The Birmingham Literature Festival podcast brings writers and readers together to discuss some of 2020’s best books. Each Thursday across the next few months we’ll be releasing new episodes of the podcast, including wonderful discussions
about writing, poetry, big ideas and social issues. Join us each week for exciting and inspiring conversations with new, and familiar, writers from the Midlands and beyond.

Take a look at the rest of this year's digital programme on our website: https://www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org/.
For more information on Writing West Midlands, visit https://writingwestmidlands.org/

Follow the festival on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @BhamLitFest

Credits

Curator: Shantel Edwards (Festival director)
Guest Curator: Kit de Waal
Production: 11C/ Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands

The Birmingham Lit Fest Presents... podcast brings writers and readers together to discuss some of 2020’s best books. Each Thursday across the next few months we’ll be releasing new episodes of the podcast, including wonderful discussions
about writing, poetry, big ideas and social issues. Join us each week for exciting and inspiring conversations with new, and familiar, writers from the Midlands and beyond.

Take a look at the rest of this year's digital programme on our website: https://www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org/.
For more information on Writing West Midlands, visit https://writingwestmidlands.org/

Follow the festival on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @BhamLitFest

Credits

Curator: Shantel Edwards (Festival director)
Guest Curator: Kit de Waal
Production: 11C/ Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands

TRANSCRIPT

Birmingham Lit Fest presents…podcast
Episode 1: Stuart Maconie and Pete Paphides
Kit de Waal
Welcome to episode 1 of the Birmingham Lit Fest presents…podcast. I’m Kit de Waal, writer and Guest
Curator of this year’s podcast. This week’s episode brings together in conversation 2 of the UK’s most
established broadcasters and journalists, Stuart Maconie and Pete Paphides to discuss their latest books,
The Nanny State Made Me and Broken Greek. In conversation with writer and poet Jo Bell, they discuss the
personal and cultural importance of music, their deep connection to the Midlands, redefining our
understanding of the ‘Nanny State’ and what it is to have a life so different to that of your parents.

Shantel Edwards
This episode of the Birmingham Lit Fest presents… podcast is brought to you in partnership with Dains
Accounting. Visit their website for more information about their services at www.dains.com.

Jo Bell
Hello, and welcome to Birmingham Literature Festival. You'll be used to recordings by now from all kinds of
different places, so if you hear the slight creaking of timbers, that's because my part of this podcast is being
recorded on a boat. I'm Jo Bell, I'm a poet who has often been a guest of this festival. And today I'm
speaking to two men whose recent books have a lot in common. Pete Paphides' Broken Greek and Stuart
Maconie's The Nanny State Made Me are both funny, they're thoughtful, they're what you might call lyric
histories telling the story of a personal life and looking at a larger world through the rear-view mirror.
Stuart Maconie's book looks at the impact of the welfare state through its framing of his own life. And Pete
Paphides shows us what it was like to grow up in Birmingham during the 70s and 80s as a secondgeneration Greek through the records that saw him through childhood and adolescence. So hello, both
where are you today? Stuart, where are you?

Stuart Maconie
Hi, Jo. I'm in a almost completely deserted BBC MediaCity studio. I've been incredibly the … we were
designated my show and Lauren Laverne's show on [Radio] 6 Music were designated 'key workers' at the
beginning of this, at the beginning of this crisis. And so I've been working, I've been coming here every
weekend and although there's been a slight increase in busyness, pretty much still … It's slightly weird. So
I'm in a deserted studio in Salford at the moment.

Jo Bell
Wow, wow! Thanks. Where are you Pete?

Pete Paphides
I'm – slightly less romantically – I'm in the shed at the bottom of the garden. I've sort of commandeered,
which is my daughter's office usually, but I've, I've ousted her. And so me and the dog are just sitting here.
But I do like … Stuart situation sounds quite romantic. I quite like being in radio studios when they're mostly
empty. They have, there's a certain kind of romance about it, which I dare say, probably wore off quite a
long time ago.

Stuart Maconie
No, it is. I do … You're right, you're absolutely right. There is a strange kind of feeling. It's like radio studios
in the middle of the night, people who do those kind of shows where you go, “Hi, it's coming up to twenty
to 4 a.m.” you know, that kind of thing. It's, it is quite romantic. Yeah, but, and I can see Winter Hill from
my window. So it's all quite nice,

Jo Bell
Fantastic. Ian Macmillan told me once that he had been at Radio 4 when the shipping forecast was on and
how he imagined that the whole station was just switched off like a light switch at the end, and he said,
“And it was just like that; it was just like that – they finished the shipping forecast and and then they turned
it off Radio 4 went to bed”.

Stuart Maconie
My favourite entry in the BBC Duty log, which used to be … it's probably all online now. It used to be when
people called up with complaints and stuff, they used to put it in what was called the Duty log. My favourite
complaint was, “Shipping forecast too fast”.

Jo Bell
It's important. I mean, you are, you're all doing important work for the nation. And no one is perhaps more
important than they should be focused, especially to those of us who have no real idea what it means. So
we're here today to celebrate your two books, which I've re-read and enjoyed, and I've listened to Pete's as
well as the Book of the Week on Radio 4. And it strikes me how much they've got in common and, of
course, how separate they are. So what I'd like to do is to hear an extract first from Stuart's book, and a
couple of questions for Stuart, and then we'll repeat that process with Pete, and then we'll bring you both
into a conversation together.

So I'm going to introduce Stuart first. For those of you who don't know him, which can't be many of you,
Stuart Maconie is a music journalist, a broadcaster, and author of broad-ranging social histories, which
often start from pop culture but they go much deeper; they go much wider. And in the words of the Daily
Mail – Stuart Maconie, do you want to hear this, Stuart, what the Daily Mail said about you–

Stuart Maconie
Yes, please. What did they say?

Jo Bell
They said you are “a lefty – but he's not one of those hectoring ideologues who stands astride social media
bellowing at people”. So Stuart, could you please bellow or otherwise a few words from your book, The
Nanny State Made Me?

Stuart Maconie
Okay, this is from the very short – this is the opening page or two – it's from the very short prologue, that
sort of scene setting.
“London's skyline bristles with towers old and new, bloody and sleek, monuments to kings and to
commerce, from the giants of the City's swampy money jungle, to the high-rise canyons of Camden, visitor
and native steers and orients by them, lifting your eyes from your book or your phone or your feet as the
train exhales into Euston as the bus crests Muswell Hill, as you jostle through the West End. Whenever I
pace the narrow lanes of Bloomsbury and Fitzrovia, I look up, fly favourite, a Grade II-listed building, more
human and generous than the monstrosities of Canary Wharf. It's had many names, and many lovers. It
looms over works by ...

The Birmingham Lit Fest Presents... podcast brings writers and readers together to discuss some of 2020’s best books. Each Thursday across the next few months we’ll be releasing new episodes of the podcast, including wonderful discussions
about writing, poetry, big ideas and social issues. Join us each week for exciting and inspiring conversations with new, and familiar, writers from the Midlands and beyond.

Take a look at the rest of this year's digital programme on our website: https://www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org/.
For more information on Writing West Midlands, visit https://writingwestmidlands.org/

Follow the festival on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @BhamLitFest

Credits

Curator: Shantel Edwards (Festival director)
Guest Curator: Kit de Waal
Production: 11C/ Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands

TRANSCRIPT

Kit de Waal 

I’m Kit de Waal, writer and Guest Curator of this year’s Birmingham Lit Fest Presents…podcast. Today’s  episode brings Liz Berry, Romalyn Ante and Rupinder Kaur together, three powerhouse poets from the  Midlands. Featuring a series of wonderful readings of the poems from their collections Rooh and Antiemetic  for Homesickness, Rupinder and Romalyn join Liz for a discussion of their work, the importance of poetry  during a pandemic and the power of poetry to connect us.  

Sponsor message 

This episode of the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents… podcast is brought to you in partnership with the  University of Wolverhampton. Visit their website at www.wlv.ac.uk for information on January 2021  enrolment. 

Liz Berry 

Hello, everyone, and thank you so much for joining us across the miles for this very special Birmingham  Literature Festival podcast. I'm Liz Berry, a poet and patron of writing West Midlands and I'm delighted to be  introducing you to two of the brightest rising stars on the poetry scene: Rupinder Kaur and Romalyn Ante.  These two wonderful Midlands poets bring us what's best and most exciting about contemporary poetry – true heart and deep feeling; a meeting of gorgeous, lyrical languages; and an engagement with the stories  and experiences which transform us. I'm going to introduce both the poets to you and then we'll hear their  poems and chat about their work and the importance of poetry in difficult times.  

My first guest, Romalyn Ante, is a nurse, award-winning poet and editor. She was born in San Sebastian in  the Philippines, where she lived until she migrated to the UK at 16. Romalyn's poems have won many  awards, including the prestigious Poetry London Prize and the Manchester Poetry Prize. Romalyn was the  co-founding editor of Harana Poetry journal, a journal for poets who write with English as a second or  parallel language. This summer Romalyn published her first full collection with Chatto [an imprint of  Penguin], Antiemetic for Homesickness, and it's already received rave reviews and acclaim, being named an  Observer Poetry book of the month.  

My second guest is the wonderful Rupinder Kaur. Rupinder is a Birmingham Punjabi poet, performer,  workshop facilitator and creative curator. Her debut poetry book, Rooh (2018) was published by Verve  Poetry Press. She's been awarded a DYCP grant from the Arts Council to work on a next poetry collection.  And is currently a BBC New Creative developing an audio piece with Rural Media. 

Rupinder and Romalyn, welcome! Thank you both for joining me. I wish we could all be together having a cup of tea and chatting about your poems in front of an audience. But as this has been a really different  kind of year, we're just going to imagine instead. We're going to pour our virtual tea, get comfy on our virtual sofa. And Romalyn. I'd love you to start us off by reading a poem, please. 

Romalyn Ante 

Thank you. Thanks so much, Liz, and thank you for that wonderful introduction. The first poem that I'm  going to read is called Names. And it has an epigraph which I will read before I read the poem. 

In the Philippines I grew up with an absentee mother. So my mother worked abroad as a nurse in order to  provide a better chance in life for us. But that experience was not unique to me. So in 2018 nine million  children in the Philippines were left behind by their parents. And I guess this first poem attempts to explore  what it means to be exiled through employment, not only through physically but also emotionally, and what  it means to find a sense of belonging and a sense of knowing in the names that are given to us.  

Names 

‘We are nameless, and all names are ours’ 

EMMANUEL LACABA 

My mother’s name is Rosana, but when she left, 

I had other mothers. Rowena, Jimboy, Alma. 

I was named after 

the first syllables of my parents; 

I will always have them with me. 

My mother says not all names have meaning – 

Riverside. Manila. London. Kurba. 

And someday I will forget 

all the commands I did not heed – 

like the time I did not spin the plate clockwise 

before my father left for work 

even if it would deliver him from accidents.

Not all destinations are found 

in the junctions of your palm lines. 

Say better life, say better life. 

And God knows I am repenting. 

Say airbus-something, say one-way ticket, keep following the sunset. Clouds are the closest things to my mother. 

Say United Kingdom, say the queen, NHS. Does winter always mean – ? 

Listen – can you hear it? The loneliness of stretchers along A&E corridors. 

And the strongest part of me 

is the scar I hide underneath my fringe. 

My mother 

hides in the staff toilet 

to make long-distance calls 

Someday I will realise 

the woman lonely in her mansion 

is not my mother  

but a future version of myself. 

I will chop bitter gourds 

on the galaxy-glimmer 

of her worktop. 

Shall we shorten your name on your name tag so it’s easier to remember? Say Yes please, Sister. 

Say Please, Sister, can I take this call?

Say Arnold, Marcus, Harold. Say septicaemia, alcohol poisoning, hernia. 

Say Jason, Darius, Vernon. Say cancer, myocardial infarction, query schizophrenia.  

Hides in the toilet. 

And I have the first syllables 

of my parents' names,&...

the Black Country accent on the page and the intersections of identity, alongside a wonderful reading from the novel.

The Birmingham Lit Fest Presents... podcast brings writers and readers together to discuss some of 2020’s best books. Each Thursday across the next few months we’ll be releasing new episodes of the podcast, including wonderful discussions
about writing, poetry, big ideas and social issues. Join us each week for exciting and inspiring conversations with new, and familiar, writers from the Midlands and beyond.

Take a look at the rest of this year's digital programme on our website: https://www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org/.
For more information on Writing West Midlands, visit https://writingwestmidlands.org/

Follow the festival on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @BhamLitFest

Credits

Curator: Shantel Edwards (Festival director)
Guest Curator: Kit de Waal
Production: 11C/ Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands

TRANSCRIPT

Kit de Waal 

Welcome to the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents…podcast series. I’m Kit de Waal and I’ve worked with  the Festival Director, Shantel Edwards, as Guest Curator of this year’s podcast series. Each Thursday  across the next few months we’ll be releasing new episodes of the podcast, including wonderful  discussions about writing, poetry, big ideas and social issues. In this week’s episode, artist and  cultural critic Gaylene Gould interviews debut author Paul Mendez about his novel Rainbow Milk, a  coming of age story that starts in the Midlands, via Jamaica, and follows ex-communicated Jehovah’s  Witness Jesse McCarthy as he grapples with racism, the legacies of the Windrush and his sexuality.  Join Paul and Gaylene for a fascinating discussion about the rich history of Black British writing,  representing the Black Country accent on the page and the intersections of identity, alongside a  wonderful reading from the novel.  

Gaylene Gould 

Welcome to Birmingham Literature Festival. I'm reviewer Gaylene Gould here with debut novelist  Paul Mendez to talk about his book, Rainbow Milk, which made this year's Observer top 10 debut  list. Hi, Paul. 

Paul Mendez 

Hello Gaylene, how are you? 

Gaylene Gould 

Good, thank you. Good, good. Yeah, great to actually kind of meet you virtually. I reviewed this book  for Front Row, and I was saying how like, that can be quite onerous, you know, because you have to  read a whole book and then hopefully like it and I really loved it. So, it's really wonderful to get to  meet you. So, Rainbow Milk, it's a semi-autobiographical novel, following the journey of a character  called Jesse McCarthy, who's a 19-year-old, de-fellowshipped Jehovah's Witness from West  Bromwich. And we follow him as he moves to London and explores his sexuality through  prostitution, amongst other things and through to becoming a burgeoning writer. So, there's real  shades of James Baldwin here, and Giovanni's Room is indeed referenced in the novel. So, tell us a  bit how this story grew in you.  

Paul Mendez 

Well I have a different answer now to what I would have said in answer or in response a couple of  weeks ago, even because I've just re-read Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone, which was Baldwin's fourth novel, published in 1968, just after the start of his political downturn, his unjust critical downturn as far as I'm concerned, because I think his later novels are pretty much his best work. But I read Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone when I was 20 years old. My trajectory was  very different from Jesse, Jesse was disfellowshipped at 19 and then move straight to London,  whereas I was disfellowshipped at 17. And when I was 19, moved to Kent to study an engineering  degree at West Kent College, a partner College of Greenwich University. I didn't stay on the degree  course for very long, I think I quit after about nine months. But in the summer of 2002, I was living  with some fellow students or photography students, actually not engineering students. And it was  sort of my first time living away from home, it was the first time living with creative people and one  of them pushed Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone into my hand and it was the first time I've  ever read a book by a black author. It was the first time I'd ever read a book by a black queer author,  focalising a black queer protagonist. And it had a huge impact on me, but one, which I sort of put  down, put to the side and forgot about, but it's only when reading it back now, 18 years later, that I  realized just how much of an impact that book had on me in terms of my life choices, in terms of you  know, I studied acting very much like the protagonist, Leo Proudhammer, he studied acting with a  method school and becomes a successful Off Broadway actor in New York. I became a waiter and  sort of, you know, expanded my sort of social kind of contacts, I suppose, and social environment  through working in restaurants, and samplings and cuisines and just meeting you know, a whole cast  of different people, and of course, explored my sexuality. So, Leo Proudhammer, the protagonist of  Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone is bisexual, or identifies as bisexual and I came out as  bisexual I think a year after reading, Tell Me How Long the Train’s Been Gone. And so even just in  terms of the subject’s dealt with, but also in terms of the way the book is written, the way Rainbow  Milk is written, the different sort of devices I use in telling the story, so much of it reflects back to  that book. So I think, it just goes to prove how important books are, and reading is, to a formative  mind. As I said, I put that book down, forgot about it and some 5 - 10 years later started reading  other Baldwin novels, such as Giovanni's Room and Another Country, which I've referenced briefly in  Rainbow Milk, but I think the most important of his books to me was Tell Me How Long the Train’s  Been Gone. 

Gaylene Gould 

So that's a great answer. And also, like you're saying, it really shows how novels and books work, that they have a slow, transformative process on you, you know, and you really kind of get a sense  of that in this novel, that there is something that is kind of, there is a journey, there's a journey  that's taken not just through the character, but that you take us on, getting us to sample our own journeys, I guess. So, the book spans miles and time so it's predominantly set this century, in the  2000s, but it begins in the last, particularly the 1950s with the arrival of Jesse's ancestor, Norman  Alonzo and his wife Claudette from Jamaica, arriving in Bilston, in the West Midlands. So why was it  important for you for the book to start there? 

Paul Mendez 

So what we think of as the Windrush generation now they're dying off, sadly, you know, the  Windrush itself, that ...

The Birmingham Lit Fest Presents... podcast brings writers and readers together to discuss some of 2020’s best books. Each Thursday across the next few months we’ll be releasing new episodes of the podcast, including wonderful discussions
about writing, poetry, big ideas and social issues. Join us each week for exciting and inspiring conversations with new, and familiar, writers from the Midlands and beyond.

Take a look at the rest of this year's digital programme on our website: https://www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org/.
For more information on Writing West Midlands, visit https://writingwestmidlands.org/

Follow the festival on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @BhamLitFest

Credits

Curator: Shantel Edwards (Festival director)
Guest Curator: Kit de Waal
Production: 11C/ Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands

TRANSCRIPT

BLF Podcast Transcription, Episode 4: Candice Braithwaite in conversation with Dorothy Koomson 

Kit de Waal
Welcome to the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents...podcast series. I’m Kit de Waal and I’ve worked with the 

Festival Director, Shantel Edwards, as Guest Curator of this year’s podcast series. Each Thursday across the next few months we’ll be releasing new episodes of the podcast, including wonderful discussions about writing, poetry, big ideas and social issues. In this week’s episode we welcome Candice Brathwaite, author of the bestselling book, I Am Not Your Baby Mother, in conversation with fellow bestselling author Dorothy Koomson. Candice’s book, part memoir and part social commentary, offers a brilliantly observed guide to life as a black mother in the UK and an urgent call to recognise the diversity of motherhood. Join them as they discuss redefining motherhood, the silencing of black women’s pain and the experience of publishing a book in the midst of a global pandemic and the resurgence of Black Lives Matter protests across the world. 

Dorothy Koomson
Hello, my name's Dorothy Koomson and today I am talking to the wonderful Candice Brathwaite – I have to say that properly. And I actually listened to her book rather than reading it because I wanted to get a sense of who Candice is. And so I know how to say her name properly. So yeah, Candice Brathwaite is something of a powerhouse in the social media world and in, naturally, the real world. She has helped to transform the lives of millions, and I do say millions because she has touched so many people: the lives of millions of mothers everywhere by showing them that mothers don't all look one way and they don't all have to have shiny hair and a certain amount of money in the bank to be good mothers who love and care about their children. And she's a top-tier influencer. And it was from her experiences on the differing ways of being a mother that led her to found Make Motherhood Diverse, an online initiative that Candice describes as aiming to encourage a more accurately representative and diverse depiction of motherhood in the media. Basically, to show us all that all mothers don't look the same, they don't have the same experiences and we are all different but all good parents. 

Candice has two children, Esmé-Olivia, and Richard Junior known as RJ, and she lives with her husband Bodé in Milton Keynes. Her book, I Am Not Your Baby Mother, published earlier this year, really lifted the lid off what it means to be a black mother in our modern world. And she describes her experiences and the experience of so many other black women in all its dangerous, humorous, scandalous, humbling, empowering and beautiful glory. Candice is talking to me today about her book, life and of course, ice cream. And I say ice cream because my first question to you, Candice, is going to be, What's your favourite flavour of ice cream? 

Candice Brathwaite 
Um, Cookie Dough. 

Dorothy Koomson 
Cookie Dough? 

Candice Brathwaite
Yeah, specifically a bit of Ben and Jerry's. 

Dorothy Koomson 
Ben and Jerry's. 

Candice Brathwaite
I don't wanna advertise to them but ... Ben and Jerry's Cookie Dough. It's up there. It is up there. 

Dorothy Koomson
You see, I can't eat that, unfortunately, because I'm gluten free, and so I'm gutted when I see other people eating those things. It's just – oh, okay. Well, now I know that, see, we've started on a good footing. You've got a good flavour of ice cream up there. So, my second important question to you was going to be, What's your favourite flavour of baby food? 

Candice Brathwaite
Oh, baby food? Oh, gosh! 

Dorothy Koomson
I bet no one's ever asked you that before. 

Candice Brathwaite
I'm a bit stuck. Yes, never! I'm like, you know, anything appley if that makes sense like. And this is the thing: so you know my background is Caribbean and my husband's background is Nigerian so even like the idea of baby food that comes in jars – that's so foreign to us. 

Dorothy Koomson 
I know. 

Candice Brathwaite
You just like, yeah, you just mash down what you're eating and give it to the baby. 

Dorothy Koomson
Yes, I know. That was why I wanted to double-check. You see, I wanted to double-check on you. I was checking up on you in a different way, see. 

[Laughter.] 

Dorothy Koomson
So I should follow that up by asking is it plantain or jollof. Which is your favourite out of those two? 

Candice Brathwaite
Oh, plantain! It's not even up for a competition with me. 

Dorothy Koomson
Okay, all right. So I’m gonna be serious now, yeah. So how is your lockdown been? Because I know it's, we're coming out of it apparently. I'm not, I'm still distancing and stuff. But how's it been for you? 

