Julia Bell is a writer and Senior Lecturer at Birkbeck and Course Director of the Creative Writing MA. She is the author of three novels, most recently The Dark Light to be published in May 2015 by Macmillan, the co editor of the Creative Writing Coursebook, as well as three volumes of short stories most recently The Sea In Birmingham. She also takes photographs, writes poetry, short stories, occasional essays and journalism, and is the co-curator of spoken word night @InYerEarLondon. Twitter: @juliabell.