Welcome to the Beyond Your Research Degree podcast from the University of Exeter Doctoral College! The podcast about careers and all the opportunities available to you... beyond your research degree! In this episode Kelly Preece, Researcher Development Manager talks to Dr. Ruth Gilligan, Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Birmingham University and author of The Butchers. Music from https://filmmusic.io ’Cheery Monday’ by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com) License: CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses Podcast transcript 1 00:00:10,910 --> 00:00:23,720 Hello and welcome to the Beyond Your Research Degree podcast by the University of Exeter. 2 00:00:23,720 --> 00:00:26,600 Hello and welcome back to Beyond Your Research Degree. 3 00:00:26,600 --> 00:00:33,830 I'm really delighted to be back with you after our summer hiatus and to be bringing to you a conversation with Dr. Ruth Gilligan. 4 00:00:33,830 --> 00:00:38,810 Ruth is a senior lecturer and academic, but also because she's in creative writing. 5 00:00:38,810 --> 00:00:46,010 She is a published author. And so I thought it would be interesting for us to have a conversation with someone who is an 6 00:00:46,010 --> 00:00:52,820 academic but maintains a professional profile and creative practise alongside their academic work. 7 00:00:52,820 --> 00:00:57,890 So Ruth, happy to introduce herself, certainly. Well, firstly, thanks so much for having me. 8 00:00:57,890 --> 00:01:04,400 It's lovely to be chatting to you and reminiscing a little bit about my time at Exeter. 9 00:01:04,400 --> 00:01:12,650 I came to Exeter in two thousand and eleven to start my PhD in creative writing, 10 00:01:12,650 --> 00:01:18,110 and then I actually went straight for my PhD into my first academic job. 11 00:01:18,110 --> 00:01:24,860 I the first interview I went for my creative writing role had come up at the University of Birmingham. 12 00:01:24,860 --> 00:01:31,010 So despite the fact that I was still finishing my PhD, I was like, ah sure, I'll apply and see what happens. 13 00:01:31,010 --> 00:01:40,790 And anyway, I got offered a job. So I started as a lecturer in creative writing at the University of Birmingham in kind of August twenty fourteen, 14 00:01:40,790 --> 00:01:44,690 at which point I was still in the final two or three months of my PhD. 15 00:01:44,690 --> 00:01:50,900 So I was kind of trying to pretend that I was a lecturer and seem very grown up and important to my students, 16 00:01:50,900 --> 00:01:58,880 despite the fact that I was secretly still a student myself and trying furiously to dot all the T's and cross all the I's on my thesis. 17 00:01:58,880 --> 00:02:07,040 So yeah, it was a bit of a mad time, but yeah, then I started out at Birmingham and seven, maybe eight years later I'm still there. 18 00:02:07,040 --> 00:02:16,610 So I'm now a senior lecturer. Since that time, I've also published two more novels and I had published three novels before my PhD at Exeter, 19 00:02:16,610 --> 00:02:23,660 but I went on to publish two more, one of which was the novel that I wrote as part of my creative writing PhD. 20 00:02:23,660 --> 00:02:26,960 And then my most recent book The Butchers came out last year. 21 00:02:26,960 --> 00:02:35,300 So yes, I am now kind of fully fledged novelist, academic, creative writing lecturer and still very much in touch with Sam 22 00:02:35,300 --> 00:02:41,090 And Sinead my two wonderful supervisors and have very, very fond memories of working with them. 23 00:02:41,090 --> 00:02:43,490 There's a number of things I think I want to pick up on in that. 24 00:02:43,490 --> 00:02:50,120 And the first is something that comes up a surprising amount, actually, in talking to people for this podcast, 25 00:02:50,120 --> 00:02:58,430 which is about kind of seeing an opportunity when you've not actually finished the PhD and going for it and getting it, 26 00:02:58,430 --> 00:03:05,060 and then how you go about juggling, working and finishing up. 27 00:03:05,060 --> 00:03:13,820 Could you talk a little bit about what that experience was like, kind of managing the workload of working whilst also finishing the PhD? 28 00:03:13,820 --> 00:03:21,350 Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think, you know, part of me looks back at that and thinks, what did I eat for breakfast that morning? 29 00:03:21,350 --> 00:03:26,870 That I had the kind of gumption to apply for a job, despite the fact that I hadn't even finished the PhD. 30 00:03:26,870 --> 00:03:34,940 In the spirit of full disclosure, the job was actually a senior lecturer role, which I definitely wasn't qualified for, 31 00:03:34,940 --> 00:03:42,620 but I applied and they ended up basically giving the senior lectureship to someone else who was duly qualified, 32 00:03:42,620 --> 00:03:46,820 but then creating a new lecturer in creative writing role, which they offered to me. 33 00:03:46,820 --> 00:03:55,700 So I'm a big believer in. