Dr Ronan Kelly

Ronan has a BA in Literature and Philosophy from Trinity College Dublin and an MA in Children’s and Young Adult Literature from University of Roehampton. He specialises in prose and has varied experience as an arts journalist, editor, researcher, and author of fiction.

He has lived and worked in Spain, Vietnam, China, and the UK, with his experiences abroad providing creative inspiration – particularly for his short stories.

Ronan was shortlisted for the Fish International Short Story Prize 2013 and his fiction has appeared in Crannóg.

His MA dissertation was a narratological study of focalising techniques in a selection of YA novels, film, and multimodal texts (graphic novels).

Ronan has recently finished a novel set in and around Shanghai and spanning different eras of modern China. Kang was the creative component of a PhD thesis developed in synergy with a critical study of outsiders and in contemporary Chinese fiction in English translation.

Ronan has significant experience in HE teaching and curriculum development. He has held roles at Loughborough University, Royal College of Art, University of Arts London, Solent University, and RMIT Hanoi, among others. He was tutor in English Language and Literature at University of Nottingham Ningbo China 2013-2016, developing provision and leading preliminary year modules in those subjects. He also established and coordinated an extra-curricular extensive reading programme (‘Reading Circles’), which incorporated tutor and peer mentoring to encourage a reading habit and enhance enjoyment of reading.

Recently Ronan has contributed to the MA (online) course, developing asynchronous materials as unit leader for The Craft of the Writer and overseeing delivery of that module.

Ronan has also taught Creative Writing at University of Winchester and Surrey Adult Learning.