk. Aschehoug.
McMillan, A. (2015) Best British Poetry 2015. Salt.
McMillan, A. (2015) Physical. Jonathan Cape.
McMillan, A. (2013) Protest of the Physical. Red Squirrel Press.
McMillan, A. (2011) The Moon is a Supporting Player. Red Squirrel Press.
McMillan, A. (2009) Every Salt Advance.
-
Chapters in books
McMillan, A. '’if it wasn’t for the nights’.' In Lumdsen, R., Warner, A. (ed.) The Best British Poetry 2013. Salt Publishing,
McMillan, A. (2017) 'One of Us: Some thoughts on Sexuality and the Working Class.' Know Your Place: Essays on the Working Class by the Working Class. Dead Ink Books,
McMillan, A. (2014) '’just because I do this doesn’t mean’ et al.' In Sansom, P., Sansom, A. (ed.) Cast: The Poetry Business Book of New Poets.
McMillan, A. (2011) '’Nabakov’s Butterflies’ et al.' In Lumsden, R. (ed.) The Salt Book of Younger Poets.
-
Media
McMillan, A. Conversations on a Bench.
McMillan, A. Railway Nation.
-
Journal articles
McMillan, A. (2021) 'It Came from Out of the Closet: on Anxiety, Queerness and the Goosebumps Books.' Granta,
McMillan, A., McNicol, S. (2019) 'The Playful Space of Workshops: on imagination, improvisation and ignoring instrumentalism.' Writing in Practice, 5
McMillan, A. (2018) 'I know that men can mistake: Andrew McMillan on Tom Paulin’s Love’s Bonfire, the dash and poetic authority.' The Poetry Review, 108(1)
McMillan, A. (2016) 'Poets reading: After Orlando – Andrew McMillan reads new poets from the US.' The Poetry Review, 106(3) pp. 39-42.
McMillan, A. (2015) '’Growing up Gay and the Books that Helped Me’.' The Independent,
McMillan, A., Pahl, K. (2015) 'Writing out the loss: intersections and conversations.' Argument and Critique,
-
Non-peer reviewed articles / reviews
McMillan, A. The working class has its own cultural identity – and we must see it on the page.
McNicol, S., McMillan, A. Britain’s real working-class voices are not being heard – here’s why.
McMillan, A. (2017) Why Thom Gunn is the poet laureate of male desire.
McMillan, A. (2017) Glad to be gay: leading figures on 50 years of liberation.
-
Conference papers
McMillan, A. (2015) 'I am made by her, and undone: the absence of the mother in the poetry of Thom Gunn.' In Missing, presumed dead: the absent mother in the cultural imagination. Umeå University, Sweden, 11/6/2015 - 12/6/2015.
McMillan, A. (2014) '‘A plausible poetry: considering the danger of a homogenised poetic voice emerging from Creative Writing courses’,.' In Great Writing International Conference. Imperial College London, 28/6/2014 - 29/6/2014.
McMillan, A. (2014) 'Poetic Collage- the seemingly unconnected image and the pursuit of truth through non-narrative means.' In The Poetics of Collage conference. Royal Holloway, University of London, 16/5/2014 - 16/5/2014.
McMillan, A. (2014) '‘Afraid of the strength of my own health’: The fear of AIDS and the courage to combat it in the poetry of Thom Gunn.' In Fear and Loathing Conference. University of Kent, 9/5/2014 - 10/5/2014.
McMillan, A. (2013) '‘Walking Back to Words: poetry with people living with aphasia’,.' In Hippocrates International Symposium on Poetry and Medicine,. Wellcome Trust, 18/5/2013 - 18/5/2013.
-
Other
McMillan, A. The Slap Author Gets Shorty, review of Christos Tsiolkas’ Merciless Gods.
McMillan, A. My Hero: Thom Gunn.
McMillan, A. Language as Talisman.
McMillan, A. (2015) The Echo Chamber.
McMillan, A. (2013) The time of day it really is.
McMillan, A. (2013) the centre cannot hold.