Candice Brathwaite
Do you know what? Lockdown was, was really difficult in, in, in a lot of ways. You've got, I've got two underage kids at home. It's hard to explain, especially to a two-year old, why he can't go to his childminder. And, you know, you're spending all of this extra time with a family you really do love but you need some space. And then it was, there was another layer of difficulty. My first book was published during lockdown, which I was really, really nervous about because I'm a debut author anyway. I'm gonna be nervous: I don't know how this works. And you could have millions of followers on social media. If you want to be taken seriously as a writer there is, I had an idea in my head about getting to meet my readers, about being on a physical book tour. And to see dates just get erased from my diary, I was like, oh, okay. I was even saying to the publishing house, like, I think we should delay this and luckily, they, you know, they had faith that it would be okay. But it's been really, really hard because – you would know better than me – writing a book is one thing, promoting it is a different beast. 

Dorothy Koomson 
It is. 

 <...

The Birmingham Lit Fest Presents... podcast brings writers and readers together to discuss some of 2020’s best books. Each Thursday across the next few months we’ll be releasing new episodes of the podcast, including wonderful discussions
about writing, poetry, big ideas and social issues. Join us each week for exciting and inspiring conversations with new, and familiar, writers from the Midlands and beyond.

Take a look at the rest of this year's digital programme on our website: https://www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org/.
For more information on Writing West Midlands, visit https://writingwestmidlands.org/

Follow the festival on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @BhamLitFest

Credits

Curator: Shantel Edwards (Festival director)
Guest Curator: Kit de Waal
Production: 11C/ Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands

TRANSCRIPT

BLF Podcast Transcription, Episode 5: Louise O’Neill in Conversation with Amy Webb and Tanita Patel 

Kit de Waal
Welcome to the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents...podcast series. I’m Kit de Waal and I’ve worked with the Festival Director, Shantel Edwards, as Guest Curator of this year’s podcast series. Each Thursday across the next few months we’ll be releasing new episodes of the podcast, including wonderful discussions about writing, poetry, big ideas and social issues. Today’s episode is brought to you by the READ ON project, a scheme supported by the European Union’s Creative Europe fund. The READ ON project gets young people reading, writing, and interviewing authors, both in their own country and across Europe. In this week’s podcast, two of our young presenters, Amy Webb and Tanita Patel, interviewed bestselling author Louise O’Neill about her latest book After the Silence, discussing the cultural preoccupation with true crime and stories about young women, feminism and the urgency of the climate crisis.

Amy Webb
Welcome to the Birmingham Literature Festival 2020 and to our podcast with the writer Louise O'Neill. My name is Amy and I'm part of a project called Young Presenters. I'm from the city of Birmingham in England and I'm 16 years old. In September I am due to start at University College Birmingham studying health and social care.

Tanita Patel
My name is Tanita and I am also part of the Young Presenters project. I'm 16 years old from Wolverhampton and about start Sixth Form in September to study psychology, RS and English Literature.

Amy Webb
Over the last three years Young Presenters have trained young people to run events at the Birmingham Literature Festival. The project is part of Read On, a scheme supported by the European Union's Creative Europe fund.

Tanita Patel
This year's Birmingham Literature Festival is being run online. And we are so pleased to be here to interview the writer Louise O'Neill. Louise, welcome to the Birmingham Literature Festival.

Louise O’Neill
Oh, thank you so much for having me.

Amy Webb
Louise, we have quite a few questions for you. But before we start, could you please tell us a bit about yourself and your writing?
   
Louise O’Neill
Yeah, well, I'm from Ireland, I'm from a small town called Clonakilty in West Cork, which is in the south of Ireland. And I have been writing for, I’m trying to think how many years now, I think it's seven years. And so, my first novel was called Only Ever Yours, and that was published in 2014. And that's a dystopian novel, set in a world in which women are no longer able to have daughters. So they can have sons, but their bodies have sort of naturally evolved to reject a female foetus in the womb. So faced with the extinction of the human race, a decision is made to create these schools where girls are bred for their beauty and then trained to be subservient to men. My second novel came out in 2015, and that was called Asking For It. And that was about a young woman called Emma O’Donovan, who is the victim of a brutal sexual assault. My third novel was for adults, so we probably won't be talking about that here, but my fourth book was a feminist retelling of the Little Mermaid for young adults, which was called The Surface Breaks. And, actually, my fifth novel is due to be published next week.

Tanita Patel
Thanks Louise, that's really interesting. However, our first question isn't actually about your writing, we would both like to know, what have you been up to in lockdown?

Louise O’Neill
Oh, God! Um, that is a very good question. And I really wish that I could tell you that I, you know, was emerging from lockdown clutching a piece of art in my hands. But I am not. I think when Taylor Swift came and said that she had written and recorded an album during lockdown, I felt immensely guilty. And just a great deal of shame about my lack of productivity. But I think to be honest, when it was called, when everything happened at the beginning, I was really just scrambling. I felt incredibly
anxious, I think it was difficult not to pick up on the anxiety and the fear. That was just so like the atmosphere was thick with it really. So, for the first month, I think I just felt completely paralyzed. I was unable to, to write I was unable to read, I couldn't even watch Netflix. So, I think it took me a little bit of time to come out of that fog in a way. And just try and adjust and try and kind of, and I hate using the term the new normal, but I suppose trying to adjust to this new way of living and figure out a way of doing it that felt, I don't know, comfortable I suppose, for me. So that's kind of been what I've been doing with my lockdown is just trying to adjust to the madness.

Amy Webb
Definitely. I agree with you there, a lot of people have struggled in similar ways and we've got to try and accept the new normal. As you mentioned earlier, you have a new book just published called After the Silence. Could you please introduce the book for people who have not read it?

Louise O’Neill
Yeah, of course. Well, it's going to be published on September 3, so it's only a week out. And it is set on an island off the coast of West Cork called Inisrun. And an incredibly glamorous wealthy family called the Kinsellas have set up, a world-renowned artist retreat centre on the island. And the youngest Kinsella son Henry has married a local woman called Keelin. And it's at Keelin’s 36th birthday party that this violent storm engulfs the island, you know, the power goes out and it's completely cut off from the mainland. And the next morning, the body of a young girl is found. No one can get on the island. No one can get off the island. So it has to have been someone on Inisrun who did this. And then 10 years later, the murder of the beautiful Nessa Crowley still haunts the Irish people. And so, a team of documentary makers have arrived on to the island to find out exactly what happened on Inisrun that night. So that's it, After the Silence in a little nutshell.

Tanita Patel
Thank you for that great explanation. Whilst reading it, I thought it was really powerful book. Are there any experiences or stories that have influence...

The Birmingham Lit Fest Presents... podcast brings writers and readers together to discuss some of 2020’s best books. Each Thursday across the next few months we’ll be releasing new episodes of the podcast, including wonderful discussions
about writing, poetry, big ideas and social issues. Join us each week for exciting and inspiring conversations with new, and familiar, writers from the Midlands and beyond.

Take a look at the rest of this year's digital programme on our website: https://www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org/.
For more information on Writing West Midlands, visit https://writingwestmidlands.org/

Follow the festival on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @BhamLitFest

Credits

Curator: Shantel Edwards (Festival director)
Guest Curator: Kit de Waal
Production: 11C/ Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands

TRANSCRIPT

BLF 20 Podcast Transcription 6: Kit de Waal and Paul McVeigh
 
Kit de Waal
Welcome to the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents...podcast series. I’m Kit de Waal and I’ve worked with the Festival Director, Shantel Edwards, as Guest Curator of this year’s podcast series. Each Thursday across the next few months we’ll be releasing new episodes of the podcast, including wonderful discussions about writing, poetry, big ideas and social issues. In this week’s episode I talk to fellow writer and novelist Paul McVeigh about Supporting Cast, my first short story collection that focuses on the lives and loves of ordinary people including some familiar characters from my earlier novels. We talk about writing character driven fiction, amplifying the voices of working-class writers and dealing with rejection, alongside 2 readings from the book.

University of Birmingham Sponsor Message
This episode of the Birmingham Lit Fest presents... podcast is brought to you in partnership with the University of Birmingham College of Arts and Law. We explore what it means to be human in historical and cultural contexts, within ethical and legal norms and through languages and communication.

Paul McVeigh
Hello everyone and welcome to the Birmingham Literature Festival. My name's Paul McVeigh and I'm here to interview Kit de Waal, novelist and short story writer, and currently screenwriter as well – and we'll hear more about that later on. Kit was born to an Irish mother and Caribbean father, was brought up among the Irish community of Birmingham in the 60s and 70s. Her debut novel, My Name is Leon, was an international bestseller, was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award, long listed for the Desmond Elliot prize and won the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year award for 2017. That was followed by The Trick to Time, which was long listed for the Women's Prize [for Fiction], and her young adult novel, Becoming Dinah, is shortlisted for the Carnegie CLIP Award 2020. Kit has had also huge success with the Common People anthology. But mostly today we're gonna be talking about Kit's short story collection that's a mixture of short fiction and flash fiction, and it's called Supporting Cast. And Kit's actually going to start with a reading from the book. Kit, hello!

Kit de Waal
Hello. It's great to be here in my hometown podcast because it's always great to be at any Birmingham event. The story I'm going to read is from Supporting Cast and it's a short piece of fiction. It's actually flash fiction. And the title of it is ‘Edith Paisley-Jones (Woman in a Flowery Skirt)’, and it's a character from My Name is Leon and she's a passing character, a woman at the allotments and it's set in 1981.
                              1

‘She hung on, love ready, until her hands were weathered and rust-spotted. She stayed hopeful and optimistic until the light went out and the horizon disappeared. Her heels became square and sensible, her coat cut to keep out chills and disappointment. She wore thin lips and crept into loneliness like ivy through a tree.
Then he came along, and eyed her like an unclaimed prize.
She began to disregard her slip and umbrella. She found herself with him on piers, at funfairs, kissing him quick. She began to laugh again and leave windows open, became forgetful and blasé with recycling, a whistler, a lier-in, a gatherer of shells. Raising her head, she always found him there, waiting and dry-footed on the shore.
He took her hand, drew his shape on her life and on her plans. He was reliable and true. Then he became indispensable, necessary and she wondered how she would live without him, and when he spoke of permanence and years to come, she began to suspect his sudden appearance and question her good fortune. When she had been eager and would have been grateful, he was elsewhere, loving someone else. So she told him he came too late.
Now, she was near-sighted and content, she weeded her plot with rough hands, with knuckles too thick for rings. She became busy, practical, grew box hedging down the path and phallic gourds in pots. She cut her own hair, silver, fly-away, untameable. At weekends she studied maps and drove hours to deserted coves and dangerous walks he wouldn't dare. She covered miles of beach in stout shoes and concentration.
He never followed. They never met by chance.’

Paul McVeigh
That was lovely. When I was reading the collection, I often found myself in tears. You're a writer of what I call emotional fiction. When I read your work it just engages with my heart. And I wonder, when you're writing are you aware of that? Is it an intention of yours, and do you feel as emotional as we do when we're reading or listening to you?

Kit de Waal
To be honest I only really write what I can write. I don't, you know, I'm not trying to, to use any sort of devices or anything, I think I'd find it really hard not to write that way. If someone said to me, 'can you write something cold where you don't engage the heart?' I'd find it almost impossible. It's just, literally, you know, it's not like I've got a box of tricks and I can bring them out. I'm just sort of writing who I am, I suppose. Very occasionally, when I'm writing I've got a lump in my throat. I can remember when I was writing a particular scene in My Name is Leon when he meets his mother at a Family Centre after a long time. And when I wrote the end of that chapter, I remember thinking, 'oh my God, this is terrible' and I was genuinely upset. I knew it was a true scene and it had to happen. I certainly do know when I've struck the right tone and when I've got the right note because I'm moved. And I think you have to move yourself just the same way as if you're a comedy writer you need to find your own jokes funny, you know, otherwise, you haven't got a sense of it. So, I think I do know what I'm doing, but I don't know how to not do it, if you see what I mean?

Paul McVeigh
Yes, yes. And it just reminds me that I was reading recently about My Name is Leon and we're going to see it on television. Is it this year or next year?

Kit de Waal
Well, I think it was going to be October before the virus struck. So, I should imagine with a few months out it will probably be January or February [2021] now. But they've gone into pre-prod...

The Birmingham Lit Fest Presents... podcast brings writers and readers together to discuss some of 2020’s best books. Each Thursday across the next few months we’ll be releasing new episodes of the podcast, including wonderful discussions
about writing, poetry, big ideas and social issues. Join us each week for exciting and inspiring conversations with new, and familiar, writers from the Midlands and beyond.

Take a look at the rest of this year's digital programme on our website: https://www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org/.
For more information on Writing West Midlands, visit https://writingwestmidlands.org/

Follow the festival on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @BhamLitFest

Credits

Curator: Shantel Edwards (Festival director)
Guest Curator: Kit de Waal
Production: 11C/ Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands

TRANSCRIPT

BLF Podcast Transcription, Episode 7 – Sam Baker in conversation with Kate Spicer 

Kit de Waal 

Welcome to the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents…podcast series. I’m Kit de Waal and I’ve worked with  the Festival Director, Shantel Edwards, as Guest Curator of this year’s podcast series. Each Thursday  across the next few months we’ll be releasing new episodes of the podcast, including wonderful  discussions about writing, poetry, big ideas and social issues. In today’s episode, journalist and  author Sam Baker talks to fellow writer Kate Spicer about her latest book The Shift. Part memoir and  part feminist manifesto, The Shift redefines the narrative around menopause and makes visible the  lives and experiences of women over 40. In this podcast, Sam and Kate discuss the cultural silence  around menopause, the invisibility of women past child-bearing age and the freedom, power and confidence of life after menopause.  

Kate Spicer 

Hello, and welcome to the Birmingham Literature Festival. My name is Kate Spicer and I'm here with  Sam Baker. Sam started her career in journalism and was the editor of some very significant British  women's magazines including Just 17, Company, Cosmopolitan, Red. She went on to edit an internet  magazine called The Pool, which was multiple award winning and generally recognized as changing  the way women's journalism was done online. She's also written five novels, and now is the author  of The Shift her first nonfiction book and a podcast of the same name. This is an extraordinary book  and I would expect no less from a woman who was once my editor. It is very deep, very wide, it  bears her soul, her guts, and also, I should say, her vagina. 

Sam Baker 

Thanks Kate! 

Kate Spicer 

It’s one of the most extraordinary books I've ever read about the menopause, because it is so  incredibly fearless, and also refuses to get too boring on the technical stuff. Sam, can you start, can  we start with a reading?  

Sam Baker 

Yeah, we can start with a reading and hopefully one that doesn't mention my vagina. I'm just going  to read from the very beginning of the book. 

‘It dawned on me that something wasn't right around the time I was 46. It could have been earlier,  but after a lifetime of gynaecological chaos, I didn't pay much attention when my periods dribbled  more or less to a halt. My confidence crashed. Not ideal when you've just ditched a high-profile job  to start a business that depends, at least in part, on your capacity for self-belief. And now you're  standing in the kitchen howling that you're a failure and resigning was a terrible mistake. Where  once I would have bulldozed straight on, confident on the outside, if not inside, now I simply  couldn't see a way through. On top of that came the depression, which was less a matter of highs  and lows than a case of lows and lowers. I had less than ever to be depressed about I just was. Then  came the sweats. Oh Lord, the sweats. I'm not sure which was worse. The hot flushes during the day  when you could at least feel them roaring in and try to get to the nearest loo to lie down, body  pressed to the cold and inevitably vile tiled floor until they passed or the night sweats. Often, I’d  wake in a puddle, skin-soaked, hair slicked to my body, sheet and duvet drenched. I seriously  worried I’d started wetting the bed. What the hell was going on? Then my good friend the flesh  duvet moved in and decided to stay. Indefinitely. Of course, I had a suspicion, but I couldn't bear to  accept it. I wasn't old enough was I? I was 46 going on, I don't know 30. I looked young for my age  people always said. I felt young, wasn't menopause something that happened to old people? Was I  old? 

Despite the countless blogs and Facebook groups and self-help books, I didn't really know where to  turn. None of my friends would admit to being perimenopausal yet and seeking help on social media  felt like a public admission of aging, which sounds ridiculous now, but then, only a few years ago,  when no one would even whisper the word menopause, it felt like a huge deal. Eventually, unable to  carry on in the body and brain of someone I hardly recognised, I barged into the office of the  gynaecologist who's helped me with my endless problems yelling “help give me all the drugs!” Brushing aside her futile attempts to talk me through a leaflet that explained the link between HRT  and breast cancer, I left triumphant with a prescription and the leaflet. I never did read the leaflet.  Right then I didn't care about the potential risks or side effects. All I cared about was taking a magic  pill to bring me back to me. I took it and lucky for me, it worked. Slowly I started to re-emerge. As  months passed, I began to be able to identify other women with that faintly deranged “what the  fuck is happening to me” look in their eyes, and a tendency to suddenly overheat. It didn't happen  overnight. After all, it's not as if you can go up to complete strangers and say, “oh, I noticed you  were looking a bit hot”, and at work I was surrounded by women who were up to 20 years younger  than me. Their conversation was all about whether they would ever be able to afford to buy a flat and if or when to start trying for a baby. Why would they care about someone so ancient that their  eggs, and plenty of other bits, were drying up? If I'd known then what I know now, I would have approached the whole thing totally differently. I wouldn't have spent precious hours hunting down  other women who looked a bit hot and irritable and kept tugging uncomfortably at their clothes.  Instead, I would have developed a radar for the rare, relaxed older woman you see very occasionally  in the streets, in cafes, at work dos. Rumour has it they're more plentiful in certain parts of America but in the UK, you have to look pretty hard to spot them and, on finding them, I would have begged them to share their wisdom. How did they get there? And what was it like on the other side? How  did they shift ...

The Birmingham Lit Fest Presents... podcast brings writers and readers together to discuss some of 2020’s best books. Each Thursday across the next few months we’ll be releasing new episodes of the podcast, including wonderful discussions
about writing, poetry, big ideas and social issues. Join us each week for exciting and inspiring conversations with new, and familiar, writers from the Midlands and beyond.

Take a look at the rest of this year's digital programme on our website: https://www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org/.
For more information on Writing West Midlands, visit https://writingwestmidlands.org/

Follow the festival on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @BhamLitFest

Credits

Curator: Shantel Edwards (Festival director)
Guest Curator: Kit de Waal
Production: 11C/ Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands

TRANSCRIPT

BLF Podcast Transcription, Episode 8: Lynn Enright and Natalie Fiennes  

Kit de Waal 

Welcome to the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents…podcast series. I’m Kit de Waal and I’ve worked with the  Festival Director, Shantel Edwards, as Guest Curator of this year’s podcast series. Each Thursday across the  next few months we’ll be releasing new episodes of the podcast, including wonderful discussions about  writing, poetry, big ideas and social issues. This week’s episode brings together journalists Natalie Fiennes  and Lynn Enright to discuss the politicisation of women’s bodies and sexual desire, the importance of sex  education and the impact of the porn industry on our attitudes towards sex and our own bodies. In  conversation with Birmingham Lit Festival director, Shantel Edwards, this episode continues the  conversation about sex, intersectional feminism and gender started by the authors’ books, Behind Closed  Doors: Sex Education Transformed and Vagina: A Re-education.  

Shantel Edwards 

Welcome to the Birmingham Literature Festival podcast. I'm Shantel Edwards and I'm the Festival Director  and I'm really excited today to welcome writers Lynn Enright and Natalie Fiennes to the podcast, and to join  them in discussion about their books. I'm going to introduce them both and their books to you, and then  we're going to dive into a wonderful chat about their work and all the ways their books are challenging our  ideas about sex, women's bodies, intersectional feminism, and last, but most certainly not least, vaginas.  Our first guest is Lynn Enright and she's a journalist who has written for Vogue, The Irish Times, the  Guardian and BuzzFeed, as well as many other publications where she writes about feminism, current  affairs, women's health, fashion, the arts, politics, and pop culture. The book we're here to talk about today,  Vagina: A Re-education, is her first book, and it provides people with information that's often obscured  about the female body, confronting taboos and the patriarchy in the process. Our second guest is Natalie  Fiennes, a journalist and film-maker who writes for the Guardian and the Independent. She makes  documentaries and has taught sex education and consent classes in schools, universities and youth centres.  Behind Closed Doors: Sex Education Transformed is her first book, and it offers a manifesto for an inclusive  sex education that offers young people an honest insight into sexuality, whilst identifying the varied and  layered inequalities that currently stand in the way of sexual freedom. A very warm welcome to you both.  Thank you for being here. 

Natalie Fiennes 

Thank you for having us.

Lynn Enright 

Thank you. 

Shantel Edwards 

I loved both of your books. I thought they were really compelling reads and I came away from them feeling  like I'd learned a lot. And when I was reading them it really felt like there was real passion and impetus  behind them. And I wanted to start by asking you both – and perhaps we could start with Lynn – about what  had inspired you to write them? 

Lynn Enright 

So I was working at The Pool, which is now defunct but was a website aimed at women. And it was a place  that kind of covered a broad array of topics, and I was Head of News and Content there. So commissioning  stuff about politics and feminism, but also, you know, kind of film or books or, you know, really everything.  But when we did, when we covered subjects about women's bodies, and about kind of taboo subjects like  fertility, infertility, miscarriage, childbirth, post-childbirth, vaginas, all of that kind of stuff, there was just a  real response from the readers. So that got me thinking and, you know, I could sense that and I wanted to  do something with that. And then also around that time #MeToo had happened and the Repeal the Eighth  movement in Ireland was underway – so the push for free, safe legal abortion in Ireland, and we'd never  had legal abortion in Ireland but we were on the cusp of it then when I started to write this book. And so I  got to think about how the basics of biology and the fact that so often just the basics about our bodies are  obscured, whether that's in sex education or even in the way we're spoken to with a sort of woolliness and  a lack of clarity around the way we speak about our own bodies and the knowledge we actually have  available to us. So I got to think how that's connected to then these much wider concepts and problems.  Like, you know, like what we saw with #MeToo, so like sexual assault and sexual abuse, and like the fact  that, you know, abortion wasn't legal in Ireland until two years ago. And I think that that was connected to  our discomfort around biology. So it was kind of bringing those two subjects together was how this book  started. 

Shantel Edwards 

Thank you, I think you can really, you can really feel that in the book as well. As I was reading it I certainly  felt like I could see the intersections of the ways all those things were working together. And the same for  your book as well. Natalie, I thought you did a really good job of showing the ways that women's bodies in  particular are the intersection for a lot of those things. The same question to you really. Was there a  particular moment that led to you writing the book?

