Julie Irigaray
Writer. Teacher. Researcher.
Welcome to my website. As an author who lived in four different countries, I aim to create a better understanding of the world and our place in it — a mission which has cast me in many different roles: writer, teacher and researcher.
I am a Creative Writing Tutor, a PhD Candidate in English Literature and a Graduate Teaching Assistant at The University of Huddersfield. You can find out about my publications, experience, research, awards, and more on this website.
What's New
Winter 2021
This December, two of my publication dreams are coming true. After eleven rejections, The Rialto is publishing my poem "Red Card" in their new issue. I'm very moved the editors have chosen this deeply personal poem about my mother and the power of resilience (& football, as it goes). Morality: never give up!
Five of my poems have been translated into Italian by Professor Paolo Luca Bernardini (University of Insubria) and will be published with an introduction by Professor Laura Orsi (Franklin University Switzerland) in the journal Expressio: Rivista di Linguistica, Letteratura e Comunicazione (Milan) in December 2021.
I've recently been commended in The Verve Poetry Festival Competition 2022 (UK), so I couldn't be happier!
I collaborated with poet Alice Hiller to create an online poetry workshop about research and travel. We read our poems and discussed how research can enhance one's writing, and gave tools to generate poems in times of lockdown and travel restrictions. You can watch this Voicing our Silences event here.
Alice Hiller also created a blog post about the event and I was delighted to be interviewed by her.
In January and February 2022,
I'll be teaching two courses at City Lit: Poetry workshop: intensive (11/01/22-15/02/22), and the brand new Writing the prose poem: a taster (12/02/22 & 19/02/22).
Finally, I am co-organising the Sylvia Plath Across the Century online conference which will take place on 11th-12th March 2022.
Whalers, Witches and Gauchos
My poetry pamphlet Whalers, Witches and Gauchos was published by Nine Pens Press last April.
Whalers, Witches and Gauchos explores narratives of displacement, the way we navigate between countries and cultures, and how where we come from makes us who we are. Using my Basque ancestors as a point of reference – these same whalers, witches and gauchos who travelled to the other side of the world or were persecuted – I conjure up my memories of living in the Basque Country, France, Ireland, Italy and the UK. This pamphlet depicts what it is to migrate between places and languages seeking homes that can both sustain us and allow us to grow.
