Staff Profile: Dr Paul McDonald

Summary

Dr Paul McDonald is the Course Leader for Creative and Professional Writing, based at the Wolverhampton City Campus. His academic background is in English literary criticism, and his interest in creative writing began when his first novel was published in 2001. Now his teaching focuses principally on creative writing, both fiction and poetry, although he also teaches modern literature of all kinds, and runs a module on contemporary American writing. He is interested in regional writing too, specifically Black Country fiction, and in humour, particularly literary and postmodern comedy.

Teaching Approach and Responsibilities 

Paul has been teaching in higher education for over twenty years both at undergraduate and postgraduate level, and has worked full-time at the University of Wolverhampton since 1994. His approach to teaching creative writing stresses the connection between creative ability and critical reading, and he has developed a number of courses which takes this relationship as a starting point. His teaching also covers humour, contemporary American literature, and Black Country writing, and he provides supervision to PhD level in his research areas.

Currently his teaching includes:

• 4CW001: Reading as a Writer
• 4CW002: Reading and Writing Poetry
• 5CW001: Humour Writing
• 5EN006: American Literatures
• 6CW001: Writing a Novel
• PhD Supervision 

Research Interests

• Humour
• Contemporary American Literature
• West Midlands writing
• Creative writing

Qualifications

• BA (First Class Hons) English Language and Literature. CNNA (1989)
• PhD. University of Central England (1993)

Professional Interests and Experience

• Paul is series editor for E-Books in the Humanities American Insights Series
• Recent writing commissions include: Writing West Midlands, 2008 (fiction), Glasshouse Books, 2009 (fiction), Taylor Herring Ltd, 2008 (scholarly research), Icon Films Ltd, 2010 (script research), The Independent on Sunday 2010 (article), Tindal Street Press 2008 (masterclass article), Project Pigeon 2011 (fiction/poetry).
• Paul has conducted creative writing workshops in a variety of contexts for numerous institutions, including at literary festivals, prisons, schools, libraries and colleges across the UK.
• Overseas teaching experience includes the BEd for Overseas Teachers Programme at Hong Kong Polytechnic-University, Kowloon, China.

Membership of Professional Bodies and Advisory Committees

• National Association of Writers in Education (member)
• The International Society for Humour Studies (member)

Public Appearances

• The One Show BBC1, 12/8/2010. Interviewed as part of the film, Ye Olde Stand Up, directed by Dominic Western and presented by Barry Cryer.
• BBC Breakfast 1/8/2008, interviewed as a humour scholar. Two slots, 7am, 9am.
• BBC Midlands Today 1/8/2008, interviewed as a humour scholar.
• Also interviews as a humour scholar with: BBC World Service, BBC Radio 5, Sky News, and 30+ regional radio stations.
• Other media appearances as an author of fiction include: Inside Out, BBC1, November 11th, 2004. (TV Interview); work as a ‘Bacon Buddy’ on the Richard Bacon Show, BBC Radio 5, and numerous interviews on West Midlands radio stations.

Selected Publications

Books (selected)

• Surviving Sting. Tindal Street Press, 2001. ISBN: 0 9535895 44. Pp.216. (Novel).
• Fiction from the Furnace: A Hundred Years of Black Country Writing. Sheffield: Sheffield University Press, 2002. ISBN 0-86339-992-4. Pp. 122. (Criticism)
• Student Guide to Philip Roth. London: Greenwich Exchange Press, 2003. ISBN: 1871551722. Pp72. (Criticism)
• Kiss Me Softly, Amy Turtle. Tindal Street Press. 2004. ISBN: 0954130375. Pp. 278. (Novel).
• Loffing Matters: A Showcase of Comic Writing. Tindal Street Press., 2006. ISBN: 0954791355. pp. 200 (Editor).
• Catch a Falling Tortoise. Cinnamon Press. 2007. ISBN: 9781 905614226 (Poetry) pp. 64 (Poetry)
• Do I Love You? Birmingham: Tindal Street Press.  2008. ISBN-10: 0955138485. Pp. 280 (Novel)
• Laughing at the Darkness: Optimism and Postmodernism in American Humour (Humanities E-Books. Approaches to Contemporary American Literature. Series Editors: Aliki Varvogli and Christopher Gair.) 2011. ISBN 978-1-84760-187-2 Pdf Ebook; ISBN 978-1-84760-188-9 Kindle; ISBN 978-1-84760-189-6 Paperback. Pp., 152 (Criticism)

• The Tipping Point. Birmingham: Rubery Press, 2012. ISBN-13: 978-0955425240. (Editor).

• An Artist Goes Bananas. Indigo Dreams Press., 2012. Pp. 60 ISBN-13: 978-1907401688. (Poetry). 
• Reader’s Guide to Catch 22. (Humanities E-Books. Literature Insights Series. Series Editor: Charles Mosely, 2012). Pp. 82. ISBN 978-1-84760-200-8 Pdf Ebook; ISBN 978-1-84760-201-5 Kindle Ebook; ISBN 978-1-84760-202-2 Paperback. (Criticism)
• The Philosophy of Humour. (Humanities E-Books. Series editor Professor Mark Addis). 2012, pp. 130. ISBN: 978-1-84760-210-7. (Philosophy/criticism).
• The Student Guide to Narrative Fiction. London: Greenwich Exchange Press (Forthcoming)

Scholarly Articles (selected) 