Natalie Fiennes 

Yes. So I was also working at a magazine called Consented magazine and we used to kind of publish these  pieces on an array of different topics. But we also used to go into schools and teach classes and lead  workshops. And I, with a kind of a few other people, and we were attached to this kind of activist collective  called Resist and Renew, started teaching consent and sex education wo...

The Birmingham Lit Fest Presents... podcast brings writers and readers together to discuss some of 2020’s best books. Each Thursday across the next few months we’ll be releasing new episodes of the podcast, including wonderful discussions
about writing, poetry, big ideas and social issues. Join us each week for exciting and inspiring conversations with new, and familiar, writers from the Midlands and beyond.

Take a look at the rest of this year's digital programme on our website: https://www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org/.
For more information on Writing West Midlands, visit https://writingwestmidlands.org/

Follow the festival on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @BhamLitFest

Credits

Curator: Shantel Edwards (Festival director)
Guest Curator: Kit de Waal
Production: 11C/ Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands

TRANSCRIPT

BLF Podcast Transcription, Episode 9: Sarah Moss and Megan Hunter  

Kit de Waal 

Welcome to the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents…podcast series. I’m Kit de Waal and I’ve worked with the  Festival Director, Shantel Edwards, as Guest Curator of this year’s podcast series. Each Thursday across the  next few months we’ll be releasing new episodes of the podcast, including wonderful discussions about  writing, poetry, big ideas and social issues. In this week’s episode, authors Sarah Moss and Megan Hunter  join Writing West Midlands’ own Olivia Chapman to discuss their latest novels Summerwater and The  Harpy. Both novels offer a sharply observed and unsettling insight into their character’s intimate  relationships, as well as their interactions with strangers. In this podcast, they discuss writing about  relationships, creating unnerving fiction and the expectation placed on writers to make sense of the time  we are living in. 

Aston University 

This episode of the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents… podcast is brought to you in partnership with Aston University. For information about studying English at Aston, and for further information about the School of Social Sciences and Humanities, please see their website – www.aston.ac.uk - and their social media channels (Facebook/Twitter/Instagram) @AstonSSH. 

Olivia Chapman 

Hello, welcome to Birmingham Literature Festival. Thanks for joining us. I'm Olivia Chapman, I'm one of the  team at the festival. And I'm delighted to be talking to two novelists that I greatly admire today, Sarah Moss  and Megan Hunter. Sarah is going to be talking to us mainly about her seventh novel, which has just been  published this summer and is called Summerwater. It's got a cast of characters who are living, or not living, they're on holiday in a caravan park in Scotland, where it just doesn't stop raining. And it's focused on one  particular day. Megan is going to be talking to us mainly about her second book, The Harpy, which was due  to be out in June and has been delayed to the autumn because of the pandemic. The Harpy is one of the  most unsettling and kind of got-under-my-skin novels that I've read this year, focused around one family and  the relationship between husband and wife when she discovers an infidelity. So, I'm delighted for you to be  joining us, Sarah and Megan. Welcome.  

Sarah Moss 

Thank you.  

Megan Hunter

Thank you. 

Olivia Chapman 

I wanted to start by asking both of you – but I'm going to start with Megan – about writing relationships,  writing specifically [about] a marital relationship. You both do it exceptionally well, and I very much enjoy  your writing on that particular relationship. But Megan, I wanted to ask you about the dynamic between the  husband and wife in The Harpy. You can tell from the start that they're not happy and it kind of goes further.  How was it getting right under the skin of that relationship? 

Megan Hunter 

Well, it was difficult at first and it was a new thing for me, I'd written about relationships before in The End  We Start From but that was written in a very particular way; almost, you could say in the form of a prose  poem. There weren't very many conversations, you know. They weren't really scenes as such. And in this  novel, I really was writing scenes and conversations and actually quite intimate and difficult and conflict driven sort of arguments. So that felt like a very new thing for me. But I, once I sort of got immersed in it,  and I was used to it in the novel – I mean 'enjoyed' isn't really quite the right word – but I certainly became  sort of used to it, became familiar with it and kind of was very engaged by it. But it was hard. I mean, over  the course of however long you write a novel to write about such dark and difficult things for, you know,  years on end, when, you know, you're not necessarily feeling that way yourself. That's quite difficult to keep  re-entering that dark space. 

Olivia Chapman 

And Sarah you usually – 'cos this is your seventh novel, and I've read I think all of them – but you do tend to  focus on one family or relatively few characters. Summerwater is unusual in that you have, I think, five or six  different families or different cabins that you're looking at. So, they all have slightly different dynamics, but  

you get to know each character and specifically the relationships between them very, very well. How was  that for you to be kind of so deep with so many characters and their very intimate relationships?  

Sarah Moss 

It felt like a very playful book to write. I enjoyed it and I did all of it, I mean, the metaphors I come up with  are to do with dancing, which I think is partly because of the way the narrative passes from one character to  another. Although the themes are quite dark – though not as dark as The Harpy I think – it felt like quite a  kind of, quite a light-footed book to write.  

Olivia Chapman

Because you spent less time with each family?  

Sarah Moss 

I think because I knew that I was only with them for quite a short time. And that close third-person  narration I think is easier for that than first person because you can skip: you don't really have to introduce  each person because you just step into their proximity. 

Olivia Chapman 

So that's interesting. So it's more like you're taking a snapshot and then you kind of duck out again? 

Sarah Moss 

Yes. I mean, I'd hope something more mobile than a snapshot. But yes, absolutely. You pass through. You  kind of haunt each cabin for a little while, but then you move on. 

Olivia Chapman 

Oh, I like that imagery of haunting – the writer hauntin...

The Birmingham Lit Fest Presents... podcast brings writers and readers together to discuss some of 2020’s best books. Each Thursday across the next few months we’ll be releasing new episodes of the podcast, including wonderful discussions
about writing, poetry, big ideas and social issues. Join us each week for exciting and inspiring conversations with new, and familiar, writers from the Midlands and beyond.

Take a look at the rest of this year's digital programme on our website: https://www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org/.
For more information on Writing West Midlands, visit https://writingwestmidlands.org/

Follow the festival on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @BhamLitFest

Credits

Curator: Shantel Edwards (Festival director)
Guest Curator: Kit de Waal
Production: 11C/ Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands

TRANSCRIPT

BLF Podcast Transcription, Episode 10: Cold War Steve  

Kit de Waal 

Welcome to the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents…podcast series. I’m Kit de Waal and I’ve worked with  the Festival Director, Shantel Edwards, as Guest Curator of this year’s podcast series. Each Thursday  across the next few months we’ll be releasing new episodes of the podcast, including wonderful  discussions about writing, poetry, big ideas and social issues. I am very excited to introduce this  week’s guest, artist and political commentator Cold War Steve; interviewing him for the Birmingham  Lit Fest podcast was a career highlight for me as a long-time fan of his work. Cold War Steve is a  Birmingham born and based artist who specialises in surreal, satirical and hilarious collages originally  made on his phone and iPad. Since 2016 Cold War Steve’s Twitter account, with almost daily posts  commenting on current social and political issues, has been a lifeline to many in these dark times. In  this episode we talk about the ways his work tells the story of Birmingham and the Midlands, the  power of art to call out fascism and art as therapy. 

Kit de Waal 

The first question I want to ask you is, do I call you Cold War Steve or do I call you Chris? 

Cold War Steve  

Well, you can call me either, really, but I think at the moment, I get called Steve, probably 50% of the  time and then Chris, the other 50%. Even my wife and kids start calling me Steve as well, so it really  doesn’t matter. 

Kit de Waal 

Well, I'm gonna call you Cold War Steve because that, for me, encapsulates who you are. What a  privilege for me to get to interview you, I have admired your work. In fact, when did you start these  pictures? How long ago? 

Cold War Steve 

It was March 2016. 

Kit de Waal 

Right. And what made you start doing them?  

Cold War Steve 

So Cold War Steve, my alter ego, began in March 2016. I'd done quite a few different parody type  things on Twitter, just for something to do really, then that time, February, March 2016, was a quite  a low point for me. I had, you know, suffered with pretty poor mental health most of my adult life,  but that period was, you know, I was hospitalized. And then coming out of hospital, part of my new  focus and therapy really was to channel more of my anxiety and stuff into just creating these images,  quite crude at first just putting Phil Mitchell in a famous Cold War scene and just uploading it on  Twitter and seeing what happened, but it got really popular really quickly. And it really, you know,  that gave me something that I could focus on that was positive. And it certainly helped me  enormously with my mental health and it kind of grew from there really and it didn't start becoming  the kind of satirical thing that it is now, until the Brexit referendum happened. So, none of my pieces  were particularly political or satirical. But then the night that the result came in, it was, you know,  just felt so crushing for me. And I've diverted my anxieties into more and more satirical pieces and  it's just grown from there, the more inept the government have been, the more material I've got,  and it's kind of grown hand in hand with their ineptitude. 

Kit de Waal 

Absolutely, I can remember that I saw an interview that you gave, I think it was just after Brexit, but  before the pandemic, and before the abomination that is the present government, the reincarnation  as it is now and you said, yeah, you know, we'll have to see what happens, I don't think I’m going to  run out of material. You could not have predicted how bad things would get because, you know,  obviously, I know, so many of your pictures that were very Brexit focused, but you could actually lift  some of those, you know, motifs that you've done there and it would apply to the current chaos. 

Cold War Steve 

Oh completely, yeah, it's just, it's almost seamless because Brexit happened, and I was always gonna keep shining a light on the government, regardless, but a lot of people were saying, look, it's done  now what are you gonna do and then bang, pandemic arrived. So I was, how do I deal with this?  

Kit de Waal 

You couldn't have predicted that it would be this catastrophic. 

Cold War Steve 

And you're right in saying that it's, you know, the parallels between the two, it's almost like you've  got the same people that were, you know, lying to people about getting the Brexit vote and pro Brexit and everything. They've all now moved on to being disastrous in managing you know, the  country's responses to this pandemic. So, a lot the pieces are, you know, I sometimes just retweet  one from Brexit days and people go, ‘oh, yeah, so on the money’ but that was like a year ago.  

Kit de Waal 

Yes. And it's amazing that they’re at least as much, at least as applicable now as they were then. And  I saw the other day one of the tweets that you’d done, which said, ‘I've just spent an hour blocking  fascists’ and a couple of choice words, which I completely applaud, which I won't say. But tell me  about being attacked online by the fascists who clearly can feel the power and strength of your  work. 

Cold War Steve  

Well, thank you for saying that because, initially when I first got people sending not particularly nice  things. It was always Brexiters or Tories and stuff. And the first ones are quite jarring because I get  lots, you know, I might get hundred that say ‘oh that's brilliant’, but then just one that says, you  know, lefty this that and the other and it seems to have more power and it really, you know, I’ve  found it quite difficult. But then I thought no, it's not going to stop me. The person I detest probably  more than any in the world is Nigel Farage and what he’s done and what he continues to do and  these things where he’s going out in his boat in the channel, you know, infuriates me. So, I was doing  pictures that obviously send up that, and compare him...

The Birmingham Lit Fest Presents... podcast brings writers and readers together to discuss some of 2020’s best books. Each Thursday across the next few months we’ll be releasing new episodes of the podcast, including wonderful discussions
about writing, poetry, big ideas and social issues. Join us each week for exciting and inspiring conversations with new, and familiar, writers from the Midlands and beyond.

Take a look at the rest of this year's digital programme on our website: https://www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org/.
For more information on Writing West Midlands, visit https://writingwestmidlands.org/

Follow the festival on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @BhamLitFest

Credits

Curator: Shantel Edwards (Festival director)
Guest Curator: Kit de Waal
Production: 11C/ Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands

TRANSCRIPT

BLF Podcast Transcription, Episode 11: Elle McNicoll  

Kit de Waal 

Welcome to the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents…podcast series. I’m Kit de Waal and I’ve worked with the  Festival Director, Shantel Edwards, as Guest Curator of this year’s podcast series. Each Thursday across the  next few months we’ll be releasing new episodes of the podcast, including wonderful discussions about  writing, poetry, big ideas and social issues. In today’s podcast, we welcome debut author Elle McNicoll in  conversation with Dr Melanie Ramdarshan Bold about her first novel A Kind of Spark. Elle’s novel follows 11- year-old Addie as she campaigns to fund a memorial to commemorate the witch trials that took place in her  Scottish hometown, drawing nuanced parallels between the ignorance surrounding Addie’s autism and that  which fuelled historic witch trials. Join Elle and Melanie as they discuss the importance of representing  neurodiversity in children’s fiction, inclusive publishing and recognising buried histories. 

Bournville Book Festival Sponsor Message 

This brilliant episode of the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents…podcast is brought to you in partnership with  Bournville Book Fest, Birmingham’s book festival for children. 

Melanie Ramdarshan Bold 

Hello, and welcome to the Birmingham Literature Festival. I'm Melanie Ramdarshan Bold. I'm an Associate Professor of Publishing and Book Studies – dream job – at University College London, and I am utterly delighted to be speaking to the lovely debut author, Elle McNicoll today. Elle is the author of the delightful,  warm and funny Middle Grade novel [for readers between the ages of eight and 12], A Kind of Spark, which is about Addie, an 11-year-old autistic girl campaigning for a memorial for the witches trials that took place  in her Scottish village. I had the absolute pleasure of teaching Elle during her Publishing MA at UCL, and it  has been a joy to see her career blossom over the last year. Elle, hello.  

Elle McNicoll 

Hi. 

Melanie Ramdarshan Bold 

I'm so excited to speak to you today. 

Elle McNicoll 

Oh, that was surreal having you introduce me.

Melanie Ramdarshan Bold 

It's so weird, isn't it? But lovely.  

Elle McNicoll 

Yeah, really nice.  

Melanie Ramdarshan Bold 

So I'm so delighted to see, you know, the reaction to your book and you as an author over the last few  months. Why don't we start by speaking a wee bit about your route into authorship? 

Elle McNicoll 

Yep. So like Mel just said, I was doing a Publishing MA and I was doing that MA with every intention of going  into publishing as, you know, an editorial assistant or, you know, someone working on the production of  books, not as an author at all. I don't recommend Publishing MAs if you want to be an author, although UCL  was phenomenal, and allowed me to do all the research that I needed for this book, which was the reason I  went. But I wasn't, you know, I wasn't planning on it, and I set up a meeting with Knights Of, who are the  publishers of A Kind of Spark (and I think we'll probably talk about them a bit more later on). But I set up a  meeting with them purely to kind of offer my services as a graduate saying, 'if you ever want a  neurodivergent book on your list, you know, I've got a lot of research on it; I've got my own experience as an  neurodivergent person; I can do any sensitivity reads, proofreading, editing – wherever you need.' That was  the intention of the meeting. And somehow it got turned around to, 'have you written a book?' to which I  stupidly said 'yes'. Even though the book was, you know, had about 2,000 words left to write of it - I've not  told anyone this actually - I went home and wrote those 2,000 words that day. And it's purely by accident Kind Of ended up in the publisher's hands that way. I was looking for a job, I wasn't looking for a book deal. 

Melanie Ramdarshan Bold 

Well, you got a job as an author at the end, and that's so fortuitous. And I love that idea of Knights Of, you  know, sort of seeing the potential and developing that potential. 

Elle McNicoll 

I hope so. I hope that's what it was. I think David, who's the co-founder of Knights Of [Media], and who's  the person that I took the meeting with, I think he's very, just sort of, 'Have you got a book? Anyone got a  book?' He's just that way, he's very inclusive and encouraging to people. And I think it's very that much the  belief that everyone kind of has a book in them. And, you know, I'm just very lucky that he asked, and I  don't know why I said yes. But if I hadn't, we wouldn't be here, so.

Melanie Ramdarshan Bold 

Delighted that you did say yes. So you talked a wee bit, obviously, I know, you've done the Publishing MA,  and you have developed sort of skill sets and experience and knowledge of the publishing industry, not only  over the course of your MA but before and afterwards as well. So how would you say that your publishing  experience and that experience and knowledge has played into your writing?  

Elle McNicoll 

Well, I don't know how it played into the writing. But I think it definitely played into your kind of business  mindset as an author because nowadays authors have to kind of have that marketing sort of mindset as  well. You know, it's only a small few who are privileged enough to kind of lock themselves away and be  creative and not have to do any kind of PR or marketing or self-promotion. So I think the MA really helped  me kind of hone an idea of where the industry is at the moment. My research and the MA 100 per cent  gave me the confidence to say where the gaps in the industry are (and that's a whole other conversation).  But, you know, it gave me that kind of data and analysis to be, you know – and I'm not an academic writer.  Like please, people listening, d...

The Birmingham Lit Fest Presents... podcast brings writers and readers together to discuss some of 2020’s best books. Each Thursday across the next few months we’ll be releasing new episodes of the podcast, including wonderful discussions
about writing, poetry, big ideas and social issues. Join us each week for exciting and inspiring conversations with new, and familiar, writers from the Midlands and beyond.

Take a look at the rest of this year's digital programme on our website: https://www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org/.
For more information on Writing West Midlands, visit https://writingwestmidlands.org/

Follow the festival on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @BhamLitFest

Credits

Curator: Shantel Edwards (Festival director)
Guest Curator: Kit de Waal
Production: 11C/ Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands

TRANSCRIPT

BLF Podcast Transcription, Episode 12: Roz Goddard, Abda Khan and Mandy Ross 

Kit de Waal 

Welcome to the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents…podcast series. I’m Kit de Waal and I’ve worked with the  Festival Director, Shantel Edwards, as Guest Curator of this year’s podcast series. Each Thursday across the  next few months we’ll be releasing new episodes of the podcast, including wonderful discussions about  writing, poetry, big ideas and social issues. Today’s episode brings together 3 Midlands women, authors  Mandy Ross, Abda Khan and Roz Goddard, in conversation about the importance of literature in creating  connections and fostering empathy. As members of interfaith organisation Nisa Nashim, Mandy and Abda  run a monthly book club that brings together Muslim and Jewish women. Each month they read a book  written by a Jewish or Muslim woman, finding within the pages, and their discussions, more things that  unite them than divide them. In conversation with Roz Goddard, they talk about the intersections of faith  and feminism and the power of literature to provide space for exchange and connection. 

Sponsor message: Birmingham City University 

This episode of the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents…podcast is brought to you in partnership with the School  of English at Birmingham City University. Visit our website at www.bcu.ac.uk/english for details of our  undergraduate, postgraduate and research degree programmes. 

Roz Goddard 

Hello, and welcome to the Birmingham Literature Festival. My name's Roz Goddard. I'm a poet living in the  Black Country and seem to have embraced Zoom as my home office. I'm delighted to be hosting this  podcast from my loft, where I'll be in conversation with Abda Khan and Mandy Ross. They're the founders of  Nisa-Nashim, an interfaith book group based in Birmingham. Nisa-Nashim is also a national Jewish Muslim  Women's Network working to promote interfaith understanding. So first, introductions. Mandy Ross has  written over 60 children's books and also poetry and plays for adults. With Ronne Randall she co-edited [For  Generations:] Jewish Motherhood, published by Five Leaves Publications. This year Mandy is the Tree  Whisperer: Poet of the Woods for the Ledbury Poetry Festival. A member of Birmingham Progressive  Synagogue, Mandy has worked in many interfaith settings and has a longstanding interest in using reading  to explore cultural identity. Abda Khan is a lawyer turned writer, her published novels being Stained (2016)  and Razia (2019). She's currently writing her next novel. Abda is also a project creator, campaigner,  volunteer, mentor and Lloyds Bank Women of the Future Ambassador. Abda was highly commended in the  NatWest Asian Women of Achievement Awards 2017 and won British Muslim Woman of the Year at the  British Muslim Awards 2019, and most recently shortlisted for the Law Society Lifetime Achievement Award.  Welcome to you both. 

Mandy Ross 

Thank you. 

Abda Khan 

Hi Roz.  

Roz Goddard 

Hello. To Abda then first of all to get us started. Could you tell us something about the background to Nisa Nashim and how you and Mandy came to collaborate and develop it? 

Abda Khan 

Mandy and I met at an event that we both attended as speakers. So, it was the Writing West Midlands  National Writers' Conference. And we just got chatting. And when we got chatting we just started talking  about, you know, a lot of the issues that we were interested in. And then Mandy mentioned Nisa-Nashim as  an organisation. And she said, 'Oh, you know, we've got this organisation, Nisa-Nashim; I don't know if you'd  be interested in us – just Jewish [and] Muslim women getting together, talking about and dealing with  certain issues'. And I said, 'Oh, yeah, just, just pop me on your mailing list and then that'd be great'. So what  happened then was, Mandy emailed me and said – it was actually Mandy that set up the Nisa-Nashim book  club, I have to say, but obviously, I jumped in. And then she emailed me and she said, 'Oh, I'm setting up this  Nisa-Nashim book club. Would you like to come as a guest author, and come speak about your book, Razia?'  So, I attended the first meeting not as a member of the book club, but as somebody who just went along to  speak about her book. And actually, it was just such a lovely environment. And the women were so, so nice.  And I think that there was just this lovely sort of camaraderie and this exploring of common themes and  common ideas, common issues, common problems. And I just enjoyed it so much that I then joined it. And  then from there it's just been great. It's been developing throughout this year. It's been wonderful getting  together initially in person but, obviously, later on now it's been through Zoom since COVID. So really it was  just this kind of friendship we struck up at an event. I had nothing to do with Nisa-Nashim, which just shows  you how you can just come together when you've got things that you find out are in common. It's just that  human touch, isn't it? It's just that human aspect of talking to somebody and then actually realising that  you've got so much in common – okay, I'm Muslim and Mandy's Jewish but through literature and through  exploring books and themes we just realised that me and all these other women and Mandy together we  actually have so much that, you know, kind of unites us, and we find out so much about each other and  even ourselves. And that's kind of how the book group has developed.

Roz Goddard 

And isn't it incredibly fortuitous when we meet someone as you did with Mandy and you realise that there  is that underlying connection, that rapport that can be developed? And that's the very best way to start.  Yeah, so thank you for that. Really lovely background info there. Mandy, could you give us a flavour of how  the meetings are organised and actually how books are selected? &nbs...

