Ryan Wilson – författare

In Ghostlight, a long-awaited second collection of original poems by Ryan Wilson, considers the haunting of the contemporary mind. With virtuosic formal variety and masterful craft, these poems range from rural America to Italy to the Holy Land, as they chronicle the dynamism of a spiritual odyssey toward the eternal through both past and present. Wilson employs sonnets, Pindaric and ballad stanzas, alliterative hemistichs in imitation of the Anglo-Saxon, and other ancient forms to enlighten the modern experience, from smartphones and Facebook to jumbo jets, entangled in a reciprocal relationship with myths, sacred literature, and traditions.Revealing that the past and the everlasting can inform the present at any given moment, In Ghostlight conveys how a vision acknowledging this dual illumination helps us understand ourselves and others in our fraught, complex era.

'A frank, funny and long overdue ode to teachers and teaching' ADAM KAYThe malodorous horrors of Sports Day. Bracing yourself for Parents' Evening. Refereeing teenage relationship dramas...From the age of eight, Ryan Wilson dreamed of being a teacher. This is the inside story of his time at the chalkface, from fresh-faced trainee with grand ideals to exhausted assistant head battling ever-changing demands. It is a tribute, too, to the colleagues who befriended him and to the students who inspired him. Above all, it's about the lessons they taught him: how to be patient and resilient, how to live authentically and how to value every day.'Hilarious, inspiring and so terrifyingly true' Lucy Kellaway'Delightfully frank and funny' Jacqueline Wilson'A hilarious love letter to teaching' Christie Watson'Funny, sensitive and clever' Victoria Derbyshire

Craft, 47, has always craved the comfort of his role as the eccentric English teacher at Earhart High in the suburbs of St. Louis. But now he finds himself in the school s library, suffering a mysterious mental paralysis that won t allow him to stop reading The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. Lila, 21, has a holiday-break rendezvous planned with her old mentor, Craft. Actually, Lila has many plans and they re not all nice. She s feeling more than a little betrayed and bewildered after discovering that her father is not the man her mother always said. In fact, he kills people. Duke, 17, is a high-school dropout working in the bowels of Disney World. In his room before dawn, he stuffs essentials into a backpack, preparing to leave home for the first time. It s news to him, but he has this (disturbed?) sister, Lila, and she wants him to come to L.A. to meet her. The altered reality Craft and these lost-and-found siblings inhabit propels them on separate journeys across America. In a landscape of angels and mirrors, allies and adversaries, Craft, Lila, and Duke converge to expose the man whose life of violence connects them. Will they find wholeness, justice, and love?Or is it all an invitation to unleash demons best left asleep?