Mr Chris Sykes

Role

Directing the International Summer School (ISS) at the University gives me great pleasure. It is good to work with a fine group of talented and dedicated staff and tutors and exciting to see the summer school grow in stature and importance within the the University of Sussex . It is also a great pleasure to work with our partner institutions abroad and at home.

Before coming to Sussex in 2007 I taught in the continuing education department at the University of Warwick for 12 years and then in the continuing education department at the University of Oxford for 17 years. At Warwick I taught classes in Creative Writing and Theatre. I continued this work at Oxford contributing to the domestic public programmes and to the International programmes. I also taught on many of the Oxford summer programmes such as the Oxford Summer School for Adults and the Oxford Experience, teaching at colleges such as Christ Church, Merton and Worcester. In my time at Oxford I both taught on and directed programmes with a number of high profile US Universities such as Berkeley, Chicago, Duke, Florida State and UNC.

Outside my University commitments I am continuing my own writing, song writing and performing as a poet, playwright and singer-songwriter. My poetry includes Listening to the Dark and Having an Osprey about the House (Magpie Press). I have also published poems in various UK and USA literary magazines as well as in various anthologies. I have had three plays produced: The Great Lucifer at the Old Fire Station Oxford (June 1988), Marry me you Idiot, Jermyn Street Theatre London May 2002, and Playing Away at the Lilian Baylis Theatre, Sadler’s Wells. Playing Away was revived at the Frinton Summer Festival in 2011. In 2009 I produced a CD of 12 songs called Walking on the Beach. The same year I published 'Your Complete Evening Course in Creative Writing' a study at home package of 10 workbooks and CDs for the Hodder & Stoughton Teach Yourself series. The Writer’s Source book on character and plot was published by the same publisher in September 2011.

You can find more information about me and my writing from my website www.cpsykes.co.uk and at http://www.myspace.com/cpsykes

 2009  - Performances at the Brighton Fringe Festival, the Oxford Literary Festival, and the Hurstpierpoint Festival

2009 'Walking on the Beach' a CD of 12 original songs

2009  'A Complete Evening Course in Creative Writing' published by Hodder & Stoughton

2008 Associated Board of Music's Grade 5 level in music theory, with distinctioon.

More information about my writing career can be found at www.cpsykes.co.uk

if you wish to see me make an appointment by e mail or phone or catch me at class 

Sykes, Chris (2011) The Writer's Sourcebook. Teach Yourself . Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN 9781444135916

Sykes, Chris (2009) Your Evening Class in Creative Writing. Hodder & Stoughton, Teach Yourself Series.

Sykes, Chris (2005) Playing Away. Josef Weinberger Plays. ISBN 9780856762857