The Birmingham Lit Fest Presents... podcast brings writers and readers together to discuss some of 2020’s best books. Each Thursday across the next few months we’ll be releasing new episodes of the podcast, including wonderful discussions
about writing, poetry, big ideas and social issues. Join us each week for exciting and inspiring conversations with new, and familiar, writers from the Midlands and beyond.

Take a look at the rest of this year's digital programme on our website: https://www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org/.
For more information on Writing West Midlands, visit https://writingwestmidlands.org/

Follow the festival on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @BhamLitFest

Credits

Curator: Shantel Edwards (Festival director)
Guest Curator: Kit de Waal
Production: 11C/ Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands

TRANSCRIPT

BLF Podcast Transcription, Episode 13: Elisa Shua Dusapin and Aneesa Abbas Higgins  

Kit de Waal 

Welcome to the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents…podcast series. I’m Kit de Waal and I’ve worked with  the Festival Director, Shantel Edwards, as Guest Curator of this year’s podcast series. Each Thursday  across the next few months we’ll be releasing new episodes of the podcast, including wonderful  discussions about writing, poetry, big ideas and social issues. In this podcast, we’re joined by novelist  Elisa Shua Dusapin, whose debut novel Winter in Sokcho was translated and published in the UK this  year. Elisa’s novel follows a young French-Korean woman who works as a receptionist in a tired  guesthouse in a deserted tourist town on the border between South and North Korea, and the  uneasy relationship she forms with a French man who checks into the hotel. Joined by her  translator, Aneesa Abbas Higgins, they discuss shared identities, isolation and the relationship  between writing and translation. 

Pro Helvetia Message 

This episode of the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents…podcast is supported by the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia. 

Sandra van Lente 

Thank you all for tuning in. My name is Sandra van Lente. I'm a freelance cultural project manager  and academic who works on the lack of diversity in the publishing industries. I have the great  pleasure to introduce you to today's guests on the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents…podcast series,  Elisa Shua Dusapin and Aneesa Abbas Higgins. Elisa Shua Dusapin is a Franco Korean author who  lives in Switzerland and wrote the novel Winter in Sokcho which we will be talking about today. Her  debut novel was originally written in French and published by the Swiss indie publisher Editions,  Zurich. Winter in Sokcho was translated into 13 languages if I'm not mistaken, among them English,  translated by Aneesa Abbas Higgins and published by Daunt Books, and German, translated by  Andreas Jandl and published by Blumenbar. Elisa has won several prizes for her novels, among them  the Robert Walser prize, the Prix Alpha and the French Prix Régine Desforges for Winter in Sokcho.  She has two more novels out that we might hear about more later.  

Aneesa Abbas Higgins is a literary translator and translates from French to English. She spends most  of her time between London and a small village in France. In addition to Elisa Shua Dusapin’s novel,  she has also translated from Tahar Ben Jelloun, Nina Bouraoui and Vénus Khoury-Ghata. Her translations won several awards, for example, her translation of the Goncourt winner, What Became  of the White Savage by François Garde, and a translation of A Girl Called Eel by Ali Zamir, which was  published by the indie publisher Jacaranda books in 2019. Aneesa has kindly agreed to translate  those of Elisa's answers that she might give in French today. Thank you both for joining us for this  podcast. Can we please start with you, Elisa, and how you became an author. So how and why did  you start writing? 

Elisa Shua Dusapin (translated by Aneesa Abbas Higgins) 

She never, it wasn't that she specifically always wanted to become a writer. It was more questions  that she had herself about the multicultural upbringing that she'd had being a mixture of Korean and  French. So, when she was 13 she went to Korea for the first time and it came as quite a shock to her  to realize that her family was not unique that there were plenty of other people in the world like her  and it made her start thinking about things and it made her start to read a great deal and as she was  reading she began to realise that writing might be a way of addressing the questions that she had  about her own identity. So, Elisa was very lucky to have some wonderful teachers when she was in  high school who encouraged her to write and she began writing - never thought about writing a  novel - she was writing short texts that were to do with her French Korean identity. And it gradually  grew into what became the novel Winter in Sokcho that, in fact, she wrote between the ages of 17  and 21. But she never thought about getting it published. And it wasn't published until she was 23 and that again was on the encouragement of a former teacher. 

Sandra van Lente 

Thanks a lot for sharing this Elisa. So, can you share with us, what did you set out to explore in your  first novel? 

Elisa Shua Dusapin (translated by Aneesa Abbas Higgins) 

She wanted to write, create a character who was something of a mirror image of herself. The  opposite in a way but the same, so a young woman who had grown up in Korea, and who knew the  French language through literature and studying and who also had this feeling of being a foreigner, a  stranger in her own land even though she understood the culture and the language and that she had  the same feeling of being out of place, but in two places also. She started writing this as she was  coming out of adolescence at an age when we're thinking a great deal about our body, our  relationship to our body, body image, our own image and she wanted to write something about the  violence really that is done to women in South Korea in terms of the pressure to have plastic surgery done on one's face to make one conform to a certain image and how the young woman, the  character in her novel relates to all of this violence and body image and pressure to have one's face  look a certain way. 

Sandra van Lente 

Was there a character that you found more difficult to write than the others, Elisa, and if so, why? 

Elisa Shua Dusapin (translated by Aneesa Abbas Higgins) 

The male character Kerrand was the most challenging, not so much difficult, but he was a character  who she didn't first imagine that he would have to have a whole life story, a history, be a fully  rounded person, she just wanted him to be there as an example of the male ga...

• Episode 2: February, Abda Khan

A year after the last full month of ‘normality’ for us all in February 2020, novelist and lawyer Abda Khan reflects on how a year of Covid-19 restrictions has impacted her and how much our lives have changed in hundreds of ways, from the major to the insignificant, since then. 

Take a look at the rest of this year's digital programme on our website: https://www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org/.
For more information on Writing West Midlands, visit https://writingwestmidlands.org/

Follow the festival on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @BhamLitFest

Credits

Curator: Shantel Edwards (Festival director)
Production: 11C/ Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands

TRANSCRIPT

BLF Newsletter Podcast Transcript: Episode 2, Abda Khan

Intro

Welcome to the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents…podcast and our new series of commissioned writing about 2021. Each month we are commissioning a new writer to reflect on the month that has passed, offering us moments of connection through great writing and the opportunity to reflect about what we have collectively experienced at the end of the year. 

We will be bringing you a new short episode at the start of each month, with each piece read by our guest writers. You can read the pieces on our website, where you will also find information about our upcoming digital events.

Reading

Hello, my name is Abda Khan and here is a blog I wrote for Birmingham Literature Festival in February 2021.

When I was asked to write about how February has been for me, I started by looking back at photos from the same time last year. It struck me that during the almost yearlong state of lockdown, not only has life changed in ways previously unimaginable, but certain phrases have evaporated from our vocabulary, whilst others have taken hold. As a writer, I am intrigued by this.

February 2020; kicked off at a packed restaurant for a family birthday, I gave a talk about my Sidelines to Centre Stage Project at Wolverhampton Literature Festival where I mingled with attendees over tea and samosas, travelled to Glasgow and sat in a mosque full of hundreds of mourners after the death of my uncle, went into Tamworth Radio to talk about my novel Razia with three of us crammed into an airless studio smaller than a boxroom, had lunch with and gave a talk at Solihull Rotary Club, visited mac at Cannon Hill Park for discussions over coffee about a forthcoming project. And there were many more everyday happenings, not documented by the click of a phone camera, all of which are now unthinkable; legal work at the office where multiple clients would attend together, meeting friends in overcrowded coffee shops, enjoying the pictures with my kids (although they tell me that firstly, no one says ‘pictures’ anymore and secondly, as the youngest is now nearly 16, they’re no longer kids). 

Now, life is Zoom, and Teams, hand sanitiser, and face masks, and everyone knows what WFH means. The most exhilarating activity is my weekly click and collect trip to Asda. Hands, face, space - now, we must all “look like letter boxes”, and the PM must think it peculiar how words come back to bite you.

No more does anyone ask “what are your plans for the weekend?” or “where are you going for your holiday?” No longer are we faced with dilemmas such as “how do I get out of that works do?”, nor does anyone wish “this dinner party would end.” 

The loneliness that comes with being a writer has not changed. It is a solitary pursuit, often undertaken late into the night with only silence for company. Yet, other aspects of my life as a writer have disappeared, and these I miss; interacting at events face to face, being part of the buzz and chatter that can’t be replicated in a Zoom call (which always starts with “you’re on mute”). Still, technology has been a godsend; I have continued with book club, delivered numerous talks, attended courses, taught courses, persisted with my yoga, been to parents evening, hosted a poetry event, and watched every single episode of Spooks.

Having had a nasty run in with COVID myself, I feel fortunate to be alive, to have the hope that at least February 2022 will look more like my February 2020, and that the period of lockdown in between the two will eventually seem like that experience in your life which you hated every minute of, but one from which you learnt a great deal.

Outro

Thank you for listening to this week’s episode of the Birmingham Lit Fest presents…podcast. Follow us on Instagram, twitter and facebook @bhamlitfest. All information about the festival and upcoming events can be found on our website www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org. The Birmingham Lit Fest Presents... podcast is produced by 11C and Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands.

• Episode 3: March, Michael Amherst

This month, author Michael Amherst writes movingly about the death of his mother and losing her to cancer during a pandemic year. In a year when illness and death has been so much on all our minds, and spoken of daily all around us, Michael's thoughts on his very personal experience of caring for his mother reflect the heartbreak felt by families all over the region, and beyond, as we grieve with those who have lost loved ones in this past year. The piece is read by Ceri Morgan.

Take a look at the rest of this year's digital programme on our website: https://www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org/.
For more information on Writing West Midlands, visit https://writingwestmidlands.org/

Follow the festival on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @BhamLitFest

Credits

Curator: Shantel Edwards (Festival director)
Production: 11C/ Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands

TRANSCRIPT

BLF Newsletter Podcast Transcript: Episode 3, Michael Amherst

Intro

Welcome to the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents…podcast and our new series of commissioned writing about 2021. Each month we are commissioning a new writer to reflect on the month that has passed, offering us moments of connection through great writing and the opportunity to reflect about what we have collectively experienced at the end of the year. 

We will be bringing you a new short episode at the start of each month, with each piece read by our guest writers. You can read the pieces on our website, where you will also find information about our upcoming digital events.

Reading

Birmingham Literature Festival Writers Blog, March 2021. Written by Michael Amherst and read by Ceri Morgan.

This March we buried my mother. She died of cancer, not Covid, something that these days almost immediately needs clarification. There is then the mental gymnastics as to the comparative awfulness of both - the pandemic that prevents victims from saying goodbye to their families or the pandemic that makes victims of other, terminal illnesses unable to live their final months or year.

There is also another mental gymnastics - the dance around the rules and the opprobrium of others. I spent my Mum's final month staying with her and her husband to help look after her. Her doctors encouraged this, in spite of the pandemic, and yet there is a background anxiety that at this, one of the most difficult moments of our lives, we will have been found wanting by others, fortunate enough not to be in this position and faced with these choices.

Her decline was relatively rapid. Even in September I think we believed she might yet recover, certainly that her illness would allow her a year or two at worst. In August she had booked a holiday for us all in a farmhouse in Wales. However she cancelled this as her oncologist advised her that contracting Covid was too great to warrant the risk. My sister and I encouraged her to cancel it - we said there'd be other times, we could do it again next year. Had we known she only had six months left, I think we would all have decided to take the risk. 

The other consequence of a year lived in stasis, in which nothing feels real, or everything feels real in new ways, is that her death does not, cannot feel real at all. For much of the last twelve months my communication with her was daily phone calls. I saw her maybe four or so times, before moving in to help. Usually I'd have visited at least once a month. So her absence has, in some cruel way, already happened. What is new is the lack of her voice on the phone or her loving gestures received by post. I joke that the last year feels like nothing more than a bad radio play. We are all waiting for it to end. And yet, there are brief moments where the reality of her death can be felt, almost as though from the corner of my eye, and I want to howl. Only for it to be swept on by, lost in the last twelve months. 

The greatest comfort I have found has come from an unlikely source: Joseph Frank's Lectures on Dostoyevsky, a book I bought after happening upon a review. There have been times where it has felt the only currency is a rank pessimism - to hope, to look to after this, a failure of some kind. Some people seem to relish the potential horror of this pandemic never being past. Frank writes, 'For faith, in Dostoyevsky's terms, needs (or should need) nothing beside itself. Its purity is enhanced by the fact that it is assumed freely and quite independent of all proofs and rewards.' In different ways I think we are all learning the need and merit of faith of all kinds, even as we feel incapable of it. So I've started with a belief in my mother: her life, her choices, the things she made meaningful and the meaningful nature of her last year, different as it has been from what we all may have wanted.

Outro

Thank you for listening to this week’s episode of the Birmingham Lit Fest presents…podcast. Follow us on Instagram, twitter and facebook @bhamlitfest. All information about the festival and upcoming events can be found on our website www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org. The Birmingham Lit Fest Presents... podcast is produced by 11C and Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands.

• Episode 1: January, Thomas Glave

This month’s piece is written by Thomas Glave, a Birmingham based writer and professor from Binghamton University in Upstate New York. He takes us on a walk amongst the silence of New Street’s squares and parks, finding birds and greenery in unexpected places and moments of peace in the quietness of our third lockdown.

Take a look at the rest of this year's digital programme on our website: https://www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org/.
For more information on Writing West Midlands, visit https://writingwestmidlands.org/

Follow the festival on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @BhamLitFest

Credits

Curator: Shantel Edwards (Festival director)
Production: 11C/ Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands

TRANSCRIPT

BLF Newsletter Podcast Transcript: Episode 1, Thomas Glave

Intro

Welcome to the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents…podcast and our new series of commissioned writing about 2021. Each month we are commissioning a new writer to reflect on the month that has passed, offering us moments of connection through great writing and the opportunity to reflect about what we have collectively experienced at the end of the year. 

We will be bringing you a new short episode at the start of each month, with each piece read by our guest writers. You can read the pieces on our website, where you will also find information about our upcoming digital events.

Reading

My name is Thomas Glave and I wrote this piece for the Birmingham Literature Festival, January 2021 Writers’ Blog.

What has this past month, partly a time of Covid-caused lockdown, been like? ‘Weird’, is how a Birmingham friend extremely fond of that word might have described it. But ‘weird’ is too vague, and doesn’t make room for all the specific moments. Moments like a walk I took one chilly dusk through Birmingham’s Brindleyplace, where, amidst all those tomb-quiet buildings, it was easy to imagine the opening scene of the zombie-apocalypse film 28 Days Later, that showed an unnervingly deserted London: ‘Hallo-hallo-hallo’, anyone could have shouted that evening, imagining the final-days echo: ‘Is anyone there-there-there?’ And what about the seagulls that flock through the West Midlands (and all the UK) throughout the year, hijacking unsuspecting people’s lunches? Didn’t they appear to be moving closer to the very few human beings out walking, as the darkness encroached and began to whisper, How’s this, you fancy this? And really, except for maybe one or two runners who darted past (and even they, so thin, might have been just birds or the ghosts of birds), there was almost nobody else about. . .nobody except a lone Brindleyplace security guard, who for a few seconds bent his head over a match’s flare to light a cigarette, before he disappeared behind one of those buildings as if he too had existed in real life only for a moment, then had been drawn back into the realm of dreams where security guards, cigarette in hand, wander alone forever, half-alive and half lockdown apparitions that melt into dusk in this city of hills and tall buildings and twisting stretching canals. . . on lockdown evenings like that one, the dusk always descended in time for the ensuing quiet to gather entirely around and wrap itself, its soft thick arms, all around your shoulders: the quiet of pandemic nights, of people gathered indoors and sometimes also isolated there, sometimes alone. 

These past weeks were the unaccustomed quietness of pubs shuttered, restaurants stilled, railway stations and airports emptied, and all of us, the living and the waking, wondering what all this meant or could mean, and – often more insistently -- when it was going to end. Simultaneously, if we knew people who had fallen ill, we worried about them, prayed for them, and did all we could to ensure that they wouldn’t leave us just yet: not leave like that. Not so suddenly, so intubated. Not whilst gasping for breath behind some sterile partition, sequestered in a fluorescent-lit hospital ward. Not like that, without our hands to hold and our face to stroke, as we in turn wanted to hold and comfort them.  Through it all, as we thought of them and seasonal gifts like the sorely missed brighter-than-bright Birmingham Christmas market, there was always the cloaking dusk, and then the sound of our own footsteps.  Our feet that, as the season progressed, began to mutter Slow down, won’t you….please, for goodness’ sake, you simply must slow down.

And out of the slowing down, if we listened to those feet, arose a kind of blessedness as well. The kind that might have moved us to put up festive lights a little earlier in the season, aware that the increased lights and colours may have helped to cheer our neighbours. The kind that may even have moved us in an era of global stress and anxiety to speak with neighbours a bit longer when we saw them, and with more solicitous interest than usual, especially the elderly and the vulnerable. . . although hopefully always at a two-metre distance. 

Our warming planet, meanwhile, began to thank us for lockdown and our decreased travel and traffic. Birds, other creatures, and every tree and bush expressed and continue to express their gratitude, from the Jewellery Quarter to Acocks Green and all the way to Kings Heath, as nature raised its eyebrows at our actual ability to step back and take a breath. Someone told me this week that I should listen carefully, in order to hear the sound of nature politely applauding our efforts.  But if we can’t hear it, he said, this will be only because of the silence in between all other occurring things… the silence that assures that in spite of everything else, our hearts really are still in wonderful working order, still fond of us, and nowhere near prepared to stop.  

Outro

Thank you for listening to this week’s episode of the Birmingham Lit Fest presents…podcast. Follow us on Instagram, twitter and facebook @bhamlitfest. All information about the festival and upcoming events can be found on our website www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org. The Birmingham Lit Fest Presents... podcast is produced by 11C and Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands.

• Episode 4: April, Sue Brown

 
In April 2021, US police officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty of the murder of George Floyd in May 2020. In this month’s piece performance poet Sue Brown reflects on the ways that institutionalised racism has come to the fore of public consciousness across the past year. 

Take a look at the rest of this year's digital programme on our website: https://www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org/.
For more information on Writing West Midlands, visit https://writingwestmidlands.org/

Follow the festival on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @BhamLitFest

Credits

Curator: Shantel Edwards (Festival director)
Production: 11C/ Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands

TRANSCRIPT

BLF Newsletter Podcast Transcript: Episode 4, Sue Brown

Intro

Welcome to the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents…podcast and our new series of commissioned writing about 2021. Each month we are commissioning a new writer to reflect on the month that has passed, offering us moments of connection through great writing and the opportunity to reflect about what we have collectively experienced at the end of the year. 

We will be bringing you a new short episode at the start of each month, with each piece read by our guest writers. You can read the pieces on our website, where you will also find information about our upcoming digital events.

Reading

My name is Sue Brown and I wrote the Birmingham Literature Festival poem in April 2021.

A year in a month: April 20th 2021, ONE person was found guilty of a crime that many thousands have been privileged to walk away from aided and abetted by the law.

May 25th 2020, the world witnessed the death of another Black man, George Floyd, by the systemised enforcement of racism. An act played out daily in various degrees around the globe for centuries. 

With credible witnesses, daily protest, the sad truth is that Black Lives is the Matter, a 'Problem'…  and yes, contrary to a commissioned government report, institutionalised racism still breathes today, alive and kicking even within the U.K.

The past year has presented nothing new, and once again, it was televised.

2020 started like any other year; 

I was unaware that the world was on the verge of an insidious order of events that would be drip-fed by the mainstream and social media, Western Governments and scientists.

Late February, reports about a virus began hitting the news daily, although… there was a distance between it and my reality. 

The West pointed fingers towards the Chinese; a plethora of conspiracy theories flowed. 

As the COVID-19 crises took shape, I got a sense that something untoward was emerging. WhatsApp messaging 'ramped up' subversion with creative facts. Public health responses to the outbreaks on cruise ships belied what was coming to the shores of Britain.

Boris led the charge with; hands face space - which became one of the pandemics mantras, spoon-fed between mixed messaging, confusion, and blatant lies to the nation, directing the focus to a new world order.

Imagine my surprise when Black folks, like myself, were identified as 'highly' susceptible to a so-called 'Chinese foreign' virus. Mainstream media drew attention to N.H.S. workers dying, particularly African, African Caribbean and Asian workers. Somehow, we had become a distraction, a dangerous proliferation of the pandemic. 

Diverse communities now herded into a BAME description, while the rhetoric by officials only subjugated our already marginalised identity, and blame became linked to BAME.

Government and health spokespersons 'ramped up' the campaign in trying to 'coax' the vaccine to the 'vaccine hesitant', those who reflected their lack of trust in the 'powers that be' based on hundreds of years of apprehension and suspicion.

Cultural appropriation dominated the nation, yet our voices weren't narrating our story, our experiences, our concerns, fuelling the fear that spread faster than the pandemic itself.

I felt the usual disdain, patronised by misinformation and lack of transparency in this hegemonic system. 

Ultimately racism is an inherent power - driven by fear and greed for control. It's an ideology woven into a social structure subtly, savagely and ominously perpetuated only to remain an active justification of superiority.

Until we can identify the facts, the CORE of racism for what it is, and the many levels on which it operates, we will not be able to make the real change necessary for each person to live their purpose without fear of being 'Hue-man', while celebrating and expressing origins.

Outro

Thank you for listening to this week’s episode of the Birmingham Lit Fest presents…podcast. Follow us on Instagram, twitter and Facebook @bhamlitfest. All information about the festival and upcoming events can be found on our website www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org. The Birmingham Lit Fest Presents... podcast is produced by 11C and Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands.

Next month debut author Maisie Chan’s first novel, Danny Chung Does Not Do Maths, is published. In this month’s piece she writes about feeling adrift from friends and family in the Midlands, the difficulties of writing your second novel and the lack of representation of British Chinese protagonists in children’s fiction.

Take a look at the rest of this year's digital programme on our website: https://www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org/.
For more information on Writing West Midlands, visit https://writingwestmidlands.org/

Follow the festival on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @BhamLitFest

Credits

Curator: Shantel Edwards (Festival director)
Production: 11C/ Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands

TRANSCRIPT

BLF Newsletter Podcast Transcript: Episode 5, Maisie Chan

Intro

Welcome to the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents…podcast and our new series of commissioned writing about 2021. Each month we are commissioning a new writer to reflect on the month that has passed, offering us moments of connection through great writing and the opportunity to reflect about what we have collectively experienced at the end of the year. 

