Oxford Lifelong Learning

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Oxford Lifelong Learning

University of Oxford

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Dr Mary Jean Chan

Departmental Lecturer in Lifelong Learning (Creative Writing: Poetry)

Planet icon https://www.maryjeanchan.com/

Dr Mary Jean Chan is the author of the debut poetry collection Flèche, published by Faber & Faber (2019). Flèche won the Costa Book Award for Poetry and was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize, the John Pollard Foundation International Poetry Prize, the Jhalak Prize, the Seamus Heaney Centre First Collection Poetry Prize and a Lambda Literary Award. Poems from the book were twice shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem while winning the Geoffrey Dearmer Prize and an Eric Gregory Award. Flèche has been translated into Italian and is forthcoming in French.

Chan’s second book, Bright Fear (Faber, 2023), was chosen as a Guardian Best Poetry Book and was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection, the Writers’ Prize and the Dylan Thomas Prize. 100 Queer Poems (Vintage, 2022), co-edited with Andrew McMillan, was a Guardian best anthology of the year.

Chan has served as a judge for the 2023 Booker Prize and the 2025 Dylan Thomas Prize. A 2023-24 Judith E. Wilson Poetry Fellow at Cambridge, Chan is Departmental Lecturer in Poetry on the MSt in Creative Writing at Oxford, a Senior Research Fellow at Harris Manchester College, and an advisory editor at Oxford Poetry.

Chan is deeply interested in demystifying poetry for writers who have never attempted this genre of creative writing, as well as helping emerging poets work towards their first pamphlet or full collection. Chan is also keen to mentor advanced poets regarding publication and other ways of working within the literary sphere.

Chan says it is a joy to work with poets who bring interdisciplinary approaches to their work, as well as their engagement with other forms of creative expression beyond the written word, e.g. involving photography, visual art or music. Translation – or writing that involves multilingualism – is another growing area of interest that is reflected in Chan’s approach to teaching on the MSt in Creative Writing.

Chan is committed to collaborative projects with writers, musicians and artists, and Chan’s creative and critical work includes poetry, essays, reviews, and scholarly articles, as well as teaching and other literary engagements within and beyond Oxford such as mentorship and prize judging.

Poetry 

  • Movement’s Measure (forthcoming from Faber & Faber, 2027)
  • Siblings (Monitor Books, 2024), co-written with Jay Bernard, Will Harris and Nisha Ramayya
  • Bright Fear (Faber & Faber, 2023)
  • 100 Queer Poems (Vintage/Penguin UK, 2022), co-edited with Andrew McMillan
  • Flèche (Faber & Faber, 2019)

Journal Articles 

  • Chan, M. J. (2022). ‘Guest Article: Queerness as Translation’, Writing in Practice: The Journal of Creative Writing Research, 8(1), pp. 6–10.
  • Chan, M. J. (2022). ‘Book Review of Diasporic Poetics: Asian Writing in the United States, Canada, and Australia by Timothy Yu (Global Asia Series). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021’, The Review of English Studies.
  • Chan, M. J. (2020). ‘“Journeying is Hard”: Difficulty, Race and Poetics in Sarah Howe’s Loop of Jade’, Journal of British and Irish Innovative Poetry, 11(1): 22, pp. 1–29.
  • Chan, M. J. (2018). ‘Towards a Poetics of Racial Trauma: Lyric Hybridity in Claudia Rankine’s Citizen.’ Journal of American Studies, 52(1), pp. 137–163.

UNDERGRADUATE AND POSTGRADUATE PROGRAMMES

MSt in Creative Writing

Study creative writing at Oxford on a two-year, part-time MSt. Develop your voice across genres through intensive...

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