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. If I hadn't applied and taking my punch, yeah, that wouldn't have played out that way. 34 00:03:55,700 --> 00:04:01,760 So, yeah, I'm a big believer. Just throwing your hat in the ring and see what happens in terms of managing the workload. 35 00:04:01,760 --> 00:04:05,360 I mean, you know, realistically, I was at the tail end of the PhD. 36 00:04:05,360 --> 00:04:12,080 Like, I'm not someone who had kind of left all the work at the last minute, like both Sam and Sinead, my supervisors, 37 00:04:12,080 --> 00:04:16,130 like they've been very good about making sure that I was making steady progress 38 00:04:16,130 --> 00:04:20,090 and I'd already written multiple drafts of both the creative and the critical. 39 00:04:20,090 --> 00:04:25,640 So although those last few months are always going to be quite panicked and quite frantic, 40 00:04:25,640 --> 00:04:29,750 just because you are about to submit this thing that you've been working on for three years, 41 00:04:29,750 --> 00:04:33,500 it wasn't like I still had kind of half the thing to write. Like I had. 42 00:04:33,500 --> 00:04:39,860 I had written multiple drafts. I was just kind of finessing and going through my bibliography and all that kind of boring stuff. 43 00:04:39,860 --> 00:04:41,340 So, yeah, it was a lot. 44 00:04:41,340 --> 00:04:50,270 But it also coincided with me like I moved to Birmingham and when I first started the job, so I kind of was in a new city, my my partner. 45 00:04:50,270 --> 00:04:54,050 Who's that at the time He was my boyfriend. Now he's my husband. he at that same time 46 00:04:54,050 --> 00:05:01,640 Ictually moved to Singapore for six months. So I just kind of find myself living in this little flat in Birmingham on my own. 47 00:05:01,640 --> 00:05:06,740 I didn't really know anyone in the city. I was starting a new job. I was also finishing my Ph.D. 48 00:05:06,740 --> 00:05:10,660 So, yeah, I probably wasn't the most social time of my life. 49 00:05:10,660 --> 00:05:15,130 Fundamentally, I managed to get it all done, and I'm delighted that it played out the way it did. 50 00:05:15,130 --> 00:05:19,630 You know, my my big fear, the reason I kind of pursued doing it that way, 51 00:05:19,630 --> 00:05:24,610 even though it was a bit nuts, was I think like so many people in academia, the fear of, like, 52 00:05:24,610 --> 00:05:31,510 not knowing what the next step is going to be or the idea of kind of having a gap before you figure out the next thing you know, 53 00:05:31,510 --> 00:05:36,850 have plenty of friends and colleagues who've had that situation where there is a gap when they go from one thing to the other. 54 00:05:36,850 --> 00:05:42,400 But I know from my own personality type that I would have just been absolutely freaking out if I didn't have something lined up. 55 00:05:42,400 --> 00:05:48,850 So I would rather kind of take on too much in there, be perhaps a bit of overlap rather than being in the desert, not knowing. 56 00:05:48,850 --> 00:05:54,340 So, yeah, it was worth it in that regards. I wanted to kind of take a step back, 57 00:05:54,340 --> 00:06:03,580 step back to that point of applying now and I'm really interested when you said that it was kind of a it was a senior lecturer role, 58 00:06:03,580 --> 00:06:06,400 but you kind of nothing ventured, nothing gained, kind of went for it. 59 00:06:06,400 --> 00:06:09,850 And actually, you may not have got that role, but something else came out of it. 60 00:06:09,850 --> 00:06:16,250 Were there any particular challenges that you felt that you were coming up against because you were still a Ph.D. student? 61 00:06:16,250 --> 00:06:23,990 Yeah, and it's a it's a great question, I think I should say, again, in the interest of full disclosure, like I mentioned briefly, 62 00:06:23,990 --> 00:06:29,780 but like despite the fact that I was still finishing my PhD, I had published three novels before I did the book. 63 00:06:29,780 --> 00:06:36,110 So I, um, I do appreciate that that might not be the case with all PhD students. 64 00:06:36,110 --> 00:06:38,750 So I kind of had the publishing track records. 65 00:06:38,750 --> 00:06:47,600 I think the big gap and this is where kind of Sam and Sinead were particularly helpful was because it was my first academic application 66 00:06:47,600 --> 00:06:57,350 interview and ultimately post just kind of plugging in a little bit to university speak like I didn't really know at that point, 67 00:06:57,350 --> 00:07:09,230 having only been a student albeit a Ph.D. students, I learnt phrases like REF and outputs and impact and all these kind of buzzwords that 68 00:07:09,230 --> 00:07:18,080 we're going to come up in my interview and I and they were going to quiz me on. So kind of swotting up a little bit on that vernacular. 69 00:07:18,080 --> 00:07:22,550 But yeah, I think, you know, in those situations, I'm kind of like, what's the worst thing t