We will be bringing you a new short episode at the start of each month, with each piece read by our guest writers. You can read the pieces on our website, where you will also find information about our upcoming digital events.

Reading

Hi, I’m Maisie Chan and I wrote May’s piece for the Birmingham Literature Festival.

I’ll start this blog in a very British way and talk about the weather. May is usually ‘the summer’ in Glasgow, which is where I now live, and the hottest month of the year for us. But not this year. It’s been damp and grey. I’m feeling a little grey myself. I haven’t been able to travel to Birmingham to see my friends and family since 2019. I feel discombobulated. 

However, I have to live in the present moment and May has been up and down, I won’t lie. 

I’m trying to work on multiple writing projects at once which is great as I’m now a full-time writer. I am learning to juggle, however, as I have around four book projects on the go at once and I’m pitching for a children’s TV show, hoping to get my first screenwriting credits in children’s animation. I feel split down the middle with one part of me in ‘debut author’ mode and the other in drafting mode. 

I’m writing a new novel, which is going very slowly and like pulling teeth. And at the same time, I am promoting my debut novel, Danny Chung Does Not Do Maths, a children’s book out in June. It’s an exciting thought to know a book I started writing in 2018 is going to hit the shelves. And I’m feeling both elated and a little scared that my first novel will be out there, for people to read and judge. It’s not lost on me that my book will be one of the very few with a British Chinese boy on the front cover, there aren’t many even in 2021. Hate crimes against East and Southeast Asians (ESEA) all over the world have increased massively and I hope that my small contribution can help make people like me more visible in the world of children’s publishing. If we aren’t seen at all, then are we real? Are we human? 

I am in ‘second novel syndrome’ which according to many published authors is very real! I definitely feel it. When you write your first novel, it’s not usually under contract, so you can take your time. For the second one, however, you have a smaller time scale in which to write it (mainly for children’s novelists who churn out a novel a year it seems). It’s not been the most inspiring year, my creative well has not been filled. I’ve spent a lot of time stuck inside.

As I bid a farewell to the month of May and prepare to welcome June, with my book launch and birthday around the corner and the hope of sunny skies, I give thanks as I am going to get my first vaccination this month. Perhaps that is the most prized thing of all? 

Signing off. A true Gemini. 

Outro

Thank you for listening to this week’s episode of the Birmingham Lit Fest presents…podcast. Follow us on Instagram, twitter and Facebook @bhamlitfest. All information about the festival and upcoming events can be found on our website www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org. The Birmingham Lit Fest Presents... podcast is produced by 11C and Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands.

In this episode, poet Roy Mcfarlane reflects on the month of June as both a time of rest and reflection, thinking about the summer solstice and sunny days alongside the ongoing issue of racism in football and the Windrush scandal as we marked Windrush Day on the 22nd June. The piece is read by Shantel Edwards.    

Take a look at the rest of this year's digital programme on our website: https://www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org/.
For more information on Writing West Midlands, visit https://writingwestmidlands.org/

Follow the festival on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @BhamLitFest

Credits

Curator: Shantel Edwards (Festival director)
Production: 11C/ Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands

TRANSCRIPT 

BLF Newsletter Podcast Transcript: Episode 6, Roy Mcfarlane

Intro

Welcome to the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents…podcast and our new series of commissioned writing about 2021. Each month we are commissioning a new writer to reflect on the month that has passed, offering us moments of connection through great writing and the opportunity to reflect about what we have collectively experienced at the end of the year. 

We will be bringing you a new short episode at the start of each month, with each piece read by our guest writers. You can read the pieces on our website, where you will also find information about our upcoming digital events.

Reading

Hi, I’m Roy Mcfarlane and this is June’s Monthly Writers Blog for Birmingham Literature Festival.

Try to praise the mutilated world. 
Remember June’s long days, 
and wild strawberries, drops of wine, the dew. 
-Adam Zagajewski, "Try to Praise the Mutilated World" 

June the month of strawberries and creams and the longest day of the year, 21st June, summer solstice day. Boris Johnson tried to bring an end to the mutilated world we’re living in, having visions of Freedom Day as if we were part of the cast of Independence Day, but with a Delta variant fighting back, celebrations had to be put on hold. 

Summer solstice day, solstice from the Latin word ‘sun standing still,’ the timing between planting and harvesting crops has been traditionally the time to relax. As writers we know of planting words, half written in a notebook, or a body of work in files; over the last few months I’ve been planting seeds in competitions, magazines, anthologies and commissioned work, seeing which will flourish, find their roots and blossom in the next collection. June will be the closest I’ll get to relaxing, and getting away from writing, online and social media interaction.

During this month my walks along canals with herons, coots and a gang of seagulls chilling on telegraph wires, watching me walking through their neighbourhood has been exchanged for morning jogs along the sea front where the June sun gives iridescent blue seas and a convention of seagulls, bigger and bolder than the ones from Tipton who stride with swagger.

But the writer in me can’t be quietened, I go into full rage in response to Priti Patel’s interview, encouraging football supporters to boo in response to England football players, both black and white, taking a knee in response to online racism, racism in the stands and the ongoing racism that leads to death. And yet Priti Patel’s response is no different to Donald Trump’s inciting aggressive response to Colin Kaepernick taking the knee. Also, it’s 5 years on from the Jo Cox murder, influenced by divisive, dividing words which inspired such a backlash in the lead to Brexit. 

Thank god for Windrush Day, 22nd June, acknowledging the impact and importance of migration to the making of Britain. The emblematic Empire Windrush signalling the arrival of Caribbean post-war migrants to Britain in 1948; a date in the British identity as paramount as 1066, Henry VIII and all his wives, and 1966 ‘They think it’s all over! It is now.’

In Wolverhampton the unveiling of a blue plaque brought mixed emotions for many, as we acknowledged Paulette Wilson Windrush Campaigner ‘likkle but tallawah’ a reminder of how the government turned a Caribbean post-war migration dream of Windrush into an “illegal immigrants” of the state nightmare.  

I’m reading Just Us by Claudia Rankine, the title taken from the wonderful stand-up comedian Richard Pryor; ‘you go down there looking for justice, that’s what you find just us.’ I guess in taking the knee, in Windrush celebrations, we are simply looking for a sun that will rise on all of us with the same warmth, same freedoms, a sun that shakes hand with the night and meets us back in the morning, alive and well.

Outro

Thank you for listening to this week’s episode of the Birmingham Lit Fest presents…podcast. Follow us on Instagram, twitter and Facebook @bhamlitfest. All information about the festival and upcoming events can be found on our website www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org. The Birmingham Lit Fest Presents... podcast is produced by 11C and Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands.

This month's piece is written by freelance writer George Bastow and considers both the highs (the unity of sport, echoed by the unity at the start of the pandemic) and lows of July (the racism following the Euros Final and the lack of protection for our disabled and vulnerable communities after so-called 'Freedom Day'), urging us all to continue to choose compassion and empathy over division.

Take a look at the rest of this year's digital programme on our website: https://www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org/.
For more information on Writing West Midlands, visit https://writingwestmidlands.org/

Follow the festival on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @BhamLitFest

Credits

Curator: Shantel Edwards (Festival director)
Production: 11C/ Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands

TRANSCRIPT 

Intro

Welcome to the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents…podcast and our new series of commissioned writing about 2021. Each month we are commissioning a new writer to reflect on the month that has passed, offering us moments of connection through great writing and the opportunity to reflect about what we have collectively experienced at the end of the year. 

We will be bringing you a new short episode at the start of each month, with each piece read by our guest writers. You can read the pieces on our website, where you will also find information about our upcoming digital events.

Reading

Hello all you lovely listeners. My name is George Bastow and I’m a freelance writer, journalist and blogger who is also a full-time wheelchair-user with quadriplegic cerebral palsy.

July 2021 has been a funny old month, although there has seldom been anything to laugh about. It’s been a month of exciting highs and abysmal lows with displays of uplifting unity and stark division that have reminded me England is a Jekyll & Hyde nation. A deeply complex country that can flip as easily as any of the coins of its realm. 

At the beginning of July, I could smell optimism in the air, as fragrant and hazy as the smoke drifting from summer evening barbecues; the Euros were in full-swing and if the countless tunelessly triumphant renditions of Baddiel & Skinner’s anthem I heard daily were to be believed football was definitely coming home. In the weeks leading up to England’s history-making championship final against Italy, my heart was lifted by the widespread love for Gareth Southgate’s squad and the refreshing examples of inclusivity they were setting, from the diversity of the players themselves to their decision to take the knee in support of Black Lives Matter and Harry Kane’s rainbow captain’s armband worn in solidarity with the LGBTQIA+ Community. The whole country was inebriated by hope, progress and of course the occasional shandy as we cheered the home team towards their first piece of silverware since 1966, but the dreaded hangover kicked in sooner than anyone expected. In the moments after Rashford, Sancho and Saka missed their penalties my spirits sank as I saw the national coin flip from its shiny, positive side to its insidiously tarnished reverse. The appalling racist abuse the players were subjected to from brutally bigoted so-called fans was truly disgusting. Over the following days however, the country’s coin of conscience turned again as legions of true supporters showed their love and admiration for Saka, Rashford and Sancho and condemned the hatred from a small-minded percentage of the public.

Just as the country rejoined as one in appreciation of three footballing heroes another polarising storm cloud appeared over the horizon… Freedom Day. 

Boris Johnson (a popular tousle-haired Vaudeville clown, famous for his Prime Minister impressions) announced that from Monday, 19th, all legal COVID-19 restrictions would be lifted despite rapidly rising cases of infection. For many a long-awaited return to the Old Normal is hugely welcome but for folk like me with disabilities and compromised immune systems life without masks or social distancing is a dangerous prospect. Even after receiving two vaccinations, to immunocompromised people risking exposure to COVID and the reality of new variants will prove deadly. I understand that to some wearing a mask is an inconvenience they are happy to ditch but for vulnerable communities masks are vital weapons in a daily war to maintain our health. I appreciate the people binning their face-coverings are doing so with optimistic intentions but the virus isn’t going anywhere soon, so by wearing our masks we can help stop it spreading further and save lives while we’re at it.

As July draws to a close and the coin of England’s conscience summersaults in mid-air, we must choose which side it lands on.

Is it heads for fairness, empathy and compassion or tails for intolerance, division and misunderstanding? It’s your call. 

Outro

Thank you for listening to this week’s episode of the Birmingham Lit Fest presents…podcast. Follow us on Instagram, twitter and Facebook @bhamlitfest. All information about the festival and upcoming events can be found on our website www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org. The Birmingham Lit Fest Presents... podcast is produced by 11C and Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands.

This month's piece is written by author Elizabeth Lee, whose debut novel Cunning Women was published earlier this year. Her piece considers the juxtaposition of the hope and promise of a new school year and restrictions lifting with the terrifying news of wildfires, the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and rapidly escalating climate change, ending on a hopeful note of how it felt to realise a dream and have her debut novel published in 2021.

Take a look at the rest of this year's digital programme on our website: https://www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org/.
For more information on Writing West Midlands, visit https://writingwestmidlands.org/

Follow the festival on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @BhamLitFest

Credits

Curator: Shantel Edwards (Festival director)
Production: 11C/ Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands

TRANSCRIPT 

Intro

Welcome to the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents…podcast and our new series of commissioned writing about 2021. Each month we are commissioning a new writer to reflect on the month that has passed, offering us moments of connection through great writing and the opportunity to reflect about what we have collectively experienced at the end of the year. 

We will be bringing you a new short episode at the start of each month, with each piece read by our guest writers. You can read the pieces on our website, where you will also find information about our upcoming digital events.

Reading

Hello everyone, my name is Elizabeth Lee and I wrote August’s piece for the Birmingham Literature Festival.

August has been a month of sunlight and storms, both literal and figurative.

As I walk the canals and fields I’m lucky enough to live by, the air is sometimes bright and hot, sweet with pollen and busy with insects, sometimes filled with needle-sharp rain and biting winds. Always, somewhere, the shouts and laughter of children enjoying freedom from school can be heard. 

On a larger scale, the news feels like a series of earthquakes. I wonder whether we will, like the children preparing for a new school year as summer wanes, at last be shaken from lethargy and compelled to act. As wildfires rage in Greece and Turkey, we are warned that this planet we are the custodians of teeters on the brink of a disaster of our own making. We watch the terrible, terrifying events in Afghanistan take place. In my own home, we celebrate GCSE results that enable the next step on a journey. Exciting times, full of possibility and hope. Nationally, more students than ever end a difficult year by celebrating good results. But there is also a growing gap between North and South, between state and private schools. Those already at a disadvantage have been further failed in the Covid crisis.

But there is also hope. Most of the adult population are now vaccinated against Covid, and we tentatively break free from the past months of isolation and fear. The world might be changed. But it is still here.

Personally, I’m emerging from a post-publication haze as my debut novel was published in April. The fulfilment of a life-long dream that still has me pinching myself, and giving thanks for every piece of luck that passed my way. Set in 17th Century Lancashire, the book is a tale of persecution and superstition, but also one of love, in all its forms. Between parents and children, between siblings, between a man and a woman. Turning my mind to a new project, similar themes emerge; a historical setting that explores the struggle of those trapped by poverty and prejudice. But there is kindness to be found in the chaos. There is hope.

These themes remain relevant, I think, to our world today. A world where women are raising their voices to say Me Too. A world that must address structural racism and respond to calls for collective action on climate change. Where Covid highlighted the danger of isolation, and the importance of community. But there is always sunlight in among the storms, there is always kindness in the chaos, and perhaps we will turn with new vigour, like a child returning to school in September, to protecting this world and valuing all that live in it equally.

Outro

Thank you for listening to this week’s episode of the Birmingham Lit Fest presents…podcast. Follow us on Instagram, twitter and Facebook @bhamlitfest. All information about the festival and upcoming events can be found on our website www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org. The Birmingham Lit Fest Presents... podcast is produced by 11C and Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands.

This week’s episode features bestselling novelist Kate Mosse, author of eight novels and newly published non-fiction book, An Extra Pair of Hands, her personal story of becoming a carer in middle age. In conversation with author Alison Jean Lester, Kate talks about her experience of caring for her father through Parkinson’s, supporting her mother during widowhood and living, and caring for, her mother-in-law Grandma Rosie, as well as the need to celebrate, and better support, the 8.8 million of invisible carers across the UK holding families together. This episode supports Age UK Birmingham.

You can download our podcast episodes from all the places you would normally get your podcasts every Thursday and follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @bhamlitfest. All of our festival events can be found on our website www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org. 

For more information on Writing West Midlands, visit https://writingwestmidlands.org/

Follow the festival on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @BhamLitFest

Credits

Curator: Shantel Edwards (Festival director)
Production: 11C/ Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands

TRANSCRIPT

BLF Series 2, Episode 1: Kate Mosse 

Intro

Welcome to the second series of the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents…podcast. We are really excited to be back for a second season and to continue to connect readers and writers in the Midlands, and far beyond. 

You can download our podcast episodes from all the places you would normally get your podcasts every Thursday and follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @bhamlitfest. All of our festival events can be found on our website www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org. 

This week’s episode features bestselling novelist Kate Mosse, author of eight novels and newly published non-fiction book, An Extra Pair of Hands, her personal story of becoming a carer in middle age. In conversation with author Alison Jean Lester, Kate talks about her experience of caring for her father through Parkinson’s, supporting her mother during widowhood and living, and caring for, her mother-in-law Grandma Rosie, as well as the need to celebrate, and better support, the 8.8 million of invisible carers across the UK holding families together. 

This episode supports Age UK Birmingham.

Alison Jean Lester

Hello, everyone. This is Alison Jean Lester, novelist and author of the memoir Absolutely Delicious: A Chronicle of Extraordinary Dying. Absolutely delighted to be here talking with Kate Mosse, novelist, playwright and author of An Extra Pair of Hands: A Story of Caring, Aging, and Everyday Acts of Love. Kate Mosse is an international best-selling novelist, playwright, and nonfiction author, with sales of more than 8 million copies in 38 languages, renowned for bringing unheard and under heard histories to life. She's a champion of women's creativity. She's the Founder Director of the Women's Prize for Fiction, sits on the executive committee of Women of the World and is a visiting professor of contemporary fiction and creative writing at the University of Chichester. Her latest novel, The City of Tears, was published in January 2021. She lives in West Sussex with her husband and mother-in-law. And she's there right now ready to talk with us. Hello, Kate. 

Kate Mosse

Hello, good morning. 

Alison Jean Lester 

Good morning to you, I am so pleased to have been paired with you and to have had the chance to read An Extra Pair of Hands. It's very close to my heart as it is to I think a lot of us in our 50s and, I think you said in another interview, you're approaching 60?

Kate Mosse 

I am, yes. 60th birthday in October. 

Alison Jean Lester 

Right and I remember very palpably when my parents’ parents were dying, and thinking, they're talking to their friends all the time, their friends are also going through this. And my friends and I will also be going through this at the same time. The first thing that struck me in reading, very early on, right in the first pages of this book, where you said the many things that it's about, and the one that really pierced me was trying and failing simultaneously. Can you see that? Can you see that very human duality, that tension in your fictional stories as well? Or was that very palpable to you in talking about just your own life?

Kate Mosse

That's a great question, actually, Alison because one of the key things for all of us who write in different genres, is how similar the skill is for writing each different type of book. And there is, for me, it was very liberating writing nonfiction. I've written some nonfiction before, but this is by far the most personal book I've ever written. But actually, the skill and the way that I went about writing it was the same as the way that I go about writing a novel, which is you need to put characters on the page, you need to put emotions on the page. And so that particular thing about trying and failing, and succeeding simultaneously, everything existing in the moment is at the heart, I think of any human experience, in that we all are, whether it's a made-up character or us in our own lives, mostly we're trying to do our best. And often you can have that wonderful feeling that you've got it right. You know, you did the right thing, at the right time. But particularly when you're writing about care, when as you say, there is no alternative ending. The ending, if you're a carer, is almost always going to be in the death of the person you care for. You know, living well and dying well are the same story, you know dying well is part of living well, you know, and it will come to us all, doesn't matter who we are, how immortal we feel, in the end it will come to us all. So, I think that that is at the heart of what it means to be a carer. But obviously in a piece of fiction, I can decide the ending, I can change the ending, I usually finish before my characters die, you know and certainly the lead characters unless, that's part of the story. And so, I wanted to have that sense that whatever you do, will never change things. You know, all you can do is make a - horrible word and it's been much overused at the moment, I'm obsessed with the Olympics, and, you know, it's the word appears on every interview, the journey. But all you can do as a carer is make the journey, as brilliant as it can be for the person you're caring for. And by association yourself.

Alison Jean Lester

Exactly. Because you're not the doctor, you're the comforter and the lifter.

Kate Mosse 

And, you know, the book is full of lite...

This month's piece is written by poet Rupinder Kaur and reflects on a September filled with family, poetry and inspiration from female writers. She talks about the joy of leading a ghazal poetry writing workshop and the sadness of hearing about the murder of South London Schoolteacher Sabina Nessa, who was killed on her way to meet a friend, just minutes from her home. 

Take a look at the rest of this year's digital programme on our website: https://www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org/.
For more information on Writing West Midlands, visit https://writingwestmidlands.org/

Follow the festival on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @BhamLitFest

Credits

Curator: Shantel Edwards (Festival director)
Production: 11C/ Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands

TRANSCRIPT 

BLF Newsletter Podcast Transcript: Episode 9, Rupinder Kaur

Intro

Welcome to the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents…podcast and our new series of commissioned writing about 2021. Each month we are commissioning a new writer to reflect on the month that has passed, offering us moments of connection through great writing and the opportunity to reflect about what we have collectively experienced at the end of the year. 

We will be bringing you a new short episode at the start of each month, with each piece read by our guest writers. You can read the pieces on our website, where you will also find information about our upcoming digital events.

Reading

Hi, I’m Rupinder Kaur and I wrote September’s piece for the Birmingham Literature Festival’s monthly blog.

“Write the tale that scares you, that makes you feel uncertain, that isn't comfortable. I dare you...”

—Michaela Coel. 

I have been thinking a lot about Michaela’s speech, she won best writer at the Emmys for I May Destroy You. Across the past two years, this pandemic gave me the time to reflect on my own life, life around me from my family to the world. As a writer what scares me the most is writing about myself, my actual true and innermost feelings. Until last year I had never written anything that is truly personal and now in my writing I always try to write what is truthful to me. 

September always reminds me of new starts, new beginnings possibly because the academic year starts again in September. It brings warmth and hope that yes the year is almost over but it's not exactly over yet. I have been trying to go on my daily walk almost everyday, something which I have been doing for the past year. Connecting with nature and seeing how nature changes over the months from spring to autumn, hearing the crunchy-ness of leaves when you are walking is a sound I particularly love along with seeing the colours of orange and deep reds. 

It was Mum's birthday on the 16th, so we went to the Botanical gardens. Mum's the biggest nature lover and she talks to plants, thinks they understand her. I wonder what language they actually understand or do they actually have a language. Then we had a nice evening meal at Asha’s and no, Tom Cruise was not there! 

Here is an excerpt from a poem ‘Trace’ I have been working on:

There’s this dream I had where I flicked seeds 

on the garden shed roof until white doves spoke 

to peach trees. One peach tree was Mum. 

I am losing parts of Dad from my face. 
 I am becoming Mum, just taller, 

so I can watch the doves fly for both of us.  

Over September I have been reading The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls by Mona Eltahaway and Luster by Raven Leilani. Mona quoted some of June Jordan’s poetry which intrigued me, so I went and brought her collection Directed by Desire which I have been devouring. It was also super nice to run a poetry workshop in person for the Desiblitz Literature festival! Sharing my love for South Asian poetry and teaching the basics of ghazal writing. If you truly want to understand South Asian poetry and ghazals you have to listen to music, the rhythms. Almost all poetry in South Asia has an oral tradition, it is to be performed such as ghazals, qawwalis, folk songs. To top it all off I went to Ustad Rahat Fateh Ali Khan concert. It was such a magical experience to be immersed in live qawwali music. 

