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Archives

Members of the Centre for Creative Writing have been involved in using and setting up Library Archives. These archives include:

• the Douglas Oliver Archive (the archive of the ex-Essex poet Douglas Oliver) at the Albert Sloman Library
• the J.A. Baker Archive, set up by James Canton in 2016

Douglas Oliver (1937-2000) was a poet, novelist, academic, journalist and translator. He was first associated with the University of Essex in the 1970s. Starting as a mature student, Douglas later became a lecturer in the Literature Department. His collection comprises the notebooks, typescripts, research material, correspondence and printed works, and his Archive has been placed on permanent deposit with the Library by his widow, Alice Notley, and has been augmented by additional material acquired by means of purchase.

The J.A Baker Archive is an important national archive of interest internationally, holding the papers of the seminal Essex-based nature writer J.A. Baker, author of The Peregrine. J.A Baker has had an important impact on the currently resurgent new nature writing.

The archive attracts interest nationally and internationally, with visitors from Cambridge, London, Edinburgh and the United States. The launch event featured leading nature writers Mark Cocker and Jon Fanshawe, and involved public facing talks, and a demonstration of a peregrine in flight.