Academic and author Vybarr Cregan-Reid on writing as discovery
“If reading gives me access to more life, writing is the way I try to make sense of that life.”
Academic, author, and RWC hotseater, Vybarr Cregan-Reid describes how writing is a form of paying attention and discovery.
1. Tell us about your role as professor of creative non-fiction at York St John University.
I became a professor before taking up my current job, which has me running a couple of departments at the university: Creative Writing and Media & Film. My job, then, is mostly a leadership/management one. I supervise a lot of Creative Writing PhDs, and do a little teaching and lecturing too. It’s a busy job. When I was finishing my last book, I used to go to a coffee shop at the crack of dawn and work there till 9:00am, then go and do my job at the uni. It was the only way I could find time to do the writing.
2. In your book We Are What We Read: a life within and without books, you write beautifully about how reading has transformed your life. What does writing mean to you?
Reading is really important to me. And I’ve been through phases in my life where I have temporarily forgotten that, but I always get it back again. I read about 100 books a year. But if reading gives me access to more life, writing is the way I try to make sense of that life. It’s a form of paying attention and occasionally slowing things down enough to really see them. It’s also the means by which I get to exercise my fascination. Writing allows me to follow a thought or idea all the way to its conclusion. Sometimes those ideas begin and end on the page, sometimes they take you around the world on adventures (it sounds like I’m making that up, but it’s really true!)
Writing, then, is also about discovery. Often, I don’t fully know what I think or feel until I’ve worked through it on the page. It’s less about expressing something already formed, and more about uncovering something that was obscured.
3. We were lucky enough to have you in our hotseat at one of our monthly events to talk about memoir. What was that experience like? What was your favourite part of the evening?
I have sat in some roasting seats in my time – doing a defence for my PhD thesis, or being on a panel at a literary festival about the Anthropocene when the audience began to riot because someone noticed we had plastic water bottles. So, the RWC workshop was an easier and more comfortable hot seat. That evening reminded me how communal writing and writers actually are. People were bringing their own experiences, questions, and uncertainties into the discussion, and that created a kind of shared enquiry. My favourite part of the evening was when I wasn’t blown into the sea on the way home – it was a treacherous night’s weather.
4. RWC came to the York Literature Festival in 2025, which you produced. It was amazing to meet an entirely new group of authors and bring our format to them. How are RWC events different from other workshops?
What distinguishes RWC events is their sense of cohesiveness and willingness to exchange. Rather than positioning writing as something to be evaluated from a distance, your events create a space where work is actively encountered and enjoyed in a collegial environment.
There’s also a strong emphasis on presence. Writers aren’t just submitting words; they’re inhabiting it, and that changes the dynamic considerably. It brings an energy and a responsiveness that you don’t always find in more conventional workshop settings. It’s a space/format that encourages risk. Because the emphasis is on engagement rather than judgement, writers often feel able to try something new, to push a piece a little further than they otherwise might.
5. Why do writers need the company of other writers?
I’ve only recently discovered that extroverts can be writers. It never occurred to me before that an extrovert would choose such a solitary activity as writing, but I’ve now met several. But even introverted writers need other writers, people to remind you what matters, what’s difficult, what’s possible, what’s worth doing.
There’s also something quietly sustaining about being among people who understand the peculiar demands of the work. I will often trick myself into thinking that I am assessing myself fairly and objectively, when really what I’m doing is subjecting myself to the harshest of criticisms – usually of the kind you would never dream of uttering to someone else. Having other writers around you that you can trust not to – forgive me – blow smoke up your ass, is really important.
Beyond that, other writers expand your sense of what writing can be. They introduce you to different forms, voices, and ways of seeing. They’re also great to steal from.