Nanjing City of Literature have announced their six Writers in Residence for the next 12 months. The submission was available for writers, poets and translators from all UNESCO Cities of Literature and one of the spots was selected for Rob Bullock, for Manchester City of Literature.
With 14 years writing experience, Rob has spent eight years developing and running creative writing workshops for schools, libraries and communities groups in Manchester, working with both children and adults.
Rob has recently completed a PhD at Huddersfield University under the supervision of award winning Salford born writer Michael Stewart. His PhD focused on telling the stories and legacies of black residents throughout Lancashire and Yorkshire in the 1700s and included writing the novel Dark Tide.
While a lot of Rob’s writing is for children or poetry, Dark Tide is an adult novel that tells the story of British slavery and the hundreds of black people who laid roots in the North West’s bleak uplands. It includes a chapter specifically discussing Manchester’s history of slavery. The story is told by a Bajan demon called the Heartman, talking to Jack Moss, a black man awaiting execution in a Lancaster jail. The novel developed from research into the real life discovery of the mummified hand of a black woman on an elderly lady’s mantlepiece in Rob’s hometown of Settle. Rob was able to discover a lot about the life of this lady and the story flowed from there.
