Lavinia Elaine Greenlaw (born 30 July 1962) "Ms Lavinia Greenlaw", Debrett's. is an English poet, novelist and non-fiction writer. She won the Prix du Premier Roman with her first novel and her poetry has been shortlisted for awards that include the T. S. Eliot Prize, Forward Prize and Whitbread Poetry Prize. She was shortlisted for the 2014 Costa Poetry Award for A Double Sorrow: A Version of Troilus and Criseyde. Greenlaw currently holds the post of Professor of Creative Writing (Poetry) at Royal Holloway, University of London. "Lavinia Greenlaw appointed Chair of Creative Writing", Royal Holloway, University of London, 31 May 2017.
Greenlaw went on to read modern arts at Kingston Polytechnic. She then studied at the London College of Printing and gained an MA in art history from the Courtauld Institute. She was employed as an editor at Imperial College of Science and Technology (1985–1986) and subsequently worked with the publishers Allison & Busby (1986–1987), Bio | Lavinia Greenlaw at The International Literary Quarterly.Mohit K. Ray (ed.), The Atlantic Companion to Literature in English, New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers, 2007, pp. 221–222. and then with Earthscan (1988–1990), again alongside Margaret Busby.Miles Litvinoff, "Acknowledgements", The Earthscan Action Handbook for People and Planet, Earthscan, 1990.Philip Hobsbaum, "Greenlaw, Lavinia (Elaine)", Encyclopedia.com. Greenlaw also worked as an arts administrator for Southbank Centre (1990–1991) and the London Arts Board (1991–1994).
Greenlaw's career as a freelance artist, critic and broadcaster began in 1994. She became the first artist-in-residence at the Science Museum (1994–1995), "Lavinia Greenlaw", British Council, Literature. and has since held residences at the Royal Festival Hall, at a London solicitors' firm (1997–1998), and at the Royal Society of Medicine (2004). "Off the Map |Lavinia Greenlaw", Haus für Poesie. In 2013, she won an Engagement Fellowship from the Wellcome Trust. "Wellcome Trust awards three new Engagement Fellowships" (press release), Wellcome Trust, 3 September 2013. Retrieved 7 June 2024. Her sound work Audio Obscura was commissioned in 2011 by Artangel and Manchester International Festival, "Biography", Lavinia Greenlaw website. and heard at Manchester Piccadilly station in July 2011 and London St Pancras station in September and October 2011. It won the 2011 Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry, the judges calling it "groundbreaking".Kaite O'Reilly: "Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry 2011: Lavinia Greenlaw", 31 March 2012.
Greenlaw taught at Goldsmiths College, University of London. She served as professor of creative writing at the University of East Anglia from 2007 to 2013, and as a visiting professor at King's College London (2015–2016) and Freie Universität Berlin (2017). She currently holds the post of Professor of Creative Writing (Poetry) at Royal Holloway, University of London.
After judging the 2010 Manchester Poetry Prize, Greenlaw chaired in 2014 the judging panel for the inaugural Folio Prize. She is a Council member of the Royal Society of Literature and a former Chair of The Poetry Society.
In October 2023, Greenlaw was announced as Poetry Editor of Faber and Faber, in succession to Matthew Hollis.
She went on to write novels, short stories, plays and non-fiction. She has also made radio documentaries. Her work for music includes the libretto for the opera Peter Pan composed by Richard Ayres (Staatsoper Stuttgart/Komische Oper Berlin/Welsh National Opera and Royal Opera House, 2015). "Lavinia Greenlaw", Royal Opera House. "Peter Pan Richard Ayres", WNO. Archived 2014/2015. Publications for which she has written include the London Review of Books, The Guardian and The New Yorker, and in 2019 she was a contributor to A New Divan: A Lyrical Dialogue Between East and West (Gingko Library).
Her work draws on her interest in science and scientific enquiry (there were physicists in her family) and covers themes of displacement, loss and belonging. Critics have seen her poetry as remarkable for its precision; her best contain a complexity and elusiveness that lead them to "appreciate with each re-reading". "Books", Lavinia Greenlaw website.
Her biography notes: "She has written and adapted several dramas for radio, including Virginia Woolf's Night and Day, Hermann Hesse's The Glass Bead Game, and a series on malaria called Five Fever Tales. She has made documentaries about Emily Dickinson and Elizabeth Bishop and several programmes about light, including trips to the Arctic midsummer and midwinter, the Baltic, the darkest place in England, light in London, and the solstices and equinoxes."
Greenlaw is also a memoirist. Kirkus Reviews summed up her 2007 coming-of-age book, The Importance of Music to Girls, by saying: "The taut, lyric thrum of Greenlaw's prose reflects her poet's skill....Well-written, bewitching and subtly dazzling." Some Answers Without Questions (2021), part memoir, part manifesto, was described by Hephzibah Anderson in The Observer as "a delight: approachable, rigorous and omnivorous in its frame of reference".
For her 2001 first novel, Mary George of Allnorthover, Greenlaw won the French Prix du Premier Roman. She has been shortlisted for a number of literary awards, including the Whitbread Book Award (now the Costa Book Awards) and the T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry. Her sound work Audio Obscura won the 2011 Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry. Her short story "We Are Watching Something Terrible Happening" was shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award 2013. "Front Row's interview with Lavinia Greenlaw", BBC Radio 4, 27 September 2013. Her 2014 book A Double Sorrow: Troilus and Criseyde (inspired by Geoffrey Chaucer's 14th-century epic poem), was shortlisted for the Costa Poetry Prize.
Greenlaw was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2004.
Writing
Personal life
Awards and recognition
Selected works
Translations
Television
External links
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