Hi! I’m Janine. I’m a BBC New Generation Thinker, writer, and academic working across forms — poetry, non-fiction, and radio.
I write about feeling, interpretation, and identity. My work explores how emotions like nostalgia, ambivalence, and sentimentality shape the ways we read race, class, and the everyday in everything from Hollywood cinema to pop music, and from melodramatic novels to real historical events.
My recent poetry collection explored love, my last teaching project focused on empathy, and my academic research tackles racial ambiguity in American literature and culture. I’m working on a non-fiction book about uncertainty as part of the HarperCollins Author Academy.
You might have heard me on BBC Radio 3 or 4, on programmes like Free Thinking, The Essay, Woman’s Hour, and Great Lives. I’ve written for The Guardian and the Young Vic Theatre. My academic research — on what icons like Grace Jones, Toni Morrison, Zora Neale Hurston, and even professional wrestlers have taught me about feeling, reading, and interpretation — has been published by Bloomsbury, Palgrave Macmillan, and Routledge.
When I’m not teaching literature at the University of York, I work as a freelance writer, workshop facilitator, and mentor. I help creatives and researchers share their ideas in ways that feel right for them.
How are we feeling, today?
Sentimental and nostalgic…
Read the story behind my poetry collection, Sometimes Real Love Comes Quick & Easy, a Poetry Book Society Pamphlet Choice. (There’s a mixtape and poems about being a mum, wrestling, Amy Winehouse and first crushes.)
I want to slow down and reflect…
Read my Substack. It’s a slow, reflective newsletter that drifts through language and feeling — One Word at a Time…
I’d love to listen to something…
Grab a cuppa, and immerse yourself in some radio, including my Radio 3 essay on girlhood, coming of age, and reading.
I’m enjoying this vibe!
Actually, I just want the facts, Janine, plain and simple.
No problem. Here’s my academic CV.