Edmund Cusick
Encyclopedia
Life
He began his career as a lexicographer for the Oxford English DictionaryOxford English Dictionary
The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press, is the self-styled premier dictionary of the English language. Two fully bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989. The first edition was published in twelve volumes , and...
, but established it at Liverpool John Moores University
Liverpool John Moores University
Liverpool John Moores University is a British 'modern' university located in the city of Liverpool, England. The university is named after John Moores and was previously called Liverpool Mechanics' School of Arts and later Liverpool Polytechnic before gaining university status in 1992, thus...
as professor of Imaginative Writing.
One of Cusick's early courses at Liverpool John Moores was mentioned on national radio at its inception, due to its focus on fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
and science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
writing, which at the time was rare in universities. Due to the subject matter of some of his courses, Cusick was called upon to comment in the press about Tolkien's works, when they were given renewed popularity by the release of the film The Lord of the Rings.
Cusick wrote three books of poetry, and his poems were also published in the New Welsh Review
New Welsh Review
-History:Founded in 1988 as successor to The Welsh Review , Dock Leaves, and The Anglo-Welsh Review , New Welsh Review is Wales’s foremost literary magazine in English...
and Poetry Wales. He was a regular visitor, often bringing his students, to Tŷ Newydd
Ty Newydd
Tŷ Newydd, the National Centre for Writing in Wales, is a renowned writing centre at Llanystumdwy, near Cricieth, in Gwynedd, north-west Wales. It is in the former home of David Lloyd George, the Welsh politician who served as British Prime Minister during the First World War...
. He first attended as a student but later was scheduled to teach some courses there.
Cusick was an associate member of the Welsh Academy
Academi
Literature Wales Literature Wales Literature Wales (formerly the Academi is the Welsh national literature promotion agency and society of writers, existing to promote Welsh-language and English-language literature in Wales. Literature Wales publishes a literary magazine called Taliesin and a...
and member of the International Association for Jungian Studies
International Association for Jungian Studies
Formed in 2002, the International Association for Jungian Studies is a learned society for Jungian scholars and clinicians. The IAJS differs from the dominant international Jungian organization, the International Association of Analytical Psychologists , in that the IAAP accepts only clinicians ...
, who, reviewing his poems, considered them an application of Jungian
Carl Jung
Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and the founder of Analytical Psychology. Jung is considered the first modern psychiatrist to view the human psyche as "by nature religious" and make it the focus of exploration. Jung is one of the best known researchers in the field of dream analysis and...
ideas to Celtic
Celtic mythology
Celtic mythology is the mythology of Celtic polytheism, apparently the religion of the Iron Age Celts. Like other Iron Age Europeans, the early Celts maintained a polytheistic mythology and religious structure...
and other myths. Cusick won a prize in the Housman Poetry Competition in 1998, a Jerwood writing fellowship, and the Keats-Shelley Prize for Poetry
Keats-Shelley Prize for Poetry
The Keats-Shelley Prize was inaugurated in 1998 by the Keats-Shelley Memorial Association to reward excellence in writing on Romantic themes.-External links:*...
in 2005 for his poem Speaking in Tongues.
He also co-edited and contributed to a handbook for writers, and edited anthologies.
Works
Gronw’s Stone: Voices from the Mabinogion (1997) Headland Publications (ISBN 0903074974) by Ann Gray and Edmund CusickBlodeuwedd: an Anthology of Women Poets (2001) Headland Publications (ISBN 1902096711)
Ice Maidens (2006) Headland Publications (ISBN 1902096940)
The Writer’s Workbook (Hodder Arnold, 2000). (ISBN 034076001X) edited by Jenny Newman, Edmund Cusick and Aileen La Tourette)
Poetry Pool (ISBN 1902096983) Edited by Gladys Mary Coles, Aileen La Tourette and Edmund Cusick.