Matter is an annual anthology publishing the best poetry, prose, children's fiction and script from MA Writing students at Sheffield Hallam University.

Matter has impressive alumni, including Marina Lewycka, Frances Leviston, and Tony Williams. These are some of the most exciting contemporary writers around, and their thoughts on Matter reaching its 10th anniversary can be read elsewhere on the website and in print in Matter 10.

Matter also boasts an illustrious list of guest authors, some of the best writers of their generation – Hilary Mantel, Ali Smith and Jackie Kay, to name just a few.

Matter 10 is no exception. This year we have poetry by Daljit Nagra and Arto Vaun, both celebrated by the Forward Poetry Prize. We have an extract by Iain Sinclair from his current project, Ghost Milk: Calling Time on the Grand Project, due to be published next year, and a short non fiction piece by bestselling author Diana Gabaldon. We also have a foreword by novelist, biographer and critic Margaret Drabble.

Student contributors this year: Angelina Ayers, Rosemary Badcoe, Tanya Chan-Sam, Jamie Coward, Tricia Durdey, Suzannah Evans, Lorna Festa, Margaret Lewis, Dean Lilleyman, Fay Musselwhite, Kate Rutter, Elisabeth Von Aster, Laura Wake, Noel Williams.

Matter is on Facebook and also Twitter at twitter.com/Mattermagazine so please join us there too.

Previous issues are: Matter 1 (with work by guest writers Jill Dawson and Lesley Glaister); Matter 2 (Janice Galloway, E. A. Markham, Michel Faber and Ali Smith); Matter 3 (Sean O'Brien, Toby Litt, Mario Petrucci and Monique Roffey); Matter 4 (Jane Rogers, Nicholas Royle, Sophie Woolley and Benjamin Zephaniah); Matter 5 (T. C. Boyle, Simon Crump, Jacob Polley, Scarlett Thomas and Rana Dasgupta); Matter 6 (David Constantine, Helen Farish, Romesh Gunesekera, Jackie Kay and Marina Lewycka); Matter 7 (David Harsent, Liz Kettle, Frances Leviston, Hilary Mantel and a foreword by Marina Lewycka); Matter 8 (Malcolm Cumberbatch, E. A. Markham and Mike Harris); Matter 9 (Maurice Riordan, Tim Turnbull, Julia Copus, Adam Marek and Alison MacLeod. Foreword by Maggie Gee).


22 Nov 2011 | 9:06 pm | Matter 11 out now

The latest Matter magazine (Matter 11) has been published.  This year’s guest contributors are the award-winning poets Paul Farley and Colette Bryce and the short story specialists Vanessa Gebbie and David Gaffney. Unfortunately we are having a few technical issues with the website. We hope to have full details of the new magazine posted soon, ... [read more]

6 Jun 2011 | 12:40 pm | Sharrow Fringe Festival – 5th July

It’s that time of year again, and the Sheffield summer festivals are underway.  Contributors from Matter 10 will be performing at Highfield’s Trinity Church with the Sharrow Festival as part of their art exhibition celebrations.  Hope you can make it.  The event is 6pm-8pm on Tuesday 5th July.  There will be performances from The Bints and ... [read more]

27 Apr 2011 | 8:09 pm | Arto Vaun on BBC 3′s The Verb

Here’s a link to last week’s interview with Arto Vaun talking about his forthcoming translations of Armenian Poetry: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b01074jb only a couple more days left to li... [read more]

23 Mar 2011 | 10:33 am | Sheffield Poetry Festival 1st-3rd April

As part of the first Sheffield Poetry Festival, Bank Street Arts is hosting the Matter event on 3rd April, 6:30-8pm, to celebrate 10 years of publishing the best poetry, prose and script from MA Writing students at Sheffield Hallam University. The event will feature readings from alumni, Katharine Towers (Slow Time, The Floating Man), Tony ... [read more]

21 Feb 2011 | 6:46 pm | Fay Musselwhite placed in Sheffield Poetry Prize

Fay Musselwhite’s poem, “Boulder,” published in Matter 10, has won third prize in this year’s Sheffield Poetry Prize, judged by Simon Armitage.  Congratulations! The prize winners will be reading at Bank Street Arts on 11th March from 7.30pm alongside Sally Goldsmith and Simon Currie. http://www.poetrybusiness.c... [read more]

17 Jan 2011 | 10:08 am | Jane Rogers Book Launch – The Testament of Jessie Lamb

Jane Rogers is launching her latest novel, The Testament of Jessie Lamb, on 23rd February, 6:15pm at Blackwell Bookshop, Sheffield Hallam University – opposite Millennium Galleries.  £1 advance or on door, redeemable against purchase of her book.  Come along to hear more about this extraordinary new novel, meet the author, enjoy a glass of wine, ... [read more]

