Prof. John McAuliffe
Reader in Modern Literature and Creative Writing, and Co-Director of the Centre
John McAuliffe joined The University of Manchester in 2004, where he is now Professor of Poetry and Director of the Creative Manchester research platform, which develops and co-ordinates interdisciplinary research focused on Creative Industries; Creativity, Health and Well-being; and Creative and Civic Futures.
At Manchester John founded, with Ian McGuire, and subsequently directed the Centre for New Writing (2007-2021), one of the leading centres for creative writing internationally.
He served on the Irish Arts Council 2013-2018, where he was Deputy Director and chaired the Council's Strategy work. He is also Associate Publisher at the leading independent poetry press, Carcanet, and co-editor of the international journal PN Review, and a trustee of Manchester's UNESCO City of Literature.
He is a member of the AHRC Peer Review College and has worked extensively internationally as an external examiner and consultant for Creative Writing and English Departments. He is also a member of the Manchester City Council Events Commission, and wrote a regular poetry column for The Irish Times 2013-2020.
He has published seven books with The Gallery Press, most recently National Theatre, (2024) Selected Poems (2021 (UK); 2022 (US)), which was an Observer Book of the Year, and The Kabul Olympics, which was a Guardian Poetry Book of the Month in June 2020 and a TLS and Irish Times 2020 Book of the Year.
His versions of the Bosnian poet Igor Klikovac, Stockholm Syndrome (Smith Doorstop), was a Poetry Book Society Winter Pamphlet Choice in 2019, and his work as editor includes Carcanet's New Poetries VIII (2021) and Everything to Play For: 99 Poems About Sport (Poetry Ireland, 2015).
Poems available online
- Read 'Diversion', 'The Weather', and 'The Reconstruction' on Eire Ireland Muse
- Read 'Context' on AGNI Online
To contact John McAuliffe please email:
John's poetry books
The Way In
These poems tell stories and find images for ‘soul-making’ in the everyday world of sheds, swimming pools, concert halls, parks, ferry ports.
Of All Places
McAuliffe's 2011 book re-enters Yeats’s west of Ireland and visits America’s West Coast.
Next Door
John's second book moves between the ‘silvery dark’ outskirts of Irish towns and English cities ‘where the beautiful / suburbs climb and sprawl’.
A Better Life
Published by The Gallery Press in 2002, A Better Life was John's first book.