September has had a range of emotions and now towards the end it’s getting cold and dark. I can’t help but think about Sabina Nessa, a young Bangladeshi woman that was murdered. She was literally minutes from home. Is any part of the world truly safe for women, I really don’t know. Iconic Indian feminist Kamla Bhasin passed away this month and she wrote: “The first feminist must have been born the day patriarchy was born…” 

Feminism in simple terms just asks for equality, to be understood. Until patriarchy gets dismantled across the entire world, we still have a long way to go.  But I still have hope that maybe, just maybe, one day this entire world will become kinder and safer for all. 

Outro

Thank you for listening to this week’s episode of the Birmingham Lit Fest presents…podcast. Follow us on Instagram, twitter and Facebook @bhamlitfest. All information about the festival and upcoming events can be found on our website www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org. The Birmingham Lit Fest Presents... podcast is produced by 11C and Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands.

You can download our podcast episodes from all the places you would normally get your podcasts every Thursday and follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @bhamlitfest. All of our festival events can be found on our website www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org. 

For more information on Writing West Midlands, visit https://writingwestmidlands.org/

Follow the festival on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @BhamLitFest

Credits

Curator: Shantel Edwards (Festival director)
Production: 11C/ Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands

TRANSCRIPT

BLF Series 2, Episode 2: Hanif Abdurraqib 

Intro

Welcome to the second series of the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents…podcast. We are really excited to be back for a second season and to continue to connect readers and writers in the Midlands, and far beyond. 

You can download our podcast episodes from all the places you would normally get your podcasts every Thursday and follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @bhamlitfest. All of our festival events can be found on our website www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org. 

In this week’s episode we welcome American essayist, cultural critic and poet Hanif Abdurraqib, who talks to our very own Birmingham Poet Laureate Casey Bailey about his latest book, A Little Devil in America. Hanif’s book offers a beautiful insight into the history of black performance and culture in America, including cultural icons such as Josephine Baker, Aretha Franklin and Dave Chappelle. Join Hanif and Casey as they talk about the process of writing a book that combines memoir with history and that is a real love letter to black cultural art and performance. 

Casey Bailey 

Hello, wonderful people. My name is Casey Bailey. And I am blessed and privileged to be here with Hanif Abdurraqib to talk about his latest book, A Little Devil in America. Now, Hanif is a prize-winning poet, essayist, cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio, is the author of the highly praised poetry collections, The Crown Ain't Worth Much, and A Fortune for Your Disaster, the essay collection, They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us, and the New York Times bestseller Go Ahead in the Rain: Notes to A Tribe Called Quest. Hanif, how are you today?

Hanif Abdurraqib

I'm good, Casey, thanks for hanging out.

Casey Bailey 

It's an absolute blessing and a pleasure. So, I mean, it's great for me being able to have this conversation with you. I always joke, I've done a couple of interviews now for Birmingham Literature Festival. And I get the kind of pleasure of asking you these questions that really are just secretly things I want to know before anybody else gets to hear the answers. And hopefully they enjoy it, too. So, I'm going to kind of jump in with what might be quite a big question or quite a complex question. But it's the one that kind of circulates in my head, thinking about this book, is how would you define this book? And I'll tell you why I ask before I put the pressure on you to answer it. Having read this book, it's one of those books that instantly there are people who I know, I feel like need to read this book. And so, when I say to them, you've got to read this book and they say, what’s it about or what is it, it's actually about so much and it is so much. I wonder how do you define what you've created here?

Hanif Abdurraqib

Oh, yeah, that's very kind. Thank you. I mean, I think for me, the best way to define the book is that it's a multitudinous exploration of performance, and what performance is in the very ways of performance, the many ways that performance shows up. Not on a stage or not on a screen, or not necessarily for an audience of anyone, but an audience of the performance I'm making, which is why there are essays in the book about spades or about complicated performances of affection or these kinds of things. I want to think about every route I've ever taken to a type of performance. For better or worse, sometimes for worse.

Casey Bailey

Yeah, so, one of the things that really struck me, having read the book, I went in and started kind of thumbing through the acknowledgments and stuff. And in the acknowledgments, you credit two people in particular that I noticed. You credit Maya Millet for, you say, steering the book in - and I apologize because I'm paraphrasing – in a new or better direction. And Ben Greenberg, and everyone at Random House for sticking with the book while it shifted, I think, is the word you use. What I'd really love to know is how much of a journey has the book been on from kind of the inception in your mind to what it became? And could you maybe map out some of that journey for us?

Hanif Abdurraqib

Yeah, I mean, initially, the book was going to be about, or the book was going to at least kind of revolve around appropriation and blackface in the history of minstrelsy. But I very quickly realized that that was not a pleasurable experience, like writing about that. I was centring whiteness more than I wanted to, and I didn't really find myself too keen on centring whiteness at that level. So, I began to ask myself a better question, which is a question of, what would this book look like if I extracted that desire to kind of make sense of - or tried to unravel the desires of whiteness as its projected upon black performers and black performance. And if I did that, could I get to a more pleasureful examination of what I have loved about performing and performances and watching performances. And I think that is essentially what ended up happening. You know, that's what ended up kind of, when I sat down Maya, who edited the book with me, and we began to ask questions of who the book was for and what the book wanted to celebrate. That became, you know, a lot clearer to me. And it made the book easier to edit. And it made the book a more exciting book to write, when I decentred the actual history of whiteness.

Casey Bailey

Amazing. And I think that it's interesting that you say that process wouldn't have necessarily been a pleasurable one, or wasn't a pleasurable one, kind of looking through that lens of how has whiteness impacted, or how has whiteness appropriated what we see of black culture. But what's interesting is, even having said that, the book is not just a collection of happiness, either. It has so many sombre and heavy notes, but it's carried by, you know, this real kind of idea of joy, which really is kind of like the metaphor for what you were just saying flows through the book of these punches of real happiness. And the...

You can download our podcast episodes from all the places you would normally get your podcasts every Thursday and follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @bhamlitfest. All of our festival events can be found on our website www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org. 

For more information on Writing West Midlands, visit https://writingwestmidlands.org/

Follow the festival on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @BhamLitFest

Credits

Curator: Shantel Edwards (Festival director)
Production: 11C/ Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands

TRANSCRIPT

You can download our podcast episodes from all the places you would normally get your podcasts every Thursday and follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @bhamlitfest. All of our festival events can be found on our website www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org. 

For more information on Writing West Midlands, visit https://writingwestmidlands.org/

Follow the festival on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @BhamLitFest

Credits

Curator: Shantel Edwards (Festival director)
Production: 11C/ Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands

TRANSCRIPT

BLF Series 2 - Sarfraz Manzoor 

Intro

Welcome to the second series of the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents…podcast. We are really excited to be back for a second season and to continue to connect readers and writers in the Midlands, and far beyond. 

You can download our podcast episodes from all the places you would normally get your podcasts every Thursday and follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @bhamlitfest. All of our festival events can be found on our website www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org. 

In this week’s episode, writer Will Buckingham talks to journalist, screenwriter and broadcaster Sarfraz Manzoor about his latest book, They: What Muslims and Non-Muslims Get Wrong About Each Other. Join them as they talk about the deep divisions in British culture, the history of Muslim Britain and stories that promise a much more hopeful future.

Will Buckingham

Hello, and welcome to this Birmingham Lit Fest podcast. I'm Will Buckingham, and I'm your host for today's show. I'm a writer and philosopher originally from the UK. I'm currently an immigrant to Sofia, Bulgaria. And today's guest; I will be talking to Sarfraz Manzoor whose brilliant book They: What Muslims and Non-Muslims Get Wrong About Each Other has just been published. Sarfraz is a journalist, an author, broadcaster and he's written and presented documentaries for BBC Radio and Television and is a regular columnist for The Guardian, the Sunday Times and The Times. His first book, a memoir called Greetings from Bury Park, was published to critical acclaim in 2007. And it was adapted for the big screen in 2019 and released as Blinded by the Light which I've just added to my to watch list. Sarfraz lives in London, he's married with two children and a cat called Socks - I'm hoping that Socks will also call by to have their say in this podcast at some stage. Sarfraz’s book They is an insightful journey across and between cultures, an attempt to cut through what sometimes seems like the clamour of mutual misunderstanding and to take a long and intensely personal view into relationships between Muslims and Non-Muslims in today's Britain. So welcome on board Sarfraz. 

Sarfraz Manzoor

Hi Will, good to talk to you.

Will Buckingham 

Very nice to chat to you. I thought a good place to start talking about your book was about your own experience as somebody who is a living example of the complexity of identity and belonging that you explore in the book. So, the title of your book might suggest to readers that Muslims and Non-Muslims are kind of distinct blocks of people. But in reality, things are much fuzzier, more interesting and more tangled. So, I'd love you to start by telling us a little bit about yourself and how, throughout your life, you've navigated these complexities.

Sarfraz Manzoor

Yeah, I mean, it's interesting, because I always think with identity, there are two sides to it. One is how you identify yourself. But there's also how others identify you, you know, and so it's interesting. So, the book title is They: what Muslims and Non-Muslims Get Wrong About Each Other, but growing up, the Muslim part wasn't really a big part of my identity. So, I grew up in working class Luton, in the 70s, in the 80s. My dad worked at the Vauxhall car factory; I went to a bog-standard comp. And if you would ask me at that point, what my identity was, it would have been Pakistani, really. It was much more about that, my dad never really talked about religion, but he talked about Pakistan, he talked about it in opposition to England, even though we happened to live in England. So, my identity was Pakistani, and then I guess it was also working class, you know, I wouldn't have used those words necessarily, because that was all I knew. But, certainly, when I went to university, I was really aware about, you know, the things that weren't available to me, the social networks that weren't available, that was all about class. So, I think class, and nationality were my identities. And I really, to be honest, didn't think about the religion stuff until other people started thinking about it for me. You know, with the Rushdie affair in the late 80s, that obviously was a big moment. And then obviously, since 9/11, as well. And that's when those identities start becoming more prevalent, and so, then you get into different sorts of lives. And so now, I would say, frankly, my identity is more husband, father, you know, middle aged man, all those kinds of things. But this is the part that I was interested in, when I walk down the street, most people still don't see those things, they still see skin colour, they still see ethnicity, they still think maybe religion. And so that's the thing is what I'm fascinated by: whatever narrative we have of ourselves compared to what others have. So, for example, you're in Bulgaria right now. Now, because of the fact that you are white skinned, if you were walking down the street in Sofia, nobody would know that you were British, would they? And so, the identity that you have of yourself, versus what anybody will see of you will be totally different. And it's only when you open your mouth that might get revealed. Whereas if you come from a background like mine, people are always projecting their ideas of what they think you are. And so that's part of the story in the book as well.

Will Buckingham

Which is, I suppose, in a way why the book is called They, because it's about that ascribing identity to other people.

Sarfraz Manzoor

Exactly. And it's also this idea about otherness that we talk about, you know, otherness is quite a fashionable word. But I'm always fascinated by what is it that allegedly binds us and doesn't, you know, and so, we can talk about the structure, but what I try and do in my book is sort of imagine I was sitting opposite an Islamophobe. And I was asking them, so what do you think Muslims are like, and I imagined that they would have a list of all these kinds of things. That they only live amongst themselves, they only want to marry other Muslims, they hate Jews, they hate gay people, their religion is extreme. And I just thought I'd go through each one of those, and...

For more information on Writing West Midlands, visit https://writingwestmidlands.org/

Follow the festival on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @BhamLitFest

Credits

Curator: Shantel Edwards (Festival director)
Production: 11C/ Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands

TRANSCRIPT

BLF Series 2, Episode 5: Torrey Peters 

Intro

Welcome to the second series of the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents…podcast. We are really excited to be back for a second season and to continue to connect readers and writers in the Midlands, and far beyond. 

You can download our podcast episodes from all the places you would normally get your podcasts every Thursday and follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @bhamlitfest. All of our festival events can be found on our website www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org. 

In this week’s episode Festival Director Shantel Edwards talks to debut novelist Torrey Peters about her Women’s Prize longlisted novel Detransition, Baby. Described as ‘a uniquely trans take on love, motherhood and those exes who you just can’t quit’, Detransition, Baby follows three characters as they navigate creating a new version of family for themselves. Join us as we talk about the politics of motherhood, misconceptions about transitioning and writing complex female characters. 

Shantel Edwards

Welcome to the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents…podcast. I'm Shantel Edwards, the Festival Director and I'm really excited to be in conversation today with Torrey Peters, talking about her debut novel Detransition, Baby. Described as ‘a uniquely trans take on love motherhood, and those exes who just can't quit’, Detransition, Baby is a top 10 bestseller and was long listed for the Women's Prize for Fiction in 2021. Torrey lives in Brooklyn, and holds an MFA from the University of Iowa and a Master's in Comparative Literature from Dartmouth. She is the author of two novellas, Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones and The Masker. Torrey, welcome to the podcast, thank you for being here.

Torrey Peters

I'm thrilled to be here. Thank you for having me.

Shantel Edwards

I just wanted to start by asking how this last year has been for you really, I mean, there's been a pandemic, you've released a book in a pandemic, how has it been this past year?

Torrey Peters

I mean, I think that a lot of people who released books had a pretty difficult time. And I sort of feel bad being an outlier to that, where I, in some ways enjoyed releasing a book in the pandemic, in that most of my writing career has been hyper local, like, it's been part of like a scene of trans writers in Brooklyn. And so, where we read was like, at the local bar, and I saw the same people and there was a way in which I expected this book release to be, you know, have like a two mile radius of interest, maybe around it. And instead, partly because of the pandemic, you know, I would do an event and people from the UK, from Europe, sometimes from South America, Australia, there are people coming to these events from all over the world. As a result, I think, this experience, this book launch ended up being international for me in a way that it couldn't have possibly been, if it wasn't for the pandemic. And I expect that my next book will sort of return to kind of local, you know, a local way of doing it. The book is very Brooklyn. And so in some ways, I find myself lucky. I mean, it seems horrible to say I'm lucky there's a pandemic, a global pandemic, but the timing in terms of finding readers who I otherwise wouldn't have ever come into contact with, I think it was just sort of a fluke of all these things. And there's obviously a lot of dark sides to the pandemic, but for me, it ended up having these unexpected bright sides.

Shantel Edwards 

And I guess you've gotten to see the different, was there a different reaction in different parts of the world to the novel?

Torrey Peters

Yeah, I mean, you know, the United States, like, sort of even the conversations about gender in different countries and around trans issues, they're really different. And they're different in different places, like, you know, in New York, for like, kind of trans women in New York, where things are oftentimes more radical and things like that, my book was almost like assimilationist in that it was like, you know, involved with children and family and motherhood which are considered conservative in some places, you know, some scenes. Whereas, you know, if I was talking to like a book group in Indiana, it was radical, it was this wild idea that a trans woman could be part of a nuclear family, or that the nuclear family might not be working. That was like a radical idea. And then, you know, in the UK, it was much more - it wasn't particularly politically polarizing in the US, that wasn't sort of the valence along which readers approached it. But in the UK, I think it had, just in the way that the conversation is there, it was a book that was interpreted politically. And, you know, the pushback was a lot stronger, there was more kind of stereotypically bigoted responses to it. But also, there was a more, I would say, vehement degree of support, you know, the book really was important to people, because there was, I think they felt that there was something very deeply at stake politically, in letting trans women tell their stories in unvarnished ways, and that really mattered. So, the book was, the book got on bestseller lists in both countries, but it got higher in the UK than it did in the US, simply because I think people felt like they had a lot riding on it.

Shantel Edwards 

I was reading about your earlier work and I think a lot of your earlier work was very much about writing within the trans community and I wondered what that shift had been like to go from, you know, writing for a particular audience who you know, is going to understand and receive the work in the way it's intended, and then shift into being, I guess, published by a really big publisher, and what that shift was like, and if you felt like there was a, I guess, almost like a lack of control about how the novel might be received.

Torrey Peters

I was lucky while I was writing it, because I didn't know that is was going to be published by a big publisher. And so, I...

For more information on Writing West Midlands, visit https://writingwestmidlands.org/

Follow the festival on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @BhamLitFest

Credits

Curator: Shantel Edwards (Festival director)
Production: 11C/ Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands

TRANSCRIPT

BLF Series 2, Episode 6: Jackie Morris 

Intro

Welcome to the second series of the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents…podcast. We are really excited to be back for a second season and to continue to connect readers and writers in the Midlands, and far beyond. 

You can download our podcast episodes from all the places you would normally get your podcasts every Thursday and follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @bhamlitfest. All of our festival events can be found on our website www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org. 

This week’s episode brings together Birmingham born writer and artist Jackie Morris with her long-time friend, and the co-founder of the publisher Unbound, John Mitchinson. They talk about Jackie’s two new books, East of the Sun, West of the Moon and The Wild Swans, using feminist fairy tales to give voice to the voiceless, the beauty of snow and how it is impossible to draw during labour. 

John Mitchinson 

Hello and welcome. My name is John Mitchinson. I’m the publisher of Unbound, the crowdfunding publisher, and I am here today with the author and illustrator Jackie Morris. Jackie tell us where you're, as they say, calling from.

Jackie Morris

I’m in my roost, my lair, whatever you want to call it, which is a studio in an attic in a small and very tatty house which cl

ings to the cliff tops just outside St. Davids, which is in Wales by the way.

John Mitchinson

Which is in wales, and this is the room in which, people who know your work may know both The Lost Words and The Lost Spells, the two books that co-wrote with Robert Macfarlane, but also The Unwinding which we published last year at Unbound and a couple of books that are coming out later on this year that we're going to talk about.

Jackie Morris 

East of the Sun, West of the Moon and The Wild Swans and all of these were created here because 30 years ago I came to St Davids for the weekend, and I’ve never been able to find my way out really. It's a really strange place that some people say it gathers flotsam and jetsam from the world and we kind of swirl around in this little microenvironment. I very seldom took a holiday, I used to live in Bath which is a beautiful city, and I came here for a weekend, and I walked down the high street and I just got this incredible overwhelming feeling, which I now know is called hiraeth, which is that feeling of belonging. Hiraeth is more a kind of homesickness, and the homesickness was recognizing that this is where I should have been always, so this is where I was going to be. I didn't want it to be a place I came to on holiday, I didn't want to live my life to go on holiday a couple of times a year, I wanted to live here, and I wanted to work here and I wanted to raise children here and that's what I’ve done.

John Mitchinson

It’s amazing and it’s a very ancient bit of the world as well that Pembrokeshire coast, isn't it? Amazing rocks and beautiful beaches and, I think, can't you see from your studio window the top of St Davids cathedral in Fishguard?

Jackie Morris 

I can and when the wind’s blowing in the right direction, I can hear the cathedral bells. I can also see Ramsey Island which is a very old and spiritual place and Skomer and I can see the sea and then if you walk up the hill behind my house there's a long ridge of granite rock that bites out of the sea and then down the other sides there's an old village that used to be inhabited years ago, it's all ruins now, there's hut circles, there's old standing stones, there's beaches where the seals come ashore to breed this time of year, there are raven’s roosts, there’s peregrines, I don't know why I wanted to live here really.

John Mitchinson

Nature is all around you. You have your own menagerie of animals as well.

Jackie Morris

Yeah, I do, I have four cats that share the house with me and are destructive to many things, including the house, often to my peace of mind, but they also come for walks. They're not allowed in the studio because they’re terrible critics of my work, they like to sit on paintings and knock things over and then I have three dogs, one of which is Rosie who is my daughter's dog, Ivy the beautiful and Pie who is just crazy crazy crazy.

John Mitchinson

Let's talk about the two books that are coming out in October, East of the Sun, West of the Moon and The Wild Swans. They're both really retellings of, I think, they're both Hans Christian Andersen tales originally, old folktales, Norwegian folk tales, certainly. But you take the stories, and you completely reinvent them, don't you?

Jackie Morris

Not completely, I changed the endings really. And more so with East of the Sun, than The Wild Swans. I did try very hard to change the ending of The Wild Swans. Yeah, the plot spoiler for that one is, for some reason, at the very end of it, Eliza, who is the heroine of the book, is on a pyre about to be burned as a witch. But she is rescued by her brothers arriving as swans. She then chooses to marry the prince who had sentenced her to death, I still don't understand that really, you know, I wouldn't be quite so forgiving myself. But then if I had brothers who were turned into swans, I would just think fantastic. I've got swans now, not brothers. So, I wouldn't spend years of my life weaving shirts out of nettles for them.

John Mitchinson

Yes, I mean, and you describe weaving shirts out of nettles and painful bloody fingers and painful bloody feet for stamping the nettles into fibres. Two things that strike me about the way that you tell these folk tales is that there's a lot of very strong, visceral, sensual writing in the books. That's one case, Eliza, you know, shredding her fingers and stinging her fingers with nettles. But it's full of delicious, they're always full of delicious foods, and incredibly kind of com...

Take a look at the rest of this year's digital programme on our website: https://www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org/.
For more information on Writing West Midlands, visit https://writingwestmidlands.org/

Follow the festival on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @BhamLitFest

Credits

Curator: Shantel Edwards (Festival director)
Production: 11C/ Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands

TRANSCRIPT 

October: Brendan Hawthorne

Intro

Welcome to the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents…podcast and our new series of commissioned writing about 2021. Each month we are commissioning a new writer to reflect on the month that has passed, offering us moments of connection through great writing and the opportunity to reflect about what we have collectively experienced at the end of the year. 

We will be bringing you a new short episode at the start of each month, with each piece read by our guest writers. You can read the pieces on our website, where you will also find information about our upcoming digital events.

Reading

Hello my name is Brendan Hawthorne, I’m a singer song writer, poet, playwright and I’ve written the blog for October for Birmingham Literature Festival.  

October has become a signpost month in many ways for me. New directions and opportunities have presented themselves. New challenges to keep the old mind alert and the heart full.

Creatively I have had the script of a play published, a new collection of work readied for publication and signed new commission contracts. I am also recording songs with Kerry, my musical partner, for our new CD. Written pre-lockdown, it’s only now being given performance form and life. A photographer friend has offered to take a series of Autumnal photographic portraits of me for promotional use and I’ve bought Lynn, my wife’s, Christmas present.

