Dr Peter Blair
Senior Lecturer
Biography
Dr Peter Blair is Senior Lecturer in English Literature and Programme Leader of the MRes English at the University of Chester. He has research and teaching expertise in English Literature, Creative Writing, and publishing. He is founding co-director of the International Flash Fiction Association, co-editor of Flash: The International Short-Short Story Magazine and Flash: The International Short-Short Story Press, and is on the Editorial Board of University of Chester Press.
Teaching and Supervision
Dr Blair teaches widely in English Literature (especially twentieth-century, contemporary, and postcolonial literatures), Creative Writing, professional writing, and publishing. At postgraduate level, he teaches on the MA Creative Writing: Writing and Publishing Fiction, and supervises various MRes and PhD projects. He has been External Advisor at the University of Cumbria; External Examiner at the Open University (BA), University of Chichester (MA), and University of Pretoria (PhD); and External Advisor to Board of Studies for Arts and Humanities at the Open University.
Research and Knowledge Exchange
Dr Blair publishes on Anglophone South African literature, particularly on liberal, postcolonial, and diasporic writing, literary history, and very short fiction. His wider flash-fiction research, and collaborative editing and publishing, underpinned an Impact Case Study for REF 2021. His own creative writing has appeared in magazines and anthologies, including as a runner-up in the Bridport Prize (short story), the Fish Prize (poem), and the Bath Flash Fiction Award. In 2021, he was Very Highly Commended in the Irish Short Story of the Year category of the Irish Book Awards. He has been a peer reviewer for South Africa’s National Research Federation, and an Expert Reviewer and member of an Expert Review Panel for research funding at Poland’s National Science Centre.