Vacancy: Life-Writing Seminar Support Worker

The Oxford Centre for Life-Writing, a research cluster based at Wolfson College, is excited to open applications for their first Life-Writing Seminar Support Worker. This is a one-year post intended to support our flagship Visiting Researcher programme, high-profile speaker events, and our first Festival of Life-Writing in June 2025. This is an opportunity for someone interested in life-writing to gain experience in a busy team while also having the opportunity to be part of a high-level feedback seminar which is otherwise only open to Visiting Researchers.

The Oxford Centre for Life Writing at Wolfson College

Rate of pay: £12.82 per hour, for 2 hours per week during term time. Additional hours will be available during the festival in June 2025.

Time commitment: you must be available to attend the Visiting Researcher Seminar on term-time Tuesdays from 10.30am-12.30pm at Wolfson College.

Duties: you will be responsible for tech support (setting up the Zoom call, sharing slides) at the weekly Visiting Researcher Seminar; at other events you will support the OCLW Events Manager as required (eg, setting up the room, serving refreshments).

You will be trusted to act on your own initiative to ensure the smooth running of our Visiting Researcher seminar. This often involves problem-solving/troubleshooting, especially relating to the tech set-up in the room and other logistical issues related to running events.

Person wearing dark nail polish writing in a notebook that is balanced on their knee.

Opportunities

Being in the room at our Visiting Researcher Seminar is a privilege. While your paid role is to support the seminar, while you are in the room you will be invited to contribute to discussions at the forefront of life-writing as a discipline, and have the opportunity to read works in progress by high-profile authors and academics.

You will be able to attend our evening lectures and other events and meet high-profile speakers as a member of the OCLW team. During our Festival of Life-Writing you will have the opportunity to co-ordinate panels and chair events.

There is flexibility as to other opportunities available, these will depend on your interests, but they might include writing a short article for publication on our website, cataloguing books in our archive, and work shadowing various roles in our team.

Experience/attributes required

You must be reliable (eg, turning up on time, able to problem solve under pressure)
Experience running or supporting hybrid events
You must be competent to run the technical aspects of a hybrid seminar and be able to think on your feet and resolve issues quickly and calmly
You will be a friendly face – you will often find yourself welcoming arrivals as you will be the first to arrive at the Seminar each week

Additional experience/attributes

A genuine interest in life-writing and life-writing research
Willingness to actively participate in the seminars, reading work in advance and actively listening and asking questions to help presenters shape their work
Willingness to help promote the Visiting Researcher programme and OCLW in general

The role would be ideally suited for a DPhil student or ECR interested in life-writing who is keen to take an active part in our Visiting Researcher Seminar while providing tech support.

To apply

Send a brief covering letter (1 page) along with a completed application form -