New Director of Communications
K-SAA News: New Director of Communications, Dr Anna Mercer
I am delighted to be appointed as the new Director of Communications for the K-SAA. Here's a little about me. I recently completed my AHRC-funded PhD at the University of York, UK, where I wrote my thesis on the collaborative literary relationship between Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Shelley. This research included delving into the manuscripts of the Shelleys. I am interested in evidence of Mary Shelley's hand in P B Shelley's writings; deconstructing Mary's role as amanuensis and collaborator allows us to consider the Shelleys' reciprocal support for one another's literary talents. I've also been thinking about the Shelleys' shared workspaces and the textual connections between their works. In addition to publishing on this particular literary dialogue, I've also written about the relationship between S. T. Coleridge and his daughter Sara Coleridge. I have experience of running and developing my own social media channels such as my personal blog on Romanticism, and also of working for established Romantic and literary organisations. I am the Blog Editor for BARS (The British Association for Romantic Studies), and my current job at Keats House in Hampstead includes contributing to their social media feeds. In my new role at the K-SAA I want to continue to celebrate online resources like the Shelley-Godwin Archive, and in particular, highlight the broad appeal of manuscripts. Those fascinated by the construction of poetry, people who adore the writers the K-SAA represents, and lovers of literature can all connect to the Romantics through the visual power of manuscripts. I'm also interested in public events that celebrate Romantic bicentenaries and literature in general. I ran an international event celebrating two hundred years since the composition of Frankenstein in 2016 (locations included the Keats-Shelley House in Rome), and in 2017 I co-organised The Shelley Conference in London. I hope to contribute to more projects like these in the future. I am really looking forward to working with Neil Fraistat, Kate Singer, and the excellent communications fellows to share the K-SAA with as many interested parties as possible. You can contact me on: mercerannam@gmail.com Or via my personal Twitter account here. You can also see my Academia.edu profile here. Thank you! Anna Mercer