Professor Claire Squires

Professor in Publishing Studies

English Studies University of Stirling, Stirling, FK9 4LA

Professor Claire Squires

Contact details

About me

Claire Squires joined Stirling in 2009 as Director of the Stirling Centre for International Publishing and Communication, having previously worked at Oxford Brookes University. Her publishing career includes editorial and publicity roles at Hodder & Stoughton General Trade Division, and freelance and consultancy work for a variety of trade and academic publishers.

She has frequently spoken about her work both in UK and elsewhere including, in recent years, as an invited speaker in Australia, Belgium, Croatia, France, Germany, New Zealand, Norway, Russia, Slovenia, and Sweden. She has organised and contributed to public sessions and events at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, Aye Write!, Oxford Literary Festival, the London Book Fair, the Ljubljana Book Fair, and the Royal Festival Hall, London, and has contributed to media reports on publishing, including for BBC Radio Scotland, BBC Radio 4's Open Book and You and Yours, and for The Scotsman, the Financial Times, and the Daily Record. Her research has been funded by the AHRC, Nesta/Creative Scotland, Publishing Scotland, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Scottish Universities Insight Institute, and the Scottish Graduate School for Arts & Humanities (SGSAH). From 2009-19, she was Director for Publications and Awards for SHARP (the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing), and is Chair of the Association for Publishing Education. She has acted as a judge for the Saltire Society Literary Awards, and is a current judge of the Saltire Society Publisher of the Year Award. From 2020, she is the Director of the Scottish Graduate School for Arts & Humanities (SGSAH).

She welcomes research proposals from prospective PhD students in the area of publishing studies and the 20th/21st century book cultures.

Claire's research interests focus on the history of the book, publishing studies and book cultures in the 20th and 21st centuries, both in the UK and globally. She has particular interests in contemporary literary publishing, children's books and publishing, digital publishing, literary prizes, and book festivals and fairs. Her publications include Marketing Literature: The Making of Contemporary Writing in Britain (Palgrave, 2007), and as co-editor with Andrew Nash and I. R. Willison, The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain Volume 7: The Twentieth Century and Beyond (CUP, 2019). Writing as Blaire Squiscoll with Beth Driscoll, she is also author of The Frankfurt Kabuff (Kabuff Books, 2019).

Community Contribution

Saltire Society Literary Awards Judge

Bloody Scotland Committee Member
Bloody Scotland is Scotland's International Crime Writing Festival, based in Stirling.

Saltire Society Publisher of the Year Awards Judge

Divisional / Faculty Contribution

Divisional REF Co-Ordinator

Director of the Stirling Centre for International Publishing and Communication

Education

BA (Hons) in English and Related Literature
University of York

MA in Modern Literature: Studies in Fiction
University of East Anglia

DPhil in Fiction in the Marketplace: the Literary Novel and the UK Publishing Industry 1990-2000
University of Oxford

Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching in Higher Education
Oxford Brookes University

Examining

MSc in Material Cultures and the History of the Book
University of Edinburgh

MLitt in Managing in the Creative Industries
University of St Andrews

BA in Writing and Publishing, University of Derby

Other Academic Activities

Chair of the Board, AHRC Block Grant Partnership: Capacity Building (with the University of Strathclyde)

SGSAH Panel D Chair

Director of Publications and Awards, Society for the History of Authorship, Reading and Publishing (SHARP)

Chair, Association for Publishing Education

Director of the Scottish Graduate School for Arts & Humanities (SGSAH)
https://www.sgsah.ac.uk/

Honorary Professor of 20th/21st Century Book Cultures, UCL

Supervision of Research Assistants

Dr Susan Berridge

Louisa Preston

Dr Fiona Millar

Dr Gill Tasker

Dr Dorothy Butchard

Helena Markou