Adam Pond

I am currently a student in my final year of studying Creative and Professional Writing at Canterbury Christ Church University in Kent, and I am planning to continue my studies with an MA. I am a contributing editor to a small Literary magazine, Readable, which is available online and sold in print via the university bookshop.

I have avidly read the Beats since I first encountered On The Road when I was fifteen. Now, I enjoy learning about their influences, such as You Can’t Win by Jack Black, which William S. Burroughs cites as an inspiration to him. I have also been enjoying learning about less well-known works such as The First Third by Neal Cassidy, which I thought was a great window into the inspiration behind Kerouac’s On The Road.

I have used the Beats as inspiration for my creative work in short stories, as well as academic essays such as, ‘How realistic are the depictions of counterculture literary figures in film’, which analyses the accuracy of the portrayal of Burroughs, Kerouac, Hunter S. Thompson etc. in films such as Naked Lunch, Big Sur and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.