Staff profile

I am a fiction writer and academic. I completed my PhD research in Creative and Critical Writing at the University of Sussex, where I researched the literary history of swooning. This inspired my first work of fiction, The Lost Art of Sinking (2015), an experimental novella about passing out, which was selected for New Writing North’s Read Regional campaign 2017 and won the Saboteur Award for Best Novella 2016.

My first novel, Sealed (2017), is a work of eco-horror, which was shortlisted for the Not the Booker Award 2018. My second novel, Exit Management (2020), moves between contemporary Britain and 1940s Budapest. It was named a Fiction Book of the Year 2020 by the Guardian, who described it as a "timely and original dissection of class and desperation in Brexit London". My most recent novel, raw content (2025), explores post-partum OCD and the possibilities (and limitations) of recovery narratives. 

My short story collection, Animals at Night, was published in 2022 and shortlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize. It includes stories that have been long-listed for the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award, the Galley Beggar Press Short Story Prize, and anthologised in Best British Short Stories. It features 'Sour Hall', a story originally commissioned by Audible Originals and Virago as part of the Hag project, which invited contemporary female writers to re-tell regional folktales. 'Sour Hall' is a re-imagining of the Yorkshire tale of the boggart, and has since been adapted into an audio drama series by Audible. 

My academic research has focussed on literary depictions of the body--particularly the swooning body. My monograph, Swoon: A Poetics of Passing Out, was published by Manchester Unviersity Press in 2021. I have published criticism on swooning in the novel; eco-critical accounts of vampirism and amphibians; female masochism and passing out in romantic and erotic fiction; narrative point of view. I have written non-fiction pieces for the New York Times, The Guardian, BBC Radio 3 and Propsect Magazine. 

I read English at the University of Cambridge and completed an MA and PhD in Creative and Critical Writing at the University of Sussex. My AHRC-sponsored PhD research project aimed to produce a theorisation of literary swooning as well as an original work of fiction, and I continue to be interested in the intersections between creative and critical prose work. I previously lectured in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Sussex and at York St John University, where I was Subject Director for Creative Writing.

My research interests are in: contemporary fiction and creative-writing practice; eco-theory and environmental writing; gender and representation; writing/publishing in the North of England. I welcome PhD applications in these areas. I am an affiliate of the Institue of Medical Humanities and am currently supervising practice-based research projects on: depictions of post-partum psychosis; the Newcastle witch trials; depictions of the witch in contemporary Indian narratives; anthropomorphism and eco-narratology. 

 

• 2020: Editorial roles: Appointed to the Editorial Board of the Oxford Literary Review Appointed to the Editorial Board for Spectres, Hauntings and Horrors series (Bloomsbury) Appointed editorial board member for Short Fiction in Theory & Practice
• 2020: Prize judging and mentorship: Mentor for New Writing North Writers' Awards (2024 and 2020) Invited judge for Ignite Fellowships (Scottish Book Trust) (2024) Judge of Aesthetica Short Fiction Prize (2024 and 2022) Judge for the Wild Writing Prize (2021) Judge for the Sid Chaplin Award for working-class writing (2020) Judge for New Writing North's Young Writers Award (2020)
• 2016: Literary prizes: Winner of the Saboteur Award for Best Novella for The Lost Art of SinkingThe Lost Art of Sinking selected for New Writing North's Read Regional Campaign (2017) Longlisted for the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award ('Cluster')(2018) Longlisted for the Galley Beggars Short Story Prize ('Cluster') (2018) Named a Guardian Fresh Voice: Writers to Read Now (2018) Shortlisted for the Not the Booker Award for Sealed (2020) Shortlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Award (Animals at Night) (2024) Winner of the Edge Hill Short Story Reader's Choice Award for an individual story ('Sour Hall') (2024)
• External examination: External examiner for PhDs at: City University (2025), the Universities of Sussex (2025), Leeds (2023), Glasgow (2023), Loughborough (2022), East Anglia (2022), Lincoln (2022), Leicester (2022), Royal Holloway (2022), Leeds Beckett (2022), Huddersfield (2019). External examiner for the MA in Creative Writing at Birkbeck, University of London (2021-2025) External examiner for the MA in Creative Writing at Birmingham University (2019-22) External examiner for the MA in Crime Fiction at UEA (2016-2019)