17 Jan 2011 | 9:47 am | Sheffield Poetry Festival

It’s very exciting that Sheffield is getting ready for its first poetry festival in April this year.  The festival will run from the 1st – 3rd April, and will be based at a number of great venues, including Bank Street Arts.  There will be fringe events in the week either side of that weekend, including ... [read more]

21 Dec 2010 | 10:58 am | Review!

Many thanks to Cadaverine for our first review! http://www.thecadaverine.com/?p... [read more]

10 Nov 2010 | 10:30 am | National Release

http://bookshop.blackwell.co.uk/jsp/id/Matter_Issue_10/9781843873228 Matter 10 is now nationally available both online at Blackwell’s, Waterstone’s and Foyles http://www.foyles.co.uk/display.asp?K=9781843873228&sf_01=ctitle&st_01=matter+10&sort=eh_nbd_rank/d&m=4&dc=14 and in Bookstores, including The London Review Bookshop, amongst others.  Our Foreword by Margaret Drabble states, “This polyphonic world glitters with imagination and bold endeavour,” and our guest contributors, Iain Sinclair, Daljit Nagra, Diana Gabaldon and Arto Vaun are best-selling, ... [read more]

24 Oct 2010 | 4:43 pm | London Review Bookshop MATTER BOOK LAUNCH 4th November 2010, 7pm

Maurice Riordan will be hosting the London Launch of Matter 10 at the London Review Bookshop.  Also, the AM Heath Prize will be awarded to Gill Blow, who graduated from the MA Writing this year and is this major agency’s chosen prize winner. This will be a great night of poetry and prose from contributors ... [read more]

12 Jul 2011 | 1:40 pm | Ten Questions with Tony Williams

1. How and when did you get started as a writer? I wrote a bit as an undergraduate, and afterwards lived on the dole in Sheffield, thinking I was becoming a writer but really not working anywhere near hard enough.  Signing up for the MA at Sheffield Hallam was me taking the plunge, making a ... [read more]

21 Jun 2011 | 10:04 am | Ten Questions with Katharine Towers

1. How and when did you get started as a writer? I read ‘Little Women’ when I was about ten and fell in love with Jo March – the one who goes up into her garret to ‘scribble.’ That planted the idea that I wanted to be a novelist.  It wasn’t long before I’d filled ... [read more]

6 Feb 2011 | 6:00 pm | Ten Questions with Conor O’Callaghan

1. How and when did you get started as a writer? Mid-to-early 1980s. I was a weird solitary kid. I have a copy of the Rattle Bag dated 1982, given to me by my father’s mother. It was the only gift she ever gave me. I recall being flummoxed by it. But now I think ... [read more]

31 Jan 2011 | 12:29 pm | In Conversation with Chris Petit – 10 December 2010

Chris Petit is visiting Sheffield Hallam University this afternoon, where his most recent film, Content (2010), is being screened.  Martin Carter and I manage to get a few minutes with him to ask about Content, his other projects, and his collaborative work with Iain Sinclair. Content is a film essay, according to many of the ... [read more]

19 Oct 2010 | 10:54 am | Iain Sinclair Interview

Iain Sinclair takes the same walk around Hackney every morning.  ‘Same parkland, same grottiness.’  He travels the same route back by the canal.  He walks so he can see the same birds, the same people.  Sinclair is well known as a flâneur, a stroller of the city streets.  He’s described himself as a disenfranchised psychogeographer: ... [read more]

7 Sep 2010 | 3:19 pm | Ten Questions with Chris Jones

1. How and when did you get started as a writer? I started writing stories in Primary School, stuff about soldiers being knocked over ‘like skittles’ I seem to remember.  I was going to be a prose writer and then I read Wilfred Owen when I was fourteen.  Change of plan.  My first poem was ... [read more]

29 Dec 2009 | 2:36 pm | Adam Marek Interview

Ten Questions with Adam Marek          1. How and when did you get started as a writer? I’ve been writing since I was a kid. When I was 11 I was highly commended in the WHSmith’s young writers’ competition for a story I wrote about a witch that lived in a cave. ... [read more]

25 Nov 2009 | 3:57 pm | Mike Harris Interview

Ten Questions with Mike Harris             1. How and when did you get started as a writer? Teaching at a Manchester Comp in the late 70s and running a big, mostly female school drama group with a colleague and friend. Lots of good girl actors, very few (none, actually) scripts ... [read more]

25 Oct 2009 | 2:39 pm | Alison MacLeod Interview

Ten Questions with Alison MacLeod     1. How and when did you get started as a writer? I’m from a wordy family. My father was a journalist with a real fondness for the poetry he’d learned in school in the thirties and forties. Even in the depths of Alzheimer’s, when he couldn’t form complete ... [read more]

19 Oct 2009 | 9:27 am | Jane Rogers Interview

Ten Questions with Jane Rogers           1. How and when did you get started as a writer? I always wrote as a child, and had things published in school mags, university mags, and wrote for a regular performance evening at university. My first proper publication was a short story in Spare Rib ... [read more]