All good I hear you say, but, as October signals a seasonal change …

I realise the world has changed 

from the world I once knew 

Changed into one that appears 

to be more guarded and tentative

mindful of the tragic consequences in retaining 

liberty, democracy and relative freedom

Many things are now ‘considered’

The atlas shrinks again 

through traffic light travel changes 

to a greater global awareness

I personally love to feel the chill in the night air of the country of my birth. The way … 

our homeward journey is streetlight lit 

by autumnal sunsets directing

us to log burner warmth

Witness the magic of flickering shadows 

that tell different stories 

each time planet saving briquettes are ignited

Smokiness taints the air with comfort

atmospherically blending 

with the smell of tomato soup 

heated on a dancing gas ring 

accompanied by warm crusty bread

fresh from the oven

Then I wonder if the cost of gas will become more than the cost of tinned soup, but for now the concept is too great to stem the flow of intoxicating relaxation.

My mom is 87 this month…

She was 27 when she brought me into the world 

with the help of the NHS

A system of healthcare 

that has cradled many since birth 

but I wonder for how much longer?  

Stories of elderly people falling 

and having to wait for 6 to 10 hours 

for ambulances to attend because 

there aren’t enough vehicles freed up 

by corridor queues in overcrowded A & E’s

With all these cuts, I wonder why queues aren’t included?

I spoke to a young police officer yesterday who told me he had thought he’d found his dream job by helping people feel ‘safe and secure’. He told me of attending drunken injuries taking 6 hours out of his shift to sit with someone waiting for medical attention. I felt his pain, his frustration and career dislocation.

I do, however, laugh at the things I’ve said to myself, expecting answers that never come. With age, does the skill of asking yourself questions become more important? I’ll let you know. 

On the news today I saw a

polar bear clinging for dear life

to a tiny ice flow berg 

Hugging the chill to its bones

it appeared to cry out in anguish 

at its predicament

They know the importance of existence

I thought

Why don’t we?

Outro

Thank you for listening to this week’s episode of the Birmingham Lit Fest presents…podcast. Follow us on Instagram, twitter and Facebook @bhamlitfest. All information about the festival and upcoming events can be found on our website www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org. The Birmingham Lit Fest Presents... podcast is produced by 11C and Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands.

For more information on Writing West Midlands, visit https://writingwestmidlands.org/

Follow the festival on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @BhamLitFest

Credits

Curator: Shantel Edwards (Festival director)
Production: 11C/ Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands

TRANSCRIPT

BLF Series 2, Episode 7: This is the Canon 

Intro

Welcome to the second series of the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents…podcast. We are really excited to be back for a second season and to continue to connect readers and writers in the Midlands, and far beyond. 

You can download our podcast episodes from all the places you would normally get your podcasts every Thursday and follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @bhamlitfest. All of our festival events can be found on our website www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org. 

This is the Canon, written by Joan Anim-Addo, Deirdre Osborne and Kadija Sesay, is a book that aims to decolonise what we think of as the literary canon, which is all too often dominated by white authors. In this week’s episode the authors talk to writer Thomas Glave about disrupting the accepted norm, highlighting different cultures and stories and their favourite books to add to your bookshelves. 

Thomas Glave 

Hello, welcome to another episode of the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents. Today we're very thrilled to have three fantastic guests discussing their new book, This is the Canon: How to Decolonise Your Bookshelves in 50 books. Our guests today are the co-authors of this title, Professor Joan Anim-Addo, who is Professor Emeritus of Caribbean Literature and Culture at Goldsmiths University, and the co-founder of the world’s first MA in Black British literature. Also Dr Deirdre Osborne, who is a Reader in English Literature and Drama at Goldsmiths University, and the co-founder of the world's first Black British literature MA. She is also associate editor of the journal Women's Writing, and she edited the Cambridge Companion to British Black and Asian literature. Our third co-author is Kadija Sesay, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Kadija Sesay is a writer and editor of several anthologies, and is the founder of Sable literary magazine, and Afro poetry app. She is also co-founder of the Mboka Festival in The Gambia, and as a co-editor of IC3 published by Penguin, which will soon celebrate its 20th anniversary. We're very happy to tell you that This is the Canon is now out and available in bookshops and online everywhere. Welcome to our three guests. Thank you very much for joining us today. I'd like to start by asking you in sequence some questions just about this idea of decolonising. Starting with you, Professor Anim-Addo. What is decolonising exactly in the context of this book project?

Joan Anim-Addo

Thank you very much, Thomas. I think that decolonising has been a subject on the lips of lots of people and it's always seemed as if it's something that someone else is doing. And as readers, it seemed to us that we have a task also too. As readers, it seemed important for us to read a range of books, and insist on reading a range of books with different ways of storytelling, different characters, different rhythms from different spaces, not just Britain, for example, but to read as well as we possibly could. So, decolonising the canon, in a way opens up the way for the reader to take on that possibility, equips the reader to find a range of books to begin thinking about reading much more widely.

Thomas Glave 

Thank you, Professor, very intriguing, very provocative indeed. And Dr Osborne, could you expound on this question as well? What is decolonising for you as a co-author of this book?

Deirdre Osborne

Well, I guess what's so wonderful about the book is that Joan and Kadija and I work from three very different locations in terms of perhaps how we were raised, when we were raised, where we were raised, and where we ended up living. And so decolonising is something that we have had, I think, to embrace really with all our work in literature and academia and also in a sort of literary activism that we've all been pursuing throughout our careers. And so, for me, I think it's an unquestioningly transnational idea of the capabilities of literature, that we need to open up our horizons because one person's canon, which is the sort of agreed list that gets consolidated throughout education - everyone must read these books to be an educated or learned person, which as we know, has had quite a limited framework around it - so one person's canon in another part of the world is an unknown book. And so, what we're doing with our work is to sort of make that more porous, to bring that together. So, something that might be canonical in Britain or in Senegal, and isn't in either of the other spaces, that we understand that actually, they can be read and enjoyed and also, they can serve as an inspiration to just how pluralized human beings are in the way they create and represent their experiences. So, decolonising, for me, is very much I suppose, opening up those borders of reader awareness.

Thomas Glave

Thank you, Dr Osborne. Excellent, really fascinating. Then Miss Sesay, I'd like to ask you as well. What is, for you, decolonising?

Kadija Sesay

What's been interesting, as I've just been kind of finishing up my own research for my PhD as well, which has been around Black British publishing, I actually think of it very much in a publishing context, as well. So, working with a major publisher, on such a book, when my whole work has been around decolonising publishing has been very interesting, as I'm sure you could imagine. But also, I won't go over what Joan and Deirdre have said, but I think one of the things that really, that came out of working on this in terms of an extension of thinking around decolonising, which is very easy to forget, is that this is just the first step. I think, as Deirdre mentioned, this is just a selection of books, that could be decolonising your literature, but it goes past the selection of books, it goes past showing your guests who come to dinner how decolonised you are by showing them what's on your bookshelf, it goes then to the reading, how are you reading this work and interpreting it? You have to then start shifting your mind about how you interpret it, yes, you're going to come to it from your own background and your own understanding of literature. But then you have to start thinking ...

For more information on Writing West Midlands, visit https://writingwestmidlands.org/

Follow the festival on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @BhamLitFest

Credits

Curator: Shantel Edwards (Festival director)
Production: 11C/ Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands

TRANSCRIPT

BLF Series 2, Episode 8: Elizabeth Day 

Intro

Welcome to the second series of the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents…podcast. We are really excited to be back for a second season and to continue to connect readers and writers in the Midlands, and far beyond. 

You can download our podcast episodes from all the places you would normally get your podcasts every Thursday and follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @bhamlitfest. All of our festival events can be found on our website www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org. 

This week, bestselling novelist and acclaimed podcast host Elizabeth Day, talks to Sathnam Sanghera about her new novel Magpie. Join them as they talk about writing thrillers, and a novel that tells a gripping and unsettling story about power, motherhood and envy. 

Sathnam Sanghera

Hello, I'm Sathnam Sanghera. I'm a journalist and author originally from the Midlands and I'm talking to my friend Elizabeth Day today, who's also an author and a journalist but she's originally from Northern Ireland, aren't you Liz?

Elizabeth Day

I am. Well, I was born in Epson, but we moved to the north of Ireland when I was four, but I do have a Midlands connection because I went to school there, I went to school in Malvern from the age of 13. 

Sathnam Sanghera

Oh yeah, I always forget that. Anyway, I should say who you are although everyone knows who you are. You are the author of four novels and the Sunday Times bestselling memoir, How to Fail. Your debut was Scissors, Paper, Stone, which famously won a Betty Trask award. And Homefires was Observer Book of the Year. Your third book, Paradise City, was named one of the best novels of 2015 in the Evening Standard, and The Party, which was your last novel, was a Richard and Judy book club pick. You're also an award-winning journalist and you present BBC Radio 4 Open Book and the Sky Arts Book Club. And you're also the creator and host of the chart-topping podcast How to Fail. So, I feel very self-conscious, because you're a pro at this, aren’t you?

Elizabeth Day

Well, I think I'm an amateur who's learned through experience, and you were one of my first ever guests. And so, I'm so grateful to you for taking a punt on How to Fail when no one really knew what it was about. But it's nice having the table's turned, it's very nice hearing you introduce me.

Sathnam Sanghera

It's quite surreal for me, yeah, I mean I think I was very relaxed in that podcast, because I thought it would fail, ironically. And then it became a massive thing.

Elizabeth Day

You have so little faith in me. 

Sathnam Sanghera

It's huge faith now, huge faith now that you're successful. And your novel Magpie, which I actually only just finished reading this morning, it's so good. You know, when people hype things, I'm so contrary, I'm inclined to believe its not true. But it's really addictive, unsettling, I didn't know what was going to happen until the last few pages, and totally original. I mean, it's a thriller, based in the world of fertility, I guess. Is that too reductive?

Elizabeth Day

No, that's absolutely what it is. And also, can I just say, thank you so much for that compliment. Because listeners might not know, the recurring trope of our friendship is that I'm the emotional gusher and you're the one who's quite cynical and sparse in your compliments. So, for you to say that carries so much meaning.

Sathnam Sanghera

Yeah, just don't ever mention it. I said it and I’m kind of stabbing my leg with a fork as I say it. 

Elizabeth Day

Well, thank you. But yeah, you're right. It is a book that uses the architecture of thriller writing, without it being a kind of police procedural about a grizzled detective with a complicated personal life. And I love reading those, but I find them very complicated to write. So, I use the architecture of a book that I hope is compulsive to read. And I hope is slightly sinister, slightly claustrophobic, and you don't really know what's happening as a reader. And then there's a big twist in the middle. So that's why I'm talking in such vague terms. But the themes that I explore are fertility, motherhood, the pain and battle that can go into becoming a parent, what that does to you as a human being and mental illness and the human condition. So just those tiny, superficial topics I thought I'd put into what is hopefully an accessible and readable format, and that's Magpie.

Sathnam Sanghera

Yeah, I mean, that's a really rare skill to be able to deal with those really heavy subjects in such an accessible way. I guess your last book, The Party, your last novel, that was a literary thriller, but this feels like more of a deliberate genre thriller. Am I right or wrong?

Elizabeth Day

You're right, in the sense that I knew that I wanted to write a book with a twist because I find that enormously satisfying as a reader. And I pride myself on being able to spot most twists either in books or on screen. And so, I knew that I wanted it to be a really, really good one. And it was from there that the rest of the book came about. And so, it was a deliberate choice to have that kind of reading experience. And the other thing that I think draws together a lot of my novels is that I really enjoy, as a writer and also as a reader, the experience of a kind of unreliable narration, and never quite understanding whether what you're being told is the full truth. So, Magpie opens from the perspective of Marisa, who is a woman in her late 20s, who's had, as many of us have, the dispiriting online dating experience. And she finally meets this man called Jake, who's a bit older than her, who seems to tick every single box, who seems decent and straightforward and kind, and it moves quite quickly. And they move in together quite quickly into this house where most of the action takes place. And they decide to start trying for a family together. And at this point, Jake's business isn't going that well. So, they take in a lodger, Kate. And she seems to act in quite a kind of intimate and possessive way around the house...

You can download our podcast episodes from all the places you would normally get your podcasts every Thursday and follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @bhamlitfest. All of our festival events can be found on our website www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org. 

For more information on Writing West Midlands, visit https://writingwestmidlands.org/

Follow the festival on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @BhamLitFest

Credits

Curator: Shantel Edwards (Festival director)
Production: 11C/ Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands

TRANSCRIPT

BLF Series 2, Episode 9: Caleb Azumah Nelson

Intro

Welcome to the second series of the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents…podcast. We are really excited to be back for a second season and to continue to connect readers and writers in the Midlands, and far beyond. 

You can download our podcast episodes from all the places you would normally get your podcasts every Thursday and follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @bhamlitfest. All of our festival events can be found on our website www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org. 

In June 2021, we hosted an online live event with author Caleb Azumah Nelson about his debut novel Open Water. In conversation with Birmingham Poet Laureate Casey Bailey, they talk about Caleb’s beautiful love story about two young artists who met at a pub and the novel’s broader discussion of race, art, masculinity and vulnerability. 

Casey Bailey

Hi, guys, I hope you're all good and blessed. I'm really excited about this conversation that we're about to have and I hope you all are too. I am Casey Bailey, Birmingham Poet Laureate and a writer from Birmingham and far more importantly than that, I will be talking to Caleb Azumah Nelson. Caleb is a 27-year-old British Ghanaian writer and photographer who is living in Southeast London. His photography has been shortlisted for the Palm* Poetry Prize and won the People's Choice Award and his short story Pray was shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award 2020. Open Water, which we'll be discussing today, is his debut novel. Caleb, how are you?

Caleb Azumah Nelson

Good. I'm good. How are you?

Casey Bailey

I'm blessed. I can't complain. This a real privilege to be having this conversation really. The first thing I wanted to talk about and really get into is around the reception of the book. I first became aware of the book, I was on a podcast with Yomi Sode and Que from Dope Readers who I'm guessing you're aware of, and Que has done a feature on the Dope Readers Instagram page, where he had taken the book Open Water out into water, and took this like amazing photograph. And at the time, it was the first I'd heard of the book. And I thought, what a big response, like what an outlandish response to this book. And actually, it was just kind of like the seed of all of the responses to this book, because it has really taken the literary world by storm, and people are talking about it and can't stop talking about it. And the first thing I really want to ask is, how has that been for you as the author? Firstly, congratulations on writing the book, then congratulations on the book being published. And then this response, how's that feeling for you? 

Caleb Azumah Nelson

It’s really something, especially in the current climate of the world, to have this sort of response and to really have the energy that I spent a good amount of time putting into work reciprocated, you know. You can really feel it when someone feels the emotions and the feelings that I put into the book like you when someone really feels the texture and when they reply, that was something that I felt, without even being prompted. Yeah, I'm grateful for it, I think gratitude is the thing, I'm overwhelmed even.

Casey Bailey

Were you taken aback by how broad that response was? It’s definitely deserved but I'm sure you know, that sometimes you feel like something is going to get that response and it doesn't quite, you know, how does it feel getting that kind of, wow, yeah, this has been heard the way that I heard it when I came up with it.

Caleb Azumah Nelson

Yeah, it's amazing. I can really see the moment when I first started putting pen to page and I'm like, in a similar process in my next work and having this going on at the same time is such a wonderful reminder of where the work starts. And it is the page, us being present and really like bringing ourselves to the page and being vulnerable and being disciplined. There was a moment when I was writing Open Water where I quit my job and that was the only thing I was doing. Like I really like gambled and really was like, I need you to trust yourself in this moment because what you need to say right now needs to be expressed. I don't know, it's not that I expected that there would be this sort of reception, but for me, the writing of the thing was the prize. I was reading this book last week and there was a sentence of it that I don't think I'll ever forget. And the guy said ‘love is both the practice and the prize’. And I think this was a real act of love. Like everything I write feels like an act of love and like the prize is the practice. 

Casey Bailey

I’m kind of like obsessed with process and how we process things, how we process our emotions. So many heavy themes are dealt with in the book, and you could have dealt with them through photography, I'm sure you probably have, you could have dealt with them through poetry, through theatre. Why do you feel like this particular thing came out as a novel, had you always had this idea of writing a novel or did something make that happen?

Caleb Azumah Nelson

You know, through the different art forms that I straddle, I always think of myself as a writer, despite the fact that language can be so limiting. And we often, I know you know this, but often find ourselves like trying to like bend language to our will, it’s something that I think I'll forever just be trying to get closer to the true expression of how I'm actually feeling. I think when I started writing Open Water, I had just connected with my literary agent and she had come to help with nonfiction actually, I was writing a lot of nonfiction about photography and music and about love. And I was just consistently writing, and she was the one who was like, I think you have the voice for a novel, I think that you could write a novel and it was something that I'd always wanted to do. And I think it was that moment where it's like, okay, I can do this. It was also that moment where I asked myself - I want to write a novel, but what could the novel be like? What could it contain? I know that some of my favourite work is very subversive, or that it kind of straddles different...

Take a look at the rest of this year's digital programme on our website: https://www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org/.
For more information on Writing West Midlands, visit https://writingwestmidlands.org/

Follow the festival on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @BhamLitFest

Credits

Curator: Shantel Edwards (Festival director)
Production: 11C/ Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands

TRANSCRIPT 

BLF Newsletter Podcast Transcript: Episode 11, Annabel Brightling

Intro

Welcome to the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents…podcast and our new series of commissioned writing about 2021. Each month we are commissioning a new writer to reflect on the month that has passed, offering us moments of connection through great writing and the opportunity to reflect about what we have collectively experienced at the end of the year. 

We will be bringing you a new short episode at the start of each month, with each piece read by our guest writers. You can read the pieces on our website, where you will also find information about our upcoming digital events.

Reading

My name is Annabel Brightling and I’ve written November’s piece for Birmingham Literature Festival.

Seaview is a supernatural drama set in Coventry centred around a guy who lands his dream job at a law firm, only for his night of celebrations to go awry and change the lives of his loved ones, forever. The show premiered the first three episodes at the Belgrade Theatre on 10th November with further showings on the 11th – 13th November. I was hired as a staff writer for episode one.

SeaView took a chance on first timers, both in front of and behind the camera who worked alongside seasoned professionals. There was an open call for a writers' room. New writers are often told to “Apply to the BBC writers' room or 4Screenwriting. Go on the Screen Skills website. Have you tried the BFI?” All brilliant and necessary companies. But sometimes, you just want to get paid to write. Without the SeaView writers' room callout, I would still be creditless, applying for these four opportunities on loop. Or alternatively, told to get an agent to get staffed in a writers' room and we know how that catch-22 scenario goes. I doubt open calls for writers will become industry standard, but I’m thankful to the producers for making that choice.  

Seaview is also proof that there is room for a TV & Film industry to exist outside of London. There should be more stories coming from across the UK. There are places I’ve never visited and will not get the opportunity to see. That’s why I want to watch stories from different towns. Despite being born and raised in Edmonton, North London and I will never give up that identity (currently at war with my fading accent), I’ve always been curious about this little Island. 

The curiosity stems from my parents. They were always keen on my siblings and I travelling outside the M25. They wanted us to explore landscapes, historical landmarks, and food. Even though Mum would be up half the morning making jollof, chicken and stew to take with us “just in case”. That curiosity about other towns and cities has helped with the type of topics I cover in my original scripts. 

I still have a way to go in terms of my writing skills. Because of my personality type, I will always compare myself to other’s progress. But getting the ‘yes’ after years of ‘no’ or folks just straight-up ghosting my emails, has reassured me. The fact that I got to play a small part in a project which means so much to the Midlands, is even more rewarding. 

Who knows if SeaView will be the start of the norm or a blip in the Midlands cultural zeitgeist. It's a win for the Midlands, which showcases the area to a wider audience. I hope for investors, the Midlands will be unskippable. It will soon reach a point where you won't be able to hear an advert anywhere in the UK without a Midland accent penetrating through the speakers. So, in conclusion, invest or lose out...Alright, Bab?

Outro

Thank you for listening to this week’s episode of the Birmingham Lit Fest presents…podcast. Follow us on Instagram, twitter and Facebook @bhamlitfest. All information about the festival and upcoming events can be found on our website www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org. The Birmingham Lit Fest Presents... podcast is produced by 11C and Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands.

For more information on Writing West Midlands, visit https://writingwestmidlands.org/

Follow the festival on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @BhamLitFest

Credits

Curator: Shantel Edwards (Festival director)
Production: 11C/ Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands

TRANSCRIPT

BLF Series 2, Episode 10: Lisa Blower and Emma Purshouse 

Intro

Welcome to the second series of the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents…podcast. We are really excited to be back for a second season and to continue to connect readers and writers in the Midlands, and far beyond. 

You can download our podcast episodes from all the places you would normally get your podcasts every Thursday and follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @bhamlitfest. All of our festival events can be found on our website www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org. 

May 2021’s online live event brought together two writers whose books are rooted in the Midlands, Emma Purshouse and Lisa Blower. In conversation with author Kit de Waal, they discuss their latest novels Dogged and Pondweed, making space for more working-class writers and characters in contemporary fiction and capturing a variety of Midlands dialects on the page. 

Kit de Waal

Hello, everyone, its my pleasure this evening to introduce you to two friends and two great writers, two great women, who both have books out - these two books - which we're going to hear a lot about this evening as well as more generally talking about accents, dialect and snobbery in literature, which obviously is one of my pet subjects. Just to introduce who we're talking about this evening, first of all, we've got Lisa Blower. Lisa is the author of the short story collection, It's Gone Dark Over Bill's Mother's which came out in 2019 and a contribution to Common People which was the anthology of working class writing that came out the same year. Her fiction has appeared in The Guardian, Comma Press anthologies, New Welsh Review, Luminary Short Stories Sunday on Radio 4 and her debut novel Sitting Ducks was shortlisted for the inaugural Arnold Bennett prize and longlisted for The Guardian Not the Booker prize. She's also a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing at Wolverhampton University. Emma Purshouse left school in the early 1980s at the age of 15. She's got an MA in Creative Writing from Manchester Met and her passion is writing about working class communities she's lived in, often making use of Black Country dialect within her work. In 2017, she won the international Making Waves Spoken Word Poetry competition, she's also Poet Laureate in the city of Wolverhampton and she's also one of the writers in Common People, the anthology of working class writing, and she teaches poetry in schools and community groups. Hello, both of you. We've all got the short vowels tonight, which I'm very happy about it, so to speak to you, and speak to you about two very, very funny books. First of all, it's such a comfort to read these books, because it's about worlds that are so familiar to many of us. And I just want to talk to you, Emma, first about Dogged. And I don't believe I've ever read a book before that revolves around a win on the bingo, which I love. I mean, it's just so fantastic to read. In fact, you tell us, what is the book about and who are the main characters?