Authored book

• raw content
  
  Booth, N. (2025). raw content. Little Brown (Corsair).
• Animals at Night
  
  Booth, N. (2022). Animals at Night. Dead Ink Books.
• Exit Management
  
  Booth, N. (2020). Exit Management. Dead Ink Books.
• Sealed
  
  Booth, N. (2017). Sealed. Dead Ink Books.
• The Lost Art of Sinking
  
  Booth, N. (2015). The Lost Art of Sinking. Penned in the Margins.

Chapter in book

• Sour Hall
  
  Booth, N. (2020). Sour Hall. In Hag. Virago.
• Cluster
  
  Booth, N. (2019). Cluster. In N. Royle (Ed.), Best British Short Stories 2019 (pp. 110-123). Cromer: Salt.

Journal Article

• Knocking on Fräulein Bürstner’s Bedroom Door and Not Being Able to Stop
  
  Booth, N. (2025). Knocking on Fräulein Bürstner’s Bedroom Door and Not Being Able to Stop. Oxford Literary Review, 47(1), 25-31. https://doi.org/10.3366/olr.2025.0452
• ‘Creatures of elsewhere’: Nicholas Royle’s Quilt and the inhuman novel
  
  Booth, N. (2025). ‘Creatures of elsewhere’: Nicholas Royle’s Quilt and the inhuman novel. Textual Practice, 39(4), 535-540. https://doi.org/10.1080/0950236x.2025.2488195
• The Second Body: Uncanny Doubles and the Anthropocene
  
  Booth, N. (2020). The Second Body: Uncanny Doubles and the Anthropocene. Oxford Literary Review, 42(2), 149-153. https://doi.org/10.3366/olr.2020.0307
• Restricted view: the problem of perspective in the novels of Ian McEwan
  
  Booth, N. (2015). Restricted view: the problem of perspective in the novels of Ian McEwan. Textual Practice, 29(5), 845-868. https://doi.org/10.1080/0950236x.2014.987687
• The Felicity of Falling: Fifty Shades of Grey and the Feminine Art of Sinking
  
  Booth, N. (2015). The Felicity of Falling: Fifty Shades of Grey and the Feminine Art of Sinking. Women: A Cultural Review, 26(1-2), 22-39.
• Bathetic Masochism and the Shrinking Woman.
  
  Booth, N. (2014). Bathetic Masochism and the Shrinking Woman. New Formations: A Journal of Culture, Theory, Politics, 83, 47-64. https://doi.org/10.3898/newf.83.02.2014
• Feeling Too Much: The Swoon and the (In)Sensible Woman
  
  Booth, N. (2014). Feeling Too Much: The Swoon and the (In)Sensible Woman. Women’s Writing, 21(4). https://doi.org/10.1080/09699082.2014.906067
• Dark Ecology and Queer Amphibious Vampires.
  
  Booth, N. (n.d.). Dark Ecology and Queer Amphibious Vampires. Undercurrents: Journal of Critical Environmental Studies, 19, 51-59.

Monograph

• Swoon: A Poetics of Passing Out
  
  Booth, N. (2021). Swoon: A Poetics of Passing Out. Manchester University Press.

Newspaper/Magazine Article

• Top Ten Literary Swoons
  
  Booth, N. (2015, June 19). Top Ten Literary Swoons. The Guardian.

Other (Digital/Visual Media)

• Tar Bar'l
  
  Booth, N. (in press). Tar Bar’l [Radio broadcast].
• The disappearance of Violet Hunt
  
  Booth, N. (2022). The disappearance of Violet Hunt [Online article].
• Sour Hall
  
  Booth, N., & Kirwan-Ashman, L. (2021). Sour Hall [Audio drama].

Other (Print)

• Planet Horror
  
  Booth, N. (2019). Planet Horror. New York Times.
• Swoon! The cultural history of an ecstatic phenomenon
  
  Booth, N. (2015). Swoon! The cultural history of an ecstatic phenomenon. Prospect Magazine.