Announcing the Seamus Heaney Centre’s inaugural Visiting International Creative Writing Professor
The Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s University Belfast has announced its first international Visiting Chair in Creative Writing. The inaugural Chair will be held by Deborah Levy, renowned novelist and playwright.
Established through philanthropy, the Visiting International Chair for Creative Writing is part of the University’s recent development project which included the Seamus Heaney Centre’s move to their landmark building in 2024 and enhanced public and outreach programming.
Speaking of the appointment, Professor Glenn Patterson, Seamus Heaney Centre Director said:
"The conversations that have led to the creation of the International Visiting Chair of Creative Writing predate the move to the new Seamus Heaney Centre in June 2024, and in no little part shaped how we saw the Seamus Heaney Centre developing there. Today’s announcement, therefore, is another major milestone in that development. The announcement of Deborah Levy as the inaugural Chair, though, is beyond anything we might have hoped for when those conversations began. Deborah Levy is, quite simply, one of the greats of this age. As a novelist, poet, playwright, writer of ‘living autobiographies', and much, much more, Levy has been recognised internationally through awards such as the Prix Femina étranger and academic appointments, including a Fellowship at Columbia University’s Institute for Ideas and Imagination. Last year saw the premiere, in Switzerland, of 50 Minutes, the War War Jaw Jaw Bunny Play and the release of the film adaptation of her 2016 novel Hot Milk, starring Fiona Shaw and Emma Mackey; next year will see a new stage adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, and only Deborah Levy and her publishers know what else. We are delighted, honoured and (can you tell?) excited that this year - ushered in with a typically brilliant appreciation of David Bowie for the Observer - will see her arrival at Queen’s University as the first Seamus Heaney Visiting International Professor of Creative Writing."
The Seamus Heaney Visiting International Chair of Creative Writing is a philanthropy-funded post that will bring a visiting professor to the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s for one semester of the academic year in each of the next six years.
Deborah Levy is a novelist and playwright. Her novels include the Booker-shortlisted Swimming Home (2011) and Hot Milk (2016), The Man Who Saw Everything (2019) and August Blue (2023). Hot Milk was made into a major motion film starring Fiona Shaw and Emma Mackey, released in 2025.
Deborah is also the author of a collection of short stories, Black Vodka , and a trilogy of prize-winning Living Autobiographies: Things I Don’t Want to Know, The Cost of Living, and Real Estate.
She has written for the Royal Shakespeare Company, and for BBC Radio 4, Deborah wrote two acclaimed dramatizations of Freud’s most famous case studies, ‘Dora’ and ‘The Wolf Man’; other Radio 4 dramatizations include Carol Shields’ last novel, Unless, (10 episodes), Katherine Mansfield’s short story collection, In a German Pension, and Colette’s novella, Chance Acquaintances. Her most recent play, 50 Minutes, premiered at Theater Neumarkt, Zurich, in January 2025.
Deborah was Fellow Commoner in Creative Arts at Trinity College, Cambridge from 1989-1991; AHRB Fellow at The Royal College of Art 2006-09 where she taught writing in the Animation Department, and Visiting Professor in Writing at Falmouth University 2012–15. Her books are widely translated around the world and she is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Deborah Levy will officially take up her post at the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s from 1 Sep 2026.
ENDS…
Notes to editor:
- For further information on the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s, visit: https://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/seamus-heaney-centre/
- For further information on the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s University Belfast please contact Rachel Brown, Centre Coordinator on +44(0)28 9097 1077 or email: r.brown@qub.ac.uk.
About the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s
Since 2003 the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s has been home to some of the UK and Ireland’s foremost poets, novelists, scriptwriters, and critics, and each year growing their worldwide network of writers and critics. Building on a literary heritage at Queen’s University Belfast that stretches back to the 1960s Belfast Group, the Centre is dedicated to excellence and innovation in creative writing and poetry criticism. In 2024, the Seamus Heaney Centre moved into a landmark new building.
Media
Media enquiries to Zara McBrearty at Queen’s Communications Office on email: z.mcbrearty@qub.ac.uk