• ‘Did You Hear the One About God? Representations of Religion in Post-war Jewish-American Comedy.’ Book chapter in Derek Rubin; Hans Krabbendam (eds). Religion In America: European and American Perspectives. European Contributions to American Studies Series. Amsterdam University Press, 2004. ISBN: 9053838996. Pp. 155-164.
• ‘The Utopias and Dystopias of Generation X.’ Book chapter in Jaap Verheel (ed). Dreams of Paradise: Visions of Acopalypse: Utopia and Dystopia in American Culture. European Contributions to American Studies Series. Amsterdam University Press, 2004. ISBN 90 5383 898 8. Pp 200-208.
• 'Stand up Comedy as Poetry:  Transcendentalism and Romantic Anti-Capitalism in the Work of Bill Hicks'.  In Klaus Martens, Paul Morris, Arlette Warken (eds). A World of Local Voices: Poetry in English Today. Königshausen u. Neumann, 2004. ISBN: 3826026357. Pp. 115-123.
• ‘”They’re Trying to Kill Me:” Jewish American Humour and The War Against Pop Culture.’ Journal of Popular Culture. 28, 3, April 2006. ISSN 0888-5753. pp.19-35.
• ‘The Funny Side of Nature: Whitman, Ginsberg and America’s “Dark Poet.”’ Journal of Ecocriticism, Vol 1, No 2 (2009). http://ojs.unbc.ca/index.php/joe/search/authors/view?firstName=Paul&middleName=&lastName=McDonald&affiliation=University%20of%20Wolverhampton&country=GB
• ‘Jim Redlake: The Education of an Artist.’ A Journey with Francis Brett Young. (Keele University: Francis Brett Young Society, 2010). Pp. 67-72. ISBN: 978-1898844-19-8.

Selected Conference Papers

• 'Mainstream Transformations of Counter-culture Phenomena:  From Beats to Slackers.'  Culture Agonistes:  Text Against Text.  Hellenic Association for American Studies, University of Athens, Greece.  May 25-28, 2000.
• ‘The Utopias and Dystopias of Generation X.’ Dreams of Paradise: Visions of Acopalypse: Utopia and Dystopia in American Culture. Netherlands American Studies Association Annual Conference. Middelburg, Netherlands. June 14-16, 2000.
• ‘From Sexual Perversity to Social Perversity: David Mamet Then and Now.’ Crucible of Cultures: Anglophone Drama at the Dawn of the New Millennium. University of Brussels. 16-19^th May. 2001.
• ‘Did You Hear the One About God? Representations of Religion in Post-war Jewish-American Comedy.’ Religion In America. Netherlands Association for American Studies Annual Conference. Middelburg, Holland. 6-8^th June. 2001.
• ‘Political Correctness and Joking Frames in the Drama of David Mamet.’ Conference of the David Mamet Society. London, 11/6/04-13/04.
• ‘”They’re Trying to Kill Me!”’ Representations of World War Two in Jewish American Humour.’ The Story of World War II. Netherlands Association for American Studies Annual Conference. Vrije University Amsterdam. 21/6/04-23/6/04.
• ‘Humour Humour Everywhere: Exploring the Proliferation of Humour in Contemporary Western Culture.’ 4^th International Summer School and Symposium on Humour and Laughter: Theory, Research and Applications. University of Wolverhampton. 11/9/04.
• ‘Humour and the American Short Story: The Little Man Revisited.’ Views from the Edge: The Short Story Revisited. 9^th International Conference on the Short Story in English. University of Lisbon, Portugal. June 21-25, 2006..
• ‘The Funny Side of Nature: Whitman, Ginsberg and America’s “Dark Poet.”’ At Poetic Ecologies: Nature as Text and Text as Nature in English Language Verse. Organized by the Department of Languages and Literatures of the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB). Brussels, 14th-17th of May, 08.
• ‘Teaching Creative Writing.’ The Writer’s Toolkit: A Conference for the Writing Industry. Birmingham Book Festival. South Birmingham College, 18/10/08.
• ‘Slacker as Comic Shaman: Laughter and Spirituality in the Work of Douglas Coupland and Bill Hicks.’ At Interdisciplinary Approaches to Spirituality in the Literatures of the English-Speaking World. University of Vienna (Austria) 6-9 July 2009.
• ‘”The Backcombed Byron”: Postmodern Beat Spirituality and the Comedy of Russell Brand.’ At ‘Tools of the Sacred, Techniques of the Secular: Awakening, Epiphany, Apocalypse and Doubt in Contemporary English-Language Verse.’ An International Poetry Conference. Organized by the Department of Languages and Literatures of the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB). Brussels, 4 to 7 May 2010.
• ‘Reading and Health.’ Plenary lecture at West Midlands Regional Reader Development Conference, Solihull Arts Complex, 9/9/2010.
• ‘Creative Writing and Higher Education’ The Writers’ Toolkit: A Conference for the Writing Industry, 2010. South Birmingham College, Saturday 20th November 2010
• ‘“That’s what you get for being a murderer:” Crime, Comedy and Postmodernism in the Poetry of Luke Kennard.’ At Re-thinking the Monstrous: Violence and Criminality in Society. Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Germany. 1-3 July 2011.

Links

• ‘Heard the One About the Oldest Joke in the World’ Independent on Sunday, http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/paul-mcdonald-heard-the-one-about-the-oldest-joke-in-the-world-its-a-cracker-2164293.html
• ‘How to Write a Funny Short Story.’ http://www.birminghampost.net/life-leisure-birmingham-guide/postfeatures/2008/12/01/how-to-write-a-funny-short-story-65233-22374404/
• ‘In Conversation with Author and Lecturer Paul McDonald’ http://www.transitiontradition.com/node/194
• ‘From Saddles to Chuckles: Interview’ By Chris Osborne. BBC Black Country. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blackcountry/content/articles/2007/01/15/paul_mcdonald_feature.shtml
• ‘Tindal Street Press Interview’. http://www.tindalstreet.co.uk/authors/paul-mcdonald