Dr Adam O'Riordan

Who am I?

I am a poet, short story writer and novelist. I’m the author of two collections of poetry In the Flesh and A Herring Famine (Chatto & Windus), a collection of short stories The Burning Ground and a forthcoming novel The Falling Thread (Bloomsbury). I edited the anthology When Love Speaks (Vintage) and co-edited The Shape of the Dance, the Selected Prose of Michael Donaghy (Picador). My work has received two Arts Council England awards, an Eric Gregory award, a Somerset Maugham award, been shortlisted for the Ledbury Prize and long-listed for the Edge Hill Prize.

I was born and grew up here in Manchester, in one of the ‘not unhandsome suburbs’ W.G. Sebald mentions in his novel The Emigrants. My parents had met working at the GMB trade union’s national college. My mother’s family originally moved to the city from Aberdeen, where they had been fishermen, to take up jobs in the newly built Trafford Park industrial estate. My father, whose own father was in the Royal Navy, came from a family of linen and linoleum manufacturers in Fife. My work often thinks about, or tries to feel its way through, these inheritances and their legacies; industry, society, the city and how the self is constructed: about family history and the history of families.

I went to Parrs Wood High School in Manchester then read English at Oxford and later won scholarships to do my MA and PhD with Professor Andrew Motion at the University of London. I’ve reviewed and written about poetry and fiction for a number of national newspapers including the TLS, Sunday Telegraph, the Financial Times, the Independent and the Guardian and judged various awards for the Society of Authors, most recently their Travelling Scholarships. After working in publishing for several years at the poetry and artists’ book publisher Enitharmon and later at Penguin, I was appointed as Poet-in-Residence at the Wordsworth Trust, the Centre for British Romanticism.

I was Academic Director of Manchester Writing School and Programme Leader for the Creative Writing MA/MFA from 2016 to 2019 during which time we developed two new routes through the MA/MFA Script Writing and Creative Non-Fiction. As Academic Director I placed a special emphasis on internationalisation welcoming Visiting Teaching Fellows who included the Executive Editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books, the Artist in Residence at the American University in Iraq, the current Editor of Poetry London and a contributing writer at the New Yorker.

Working with Professor Page Richards at Hong Kong University and partners at Boston University, home to the US Poet Laureate Professor Robert Pinsky, I co-founded a Tri-Continental MFA consortium to build opportunities for international collaboration and knowledge exchange. During my time as Academic Director I also welcomed lead singer of Elbow, Guy Garvey as our first Visiting Professor of Songwriting.

I’ve taught at the Manchester Writing School for a decade now and always try to create a relaxed and supportive environment in my workshops and classes; to make them a space where every voice can be heard. I often use photographs as prompts and devote time at the start of each session to establishing a calm and productive mood. You can find a sample workshop plan ‘The Sonnet as a Silver Marrow Spoon’ on the Poetry Foundation website.

I’m married with two young children and currently at work on a new collection of poems on subjects as diffuse (or interconnected) as fatherhood, the last castrato and the fate of the zoo animals during the Siege of Paris as well as a story about a young woman travelling through France in the 1980s and a group of Maquisards, the rural guerrillas, during the closing stages of the Second World War.

Academic and professional qualifications

BA Hons, University of Oxford 


MA, University of London

PhD, University of London

Previous employment

The Wordsworth Trust: The Centre for British Romanticism 2008-2009

Penguin, 2006-2008

Enitharmon Press, 2004-2006

Why study Poetry?

“The aim of poetry and the poet is finally to be of service, to ply the effort of the individual into the larger work of the community as a whole.” ― Seamus Heaney

Undergraduate courses

Poetry, Creative Writing

Postgraduate teaching

Poetry, Creative Writing

Research expertise

My areas of expertise include 20th Century British and American poetry and the short story. 

Publications

• Featured Works

  A. O'Riordan (2015). In the Flesh Poems.

  C. McCormack, O. Kholeif, I. Gheorghe, A. Durbin, D. Clarke, et al. J. Barry, D. Coupland, J. Wood. (2015). Transactions of Desire. S. Perks, O. Kholeif. HOME Publications.

• Books (authored/edited/special issues)

  A. O'Riordan (2021). The Falling Thread. Bloomsbury Publishing.

  N. Royle (2018). Best British Short Stories 2018.

  S. Perks, G. Thorpe, E. Teichmann, O. Ashery, NJ. Stallard, et al. H. Phillipson, P. MacCormack, A. O'Riordan, J. King, J. Wood, O. Kholeif, AL. Kershaw, J. Kemp, L. JohnJoseph, C. Faust, M. Cebrián, LL. Carrasco, M. Burgess, S. Basar. (2017). Dark Habits. . Perks. Manchester: HOME Publications.

  A. O'Riordan (2017). A Herring Famine. Random House.

  A. O'Riordan (2017). The Burning Ground. Bloomsbury Publishing.

  A. O'Riordan (2015). In the Flesh Poems.

  C. McCormack, O. Kholeif, I. Gheorghe, A. Durbin, D. Clarke, et al. J. Barry, D. Coupland, J. Wood. (2015). Transactions of Desire. S. Perks, O. Kholeif. HOME Publications.

  A. O'Riordan (2011). When Love Speaks Poetry and Prose for Weddings, Relationships and Married Life. Random House.

  AO. Riordan (2010). In the Flesh. Chatto & Windus.

  C. Pollard, J. Byrne (2009). Voice Recognition 21 Poets for the 21st Century. Bloodaxe Books Limited.

  A. O'Riordan (2009). Home.

  M. Donaghy (2009). The Shape of the Dance Essays, Interviews and Digressions. Pan Macmillan.

Consultancy and advisory roles

I sit on the Advisory Board of Phoneme Media, a Los Angeles based nonprofit media company dedicated to promoting cross-cultural understanding, connecting people and ideas through translated books and films.

Prizes and awards

Somerset Maugham Award from the Society of Authors (2011)

Royal Holloway Bradley de Glehn Scholarship (2009)

Royal Holloway Crossland Scholarship (2009)

Poetry Book Society Pamphlet Choice (Autumn, 2009)

Arts Council England Writer’s Award (2008)

Eric Gregory Award from the Society of Authors (2008)

Arts Council England Writer’s Award (2006)

Peters Fraser and Dunlop Poetry Prize (2005)

Royal Holloway College Masters Studentship (2004)

Oxford University Poetry Society Martin Starkie Prize (2003)