Harry Oulton

Harry completed his MA in Children’s Literature at Goldsmith’s in 2019 and has written three middle-grade novels and a book of prompts for reluctant writers of all ages. More details can be accessed on his website http://www.harryoulton.co.uk/books/.

Harry started a PhD at Goldsmiths in Children’s Literature in 2020 with the working title of “Arrowfall - the methodology of Adaptation in YA Historical Fiction”. The Paston Letters are a series of over 1000 letters written between members of the same family in the 15^th century. They are readily accessible, and Harry is using them as his principal source material in the creation of Arrowfall, a contemporaneous Young Adult Historical novel. This is the same creative process followed in 1883 by Robert Louis Stevenson when he wrote the YA novel The Black Arrow, and Helen Castor in 2004 when she wrote Blood and Roses, a biography of the Paston family. Arrowfall will interact with all three texts, creating a pyramid of adaptation and informing the choices he makes during the writing process. He will also be drawing on outlaw narratives, from Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe up to the 2017 Netflix series Casa de Papel. Historical Fiction is itself the product of an adaptive contradiction; by necessity, it involves the insertion of fiction into a truth, and this uneasy juxtaposition is best examined and accessed using an adaptation studies methodology. As HF is often used pedagogically, he is working within both the creative writing and the education faculties of Goldsmiths. The pedagogic aspect must consider fidelity, which will ensure he, in turn, addresses the fundamental question at the heart of adaptation; should an adaptation bring the source text to the reader, or should it take the reader to the text?