Hello!

I'm Debbie Pullinger (some of the time, more on that anon) and I'm a writer. Which is to say, I write books, poems and the odd play.

At the moment I'm working on a book about the value of knowing poetry by heart. Drawing on the findings from the Poetry and Memory Project, it weaves together first-hand accounts from people who know poems by heart, research in memory and neuroscience, and the history of memorisation.  I'm particularly interested in the ways that the written and the spoken word are experienced, and in the relationships between text and voice, page and body. So poetry and poetic language make a good field of enquiry.

I ran Poetry and Memory Project at the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge, where I also taught on Children's Literature and Creativity courses. At the same time I had Research Fellowship at Wolfson College, where I'm now a Tutor and Fellow.

But I came late to this academic venture, via a masters degree in Children's Literature, another one in Educational Research and then a PhD. Before all of that I was a freelance editor and writer – and before that, I spent several years working as an editor in educational publishing. Then, somewhere in the dim and distant past, I made a rather false start as a primary school teacher. But nothing is wasted.

I was born on a border, between Wales and England, and have dwelt on edges and borders of all kinds ever since.  I love walking, preferably in hills and other places with a touch of wildness (and thus, most days, wonder what I'm doing living in Cambridge). I'm also deeply interested in nature, and in faith and spirituality. 

Wonderfully, these various interests and practices are becoming increasingly integrated.  There's a bit about some of that on my other website, Sauntering. (Yes, a different name, but still me!)