What's New for Di Beddow
Autumn/Winter 2018
Such excitement over the past few weeks with the British Library event on the second volume of Sylvia Plath’s letters and then Ted Hughes events commemorating twenty years since his death in October 1998. It was lovely to meet up again with the wonderful Karen Kukil from Smith and Peter K. Steinberg from @sylviaplathinfo when they spoke on their editing of the letters. Huge gathering of Plathians from all corners who flocked to the London pubs and then the event.
Carol Hughes introduced the “Modern Poetry in Translation” Ted Hughes evening at “The Other Palace” with poets reading the work that was inspired by the great man. There was also a “Translating Hughes” evening at Europe House which was fascinating; this was to celebrate fifty years of the Arvon Foundation, which I can now thoroughly recommend having worked at Lumb Bank on Ted Hughes’s Poetry with Christopher Reid and Steve Ely. Such a rich gathering of writers cooking, walking and working together.
Finally, I am delighted to signpost my blog on the Letters of Ted Hughes to Elizabeth Hicklin which was published on the British Library website recently.
American Research Trip April 2018
After receiving a Post-Graduate Research Award from Queen Mary University, I was delighted to plan my trip to three American University Libraries to further my work on Plath and Hughes. I visited Smith College in Northampton Massachusetts; the Lilly Library at Indiana University in Bloomington and the Rose Library at Emory University in Atlanta. I also received a visiting researcher award from Emory, which was very exciting and generous. I am writing up my research and a journal of the trip, which I will post in time.
Site Guide
Below is a map of my website
Pieces I have written for academic work including essays and drafts for my PhD thesis on a psychogeographical study of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes’ Cambridge. Plath and Hughes wrote their history upon Cambridge; my research walk will begin with both writers’ Cambridge poetry and loiter along the way in their stories and memories, sketches, archives and places. The doctoral thesis will record this wander to construct the first shared literary, psychological, sociological and biographical geography of Hughes’ and Plath’s Cambridge.
In 1994 I collaborated with a friend on an article on raising the achievement of GCSE students; this was published in the Times Educational Supplement as, “Return on the right kind of interest” on the 11th February. Here is the start of my journalistic writing, covering mainly education issues such as boys’ mindset; ‘A’ level research; the development of support staff and the skills of senior leadership. I became a regular columnist for the TES in the noughties, writing on aspects of middle leadership development. Recently, my journalistic writing has focused more on political issues in relation to education, feminism and socialism. I am a contributor to Guardian Comment.
Creative writing pieces that I have written for clients.
Di Beddow offers a full range of consultancy services for journalism, academic writing and the education sector.
Things I am interested in
Potter and Crocker This is my interest in vintage
Scrap Book A scrapbook of selected images
