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Sophie Buchaillard SFHEA, PhD, MA

Dr Sophie Buchaillard

(she/her)

SFHEA, PhD, MA

Teaching Associate

School of English, Communication and Philosophy

Email
BuchaillardS@cardiff.ac.uk

Overview

Dr Sophie Buchaillard, SFHEA, PhD, MA, is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy who is passionate about empowering others to write creatively. As a novelist and travel writer, her practice-led research centres on the role of travel as culture in redefining what identity means in a global context framed by the climate crisis, with a particular focus on migration. Her thesis: Between Cultures: Travel Writing, Identity, and the Global Novel' is constituted of a novel entitled 'Otherness Is Its Own Country' and a critical commentary.

Her novel This Is Not Who We Are (Seren Books, 2022) was shortlisted for the Wales Book of the Year 2023. her short stories and essays have featured in a number of literary magazines and broadsheets, including Writers & Artists, The ByLine Times, Wales Arts Review, The Friday Poem, Murmurations Magazine, the Other Side of Hope and Square Wheel Press. She is also a contributor to the travel writing collection An Open Door: New Travel Writing for a Precarious Century, edited by Steven Lovatt (Parthian, 2022). Her second novel Assimilation (Honno) is out in 2024.

Originally trained as a political scientist, Sophie has worked as a policy advisor and a campaigner. In 2016, she co-authored Talented Women for a Successful Wales (Welsh Government, 2016), a report making recommendations on improving gender parity in business and education in Wales. Prior to 2019, she was the Associate Registrar (Strategy) for the College of Physical Sciences and Engineering at Cardiff University, and the Head of Campaigns and Policy for NUS (Wales) before that.

As a postraduate student at Cardiff University, Sophie was recipient of a Postgraduate Excellence Award in 2019, an MA in Creative and Critical Writing with distinction in 2021, and a Cardiff University Education Senior Fellowship Award in 2022. 

Her research interests centre around travel literature, migration and identity in a global context. 

Research

My research interests including travel writing, identity and migration in Modern Britain and France.

List of recent publications

2022

  • This Is Not Who We Are (Seren) (Shortlisted for Wales Book of the Year 2023)

  • 'What have we learned from the Rwandan genocide?' in the Welsh Agenda - Institute of Welsh Affairs (1.08.2022)

  • 'Developing Credible and Complex Characters' in Writers & Artists (13.06.2022) 

  • 'The Colonial Dynamics of Priti Patel’s Rwanda Deal' in Byline Times (May 2022 edition)

  • 'Tangled Thoughts from a Migrant Mother' in Wales Arts Review (19.04.2022)

  • 'Poetry: A Lockdown Journey' in The Friday Poem (10.03.2022)

  • 'Revolving Doors', in An Open Door: New Travel Writing for a Precarious Century, Edited by Steven Lovatt (Parthian) 

2021

  • 'Metamorphosis' in The Other Side of Hope Magazine (Issue 1- 2021)

  • 'Nostalgia' in Murmurations Magazine (Issue 2 - 2021) and audio on YouTube 

 

2020

  • 'Muranow's Key' in Anthology One: Together & Apart  (Square Wheel Press)

  • 'Together and Apart' in Anthology One: Together & Apart (Square Wheel Press)

  • 'Rwanda, The 1994 Genocide: Lessons of Literature' in Wales Arts Review (22.05.2020) 

 

 

Teaching

RECENT TEACHING

2023-2024 Creative Reading (UG)

2023 - 2024 Creative Writing (UG)

2022 - 2023 - Pathways to Getting Published (MA)

2022-2023 Creative Reading (UG)

2022-2023 Creative Writing (UG)

2021-2022 Creative Writing (UG)

2021 -2022 Creative Reading (UG)

2021-2022 Routes to Getting Published (MA)

 

 

Biography

Professional memberships

  • Society of Authors
  • Higher Education Academy

Academic positions

Teaching Associate 2023- ongoing

Committees and reviewing

Translation Board Member (April 2023 – present) - The Other Side of Hope Magazine - Part of a translation project funded by the Arts Council England, in partnership with the University of Coimbra in Portugal, the University of Navarra in Spain, and the Centre for Language and Social Justice Research in York St John University.

Book Review Editor (Academic Journal) (March 2023 – present) Intersectional Perspectives: Identity, Culture and Society - Editorial board member for this Cardiff University Press journal.

Board Member (2016 -2019) - Welsh Government Women in STEM Board - Member of an expert panel advising the Welsh Government on implementing the recommendations of the Talented Women for a Successful Wales report (2016) which I co-authored, looking to remove gender barriers in Wales.

Research themes

Specialisms

  • Novel
  • Culture, representation and identity
  • Memory
  • Travel Writing
  • autofiction

External profiles