Emma Purshouse

Like you say, it's sort of about a bingo win initially and the two main characters are women in their late 70s. You got Nancy Maddox, and you've got Marilyn Grundy, and it's Marilyn who has this bingo win, but nobody's quite sure how much it's for. And really, the idea behind the book is about how Marilyn has to protect the bingo winnings. And then Nancy gets enlisted into this and it's the adventures they have as they try to protect the bingo winnings, which are stashed in a shopping trolley.

Kit de Waal

And so not only have you rooted it very much in the working class, but you've rooted it in an area, you've rooted it in the Black Country. How does the Black Country feature in this story and more generally, in your work?

Emma Purshouse 

I think in this story, it's where it's set, but they're ingrained in the landscape. Everything's kind of, you can’t have one thing without the other. And when the dialect comes in, it's as much a part of it as the characters in the landscape. They say, write what you know, it's what I know. So that's why I've set it there. In my poetry, again, it's what I'm living in so I kind of want to respond and show people what it is and talk about it and share it because I love it.

Kit de Waal

What I think that does come through both of these books is a massive sense of pride and no apology about who we are and where we're from, there's a real sense of pride in this. Do you want to just read us a bit Emma.

Emma Purshouse

I’ll read the prologue which kind of introduces the two women really. 

‘Nancy stands on the step. Her shoulders have been aching all night. Years of scrubbing quarry tiles up at the Dartmouth are taking their toll. She rolls her shoulders forward and twists her head to peer over towards her back. A lump has started to form under her overall. “Wot now? If it ay one thing, its summat else.” As she watches, the lump starts to bulge, move, and rupture the skin. She hears Mr. Maddox’s voice. 

“If God’d uv meant uz to fly, e’d uv givun uz wings.”

The voice is accompanied by the sound of a trickle of whiskey being poured into a glass. 

Her emerging wing - just the one - unfurls itself in a grand gesture and then flails against her back. It is large and black. It is oily, tarry, nicotine-stained, and the feathers are stuck together. It hangs like wet washing in a back yard on a windless day. “Sort of bost,” says Nancy. “Shit!” she thinks, as Marilyn comes out onto her step and waves. Nancy tries to wave back without showing her new wing. 

“Is that…?” says Marilyn screwing up her orange lips into the shape of a cat’s arse. 

“No!” says Nancy, cutting her off in mid question. “It ay!”. The conversation is ended. 

“Bloody dreamin agen,” she thinks as she awakes.’

Kit de Waal

Oh, that's great, that's good. ...

For more information on Writing West Midlands, visit https://writingwestmidlands.org/

Follow the festival on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @BhamLitFest

Credits

Curator: Shantel Edwards (Festival director)
Production: 11C/ Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands

TRANSCRIPT

BLF Series 2, Episode 11: Sathnam Sanghera 

Intro

Welcome to the second series of the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents…podcast. We are really excited to be back for a second season and to continue to connect readers and writers in the Midlands, and far beyond. 

You can download our podcast episodes from all the places you would normally get your podcasts every Thursday and follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @bhamlitfest. All of our festival events can be found on our website www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org. 

April 2021’s online event featured author and journalist Sathnam Sanghera discussing his latest book Empireland. In conversation with Sara Wajid, the co-CEO of the Birmingham Museum’s Trust, he discussed the ways in which legacies of empire permeate everything from the NHS to our national museums and how the events of the past year have demonstrated the urgent need for us to understand and reckon with our imperial past. 

Sara Wajid

Good evening, everyone. I'm Sara Wajid. I'm the co-CEO of Birmingham Museum Art Gallery, and I'm here this evening to talk to Sathnam Sanghera about his book Empireland. I'm speaking to you from Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. This is the industrial gallery. As this is Birmingham Literature Festival. No doubt many of you will recognise the museum, so I thought I’d give you this treat to be able to peek inside the museum when you haven't been able to for so long now in lockdown. As I said, I'm the co-CEO of Birmingham Museums Trust. And I'm really delighted to be having this conversation with Sathnam. He's such an important person, not just as a UK journalist, but particularly for the Midlands. And this is quite a special conversation. We were talking just now in the virtual green room about whether we've met before. And clearly Sathnam doesn't recognize me or remember me from the early 2000s but he was very much on my radar when I was a journalist, not nearly as good a journalist as him, which is why I'm now museum director and no longer a journalist. For those of you who may want to refresh as to Santhanam’s biog, he was born to Indian Punjabi parents in 1976 in Wolverhampton. He's been a Times columnist and feature writer since 2007 and his memoir, The Boy with a Topknot, a memoir of love, secrets and lies in Wolverhampton, was adapted for BBC Two in 2017. I’m a big fan. His novel Marriage Material was shortlisted for the Costa Book Awards. And he's also presented a range of TV documentaries, including The Massacre that Shook the Empire on Channel Four. Sathnam, welcome. Good to see you. Congratulations on the book, it’s a wonderful book and its been received extremely warmly. I must say I was a bit surprised to see you writing on this topic. When I first heard about the book I was like what's this, he's not a historian. You know us in the museum and history world can be a bit snobby like that, like, right, like what right does this fella have to come into our territory and start writing about this stuff? Doesn't he interview celebrities? Isn't that his domain? Then I read the book and obviously I was very impressed, which is why we're talking now. But firstly, I wanted to ask you a bit about identity. As much as this book is about public understanding of history and Empire, I guess what makes it stand out from historians is your reflections on your own identity and how Empire has shaped you and your journey in writing this book and how it's affected you. There's a bit in the book where you're reflecting on this and describe it saying ‘on embarking on this journey, I'm making an effort to decolonise myself.’ I wanted to know what you meant by that, and how it's going.

Sathnam Sanghera 

It’s an ongoing process. And I guess the phrase decolonisation, you know, a lot of people are allergic to it. Actually, I was allergic to because I didn't feel like I needed decolonising because when you've had a very good education, where everyone tells you you've had the best education in the world, you just think there's nothing wrong with what you've learned and what you've looked at, and the way you've focused on certain things. But it was probably three quarters of my way through this book that I realized that actually I had been colonised. I think that what made me realise it as I was reading about the way Indian kingdoms were taken over by the British. And one of the ways they conquered these Indian royal families was by putting the children through a British education. The Sikh Empire wasn't lost on the battlefield, it was lost in a school room, where Maharajah Duleep Singh was turned into an English gent, you know, was sent off to Britain and became a kind of toy for Queen Victoria. That ended the Sikh kingdom. And later in life he realised what had happened and he tried to reconnect with his Sikh heritage, and I really related to that. And I think, at a similar age in my 40s, I realised I had been coloniSed. And I'm trying to do something about it. But you're right, in that it was a bit weird that I'm writing about this subject. You know, I did a reading about 18 months ago, to some friends in a restaurant, it was a small event. And the general reaction was one of complete confusion, because they couldn't quite work out whether it was history or memoir. And it was quite an esoteric subject then. But then suddenly, six months later, we had Black Lives Matter. And suddenly, I was turning on the news and there was, you know, a mainstream news item about how British Empire created modern notions of racism, how we exported racism to America. And suddenly, this niche thing I was writing about, became of international concern. So, it's only accidentally timely to be honest, and there was no certainty that it was going to work.

Sara Wajid

I just want to draw you out a little bit more on what you were saying there about your education. In your earlier memoirs, when you refer to your schooling, and the grammar school, I hadn't registered it as a kind of quite posh school. And that, and that tells you something, doesn’t it because I went to a minor public school, so I'm like grammar school? He's not a posh boy. But actually, when you were kind of reflecting on quite how colonial the ideologies were in your school, because you wen...

Take a look at the rest of this year's digital programme on our website: https://www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org/.
For more information on Writing West Midlands, visit https://writingwestmidlands.org/

Follow the festival on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @BhamLitFest

Credits

Curator: Shantel Edwards (Festival director)
Production: 11C/ Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands

TRANSCRIPT 

BLF Newsletter Podcast Transcript: Episode 12, December: Thomas Glave 

Intro

Welcome to the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents…podcast and our new series of commissioned writing about 2021. Each month we are commissioning a new writer to reflect on the month that has passed, offering us moments of connection through great writing and the opportunity to reflect about what we have collectively experienced at the end of the year. 

We will be bringing you a new short episode at the start of each month, with each piece read by our guest writers. You can read the pieces on our website, where you will also find information about our upcoming digital events.

Reading

Hi, I’m Thomas Glave. This is December 2021 and I’m about to read a piece entitled A Keynote in Three Parts. 

FALLING AND WRITING (A KEYNOTE IN THREE PARTS)

1. Unafraid of Falling: A Dancer’s Approach

Once, not so long ago, in that part of the world far across the sea, there lived a young girl who dreamt of dancing – in fact dreamt of growing up to become someone who danced constantly, as if no other way of being existed. During those early years, she never envisaged herself as a ‘ballerina’, so to speak, but simply as someone who yearned to, and was always beautifully capable of, moving her long limbs to music, and actually surrendering herself – surrendering what she would have called her ‘soul’ – to music. This girl grew up to become the great ballerina Suzanne Farrell, internationally renowned star of George Balanchine’s New York City Ballet company, and the foremost interpreter, in the late twentieth century, of his ballets. At one point, in 1965 when she was twenty years of age and he sixty-two, she almost became his sixth wife. (Balanchine’s previous five wives had all been ballerinas.) But marriage and romance mattered far less in Farrell’s life, a life dedicated almost exclusively to her art, than her holy pursuit of dance, and to what dance critics and Balanchine himself, as well as other choreographers, began to observe and refer to admiringly, and often with utter astonishment, as her style of ‘off-centre’ dancing. In Farrell’s vision, ‘off-centre’ dancing was a means of attaining ultimate generosity and daring onstage, a supreme gift to the audience but also a gift to and from the art form itself.  It presented moments in which the vulnerable performer, dancing out her heart and very being across an enormous stage, and ostensibly completely uncaring as to whether she might be taking risks that could hurl her directly into a disaster such as falling off her dangerous balances or worse, became something like a true force of nature, unrestrained by gravity or fear.  As one critic familiar with Farrell’s work and Balanchine’s choreography for the New York City Ballet understood the dancer, Farrell’s off-centre dancing involved ‘astonishing pirouettes, during which...she showed not an eyelid flicker’s worth of concern over whether her partner would be there to catch her at the end.  As a rule he was, though there close calls, and a few terrifying occasions when we thought that...she was truly going to pitch herself into the orchestra’.  

Farrell’s wildness and even recklessness onstage, especially in startling contrast to her deeply taciturn, even aloof personality, beguiled countless people, myself included, all of whom wondered at and reveled in the utter freedom and daring of her artistry: a freedom from the self-consciousness that we all know as both writers and human beings, known and experienced by all artists.  This self-consciousness includes the often gnawing fear that at some point, whilst working on this or that project, or having completed this novel or that play or poetry collection, we may end up making fools of ourselves in front of them: the people out there, actual or imagined (or both): the individuals ever ready, we often fear, to hold our work up not only to cold scrutiny but also inevitably to scorn; the people out there who will surely regard us not with the care and earnest concern for which we yearn, but with cold contempt; the people whose moist breath we can always feel just over our shoulders as we begin writing on a new blank page.  What will they think, those disapproving faces both imagined and real. . .    

Yet perhaps, like daring ballerinas and other artists, we eventually realise that our work, like the work of dancers risking everything on a stage before an unseeable audience enshrouded in darkness, always involves the greatest daring of our most secret imagining selves. In such vulnerability there can be – and there invariably is – the possibility for humility, our embracing of humility, as we grapple with the fact that such deeper giving in art always requires the jettisoning of our egos in service to the art form’s discipline and demands.  A ballerina may indeed fall out of the next sequence of pirouettes or fouettés, but was she giving us all of her energy and soul when she did?  We may stumble over a sentence or a stanza, or find that our hands were wrapped too possessively around a character’s throat in this chapter or that poem, or we may mis-hear the lyric’s begging us to reach for a smoother rhyme, but it always seems – at least until the final loss of our faculties or simple end of our existence – that we do have time to work and re-work, and re-work again, anticipating in calmness the inevitability of falling without engaging any fear of falling.  And again, and again. We certainly have more time than ballet dancers, who daily strive for beauty and grace against the ticking clock of their aging bodies.  As for the patience required for the doing and re-doing, trying and re-trying, the pandemic has impressed upon us nothing if not an understanding of the importance of patience. During the numerous hours I’ve gritted my teeth whilst thinking of the great difficulty, at least for me, in patiently working to inculcate patience, I remembered Farrell insisting that her pre-professional female ballet pupils take an entire ballet class, not only the class’s second half, wearing pointe shoes – ‘Because’, Farrell often told those eager teen-agers, ‘you don’t learn to dance on pointe by not dancing on pointe’.  Like those dancers in their ballet studio or rehearsal hall, we know that we don’t become writers by not writing. Yet I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t admit that tomorrow morning, like so many of us having to face that awful blank page, I remain fearful of falling, and of what ...

Welcome to the last instalment of 2021’s commissioned series of writing. Each month, across the year, we have asked writers and poets to reflect on each month as it has passed. As we say goodbye to 2021, and embrace the start of a new year, we have brought together all those pieces to offer you an insightful, searing and beautiful review of the year.

Take a look at the rest of this year's digital programme on our website: https://www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org/.
For more information on Writing West Midlands, visit https://writingwestmidlands.org/

Follow the festival on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @BhamLitFest

Credits

Curator: Shantel Edwards (Festival director)
Production: 11C/ Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands

TRANSCRIPT 

BLF 2021: A Year in Review

Welcome to the last instalment of 2021’s commissioned series of writing. Each month, across the year, we have asked writers and poets to reflect on each month as it has passed. As we say goodbye to 2021, and embrace the start of a new year, we have brought together all those pieces that offer an insightful, searing and beautiful review of the year.

January 2021

My name is Thomas Glave and I wrote this piece for the Birmingham Literature Festival, January 2021 Writers’ Blog.

What has this past month, partly a time of Covid-caused lockdown, been like? ‘Weird’, is how a Birmingham friend extremely fond of that word might have described it. But ‘weird’ is too vague, and doesn’t make room for all the specific moments. Moments like a walk I took one chilly dusk through Birmingham’s Brindleyplace, where, amidst all those tomb-quiet buildings, it was easy to imagine the opening scene of the zombie-apocalypse film 28 Days Later, that showed an unnervingly deserted London: ‘Hallo-hallo-hallo’, anyone could have shouted that evening, imagining the final-days echo: ‘Is anyone there-there-there?’ And what about the seagulls that flock through the West Midlands (and all the UK) throughout the year, hijacking unsuspecting people’s lunches? Didn’t they appear to be moving closer to the very few human beings out walking, as the darkness encroached and began to whisper, How’s this, you fancy this? And really, except for maybe one or two runners who darted past (and even they, so thin, might have been just birds or the ghosts of birds), there was almost nobody else about. . .nobody except a lone Brindleyplace security guard, who for a few seconds bent his head over a match’s flare to light a cigarette, before he disappeared behind one of those buildings as if he too had existed in real life only for a moment, then had been drawn back into the realm of dreams where security guards, cigarette in hand, wander alone forever, half-alive and half lockdown apparitions that melt into dusk in this city of hills and tall buildings and twisting stretching canals. . . on lockdown evenings like that one, the dusk always descended in time for the ensuing quiet to gather entirely around and wrap itself, its soft thick arms, all around your shoulders: the quiet of pandemic nights, of people gathered indoors and sometimes also isolated there, sometimes alone. 

These past weeks were the unaccustomed quietness of pubs shuttered, restaurants stilled, railway stations and airports emptied, and all of us, the living and the waking, wondering what all this meant or could mean, and – often more insistently -- when it was going to end. Simultaneously, if we knew people who had fallen ill, we worried about them, prayed for them, and did all we could to ensure that they wouldn’t leave us just yet: not leave like that. Not so suddenly, so intubated. Not whilst gasping for breath behind some sterile partition, sequestered in a fluorescent-lit hospital ward. Not like that, without our hands to hold and our face to stroke, as we in turn wanted to hold and comfort them.  Through it all, as we thought of them and seasonal gifts like the sorely missed brighter-than-bright Birmingham Christmas market, there was always the cloaking dusk, and then the sound of our own footsteps.  Our feet that, as the season progressed, began to mutter Slow down, won’t you….please, for goodness’ sake, you simply must slow down.

And out of the slowing down, if we listened to those feet, arose a kind of blessedness as well. The kind that might have moved us to put up festive lights a little earlier in the season, aware that the increased lights and colours may have helped to cheer our neighbours. The kind that may even have moved us in an era of global stress and anxiety to speak with neighbours a bit longer when we saw them, and with more solicitous interest than usual, especially the elderly and the vulnerable. . . although hopefully always at a two-metre distance. 

Our warming planet, meanwhile, began to thank us for lockdown and our decreased travel and traffic. Birds, other creatures, and every tree and bush expressed and continue to express their gratitude, from the Jewellery Quarter to Acocks Green and all the way to Kings Heath, as nature raised its eyebrows at our actual ability to step back and take a breath. Someone told me this week that I should listen carefully, in order to hear the sound of nature politely applauding our efforts.  But if we can’t hear it, he said, this will be only because of the silence in between all other occurring things… the silence that assures that in spite of everything else, our hearts really are still in wonderful working order, still fond of us, and nowhere near prepared to stop.  

February 2021

Hello, my name is Abda Khan and here is a blog I wrote for Birmingham Literature Festival in February 2021.

When I was asked to write about how February has been for me, I started by looking back at photos from the same time last year. It struck me that during the almost yearlong state of lockdown, not only has life changed in ways previously unimaginable, but certain phrases have evaporated from our vocabulary, whilst others have taken hold. As a writer, I am intrigued by this.

February 2020; kicked off at a packed restaurant for a family birthday, I gave a talk about my Sidelines to Centre Stage Project at Wolverhampton Literature Festival where I mingled with attendees over tea and samosas, travelled to Glasgow and sat in a mosque full of hundreds of mourners after the death of my uncle, went into Tamworth Radio to talk about my novel Razia with three of us crammed into an airless studio smaller than a boxroom, had lunch with and gave a talk at Solihull Rotary Club, visited mac at Cannon Hill Park for discussions over coffee about a forthcoming project. And there were many more everyday happenings, not documented by the click of a phone camera, all of which are now unthinkable; legal work at the office where multiple clients would attend together, meeting friends in overcrowded coffee shops, enjoying the pictures with my kids (although they tell me that firstly, no one says ‘pictures’ anymore and secondly, as the youngest is now nearly 16, they’re no longer kids). 

Now, life is Zoom, and Teams, hand sanitiser, and face masks, and everyone knows what WFH me...

Hosted by Jonathan Davidson from Writing West Midlands.

You can download our podcast episodes from all the places you would normally get your podcasts every Thursday and follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @bhamlitfest. All of our festival events can be found on our website www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org. 

For more information on Writing West Midlands, visit https://writingwestmidlands.org/

Follow the festival on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @BhamLitFest

Credits

Curator: Shantel Edwards (Festival director)
Production: 11C/ Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands

You can download our podcast episodes from all the places you would normally get your podcasts every Thursday and follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @bhamlitfest. All of our festival events can be found on our website www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org. 

For more information on Writing West Midlands, visit https://writingwestmidlands.org/

Follow the festival on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @BhamLitFest

Credits

Curator: Shantel Edwards (Festival director)
Production: 11C/ Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands

You can download our podcast episodes from all the places you would normally get your podcasts every Thursday and follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @bhamlitfest. All of our festival events can be found on our website www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org. 

For more information on Writing West Midlands, visit https://writingwestmidlands.org/

Follow the festival on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @BhamLitFest

Credits

Curator: Shantel Edwards (Festival director)
Production: 11C/ Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands

You can download our podcast episodes from all the places you would normally get your podcasts every Thursday and follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @bhamlitfest. All of our festival events can be found on our website www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org. 

For more information on Writing West Midlands, visit https://writingwestmidlands.org/

Follow the festival on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @BhamLitFest

Credits

Curator: Shantel Edwards (Festival director)
Production: 11C/ Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands

You can download our podcast episodes from all the places you would normally get your podcasts every Thursday and follow us on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @bhamlitfest. All of our festival events can be found on our website www.birminghamliteraturefestival.org. 

For more information on Writing West Midlands, visit https://writingwestmidlands.org/

Follow the festival on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @BhamLitFest

Credits

Curator: Shantel Edwards (Festival director)
Production: 11C/ Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands

Birmingham Lit Fest Presents presents six separate stories, all set late on the same night at Wolverhampton train station. Written by Wolverhampton's Spark Young Writers, the tales are funny, serious, scary -- and every character is in for a surprise during the concluding story.

Produced by William Gallagher.

Wolverhampton Spark Young Writers are part of the Spark Young Writers programme which is a project of Writing West Midlands. Spark Young Writers aims to encourage and inspire young people from the region to write creatively and experience a wide variety of writing genres. There are 17 groups running this year: three online and the rest meeting in person. We have fun in the sessions, with the focus being on creativity not grammar and spelling, and offer a supportive community of young writers with a sincere love of writing.

The Wolverhampton Group meets in Wolverhampton Art Gallery once a month for ten months of the year. The group is lead by professional writer William Gallagher and the assistant writer is Lisa M Billingham.

You can find out more about the programme by visiting www.sparkwriters.org

Birmingham Lit Fest Presents presents six separate stories, all set late on the same night at Wolverhampton train station. Written by Wolverhampton's Spark Young Writers, the tales are funny, serious, scary -- and every character is in for a surprise during the concluding story.

Produced by William Gallagher.

Wolverhampton Spark Young Writers are part of the Spark Young Writers programme which is a project of Writing West Midlands. Spark Young Writers aims to encourage and inspire young people from the region to write creatively and experience a wide variety of writing genres. There are 17 groups running this year: three online and the rest meeting in person. We have fun in the sessions, with the focus being on creativity not grammar and spelling, and offer a supportive community of young writers with a sincere love of writing.

The Wolverhampton Group meets in Wolverhampton Art Gallery once a month for ten months of the year. The group is lead by professional writer William Gallagher and the assistant writer is Lisa M Billingham.

You can find out more about the programme by visiting www.sparkwriters.org

Produced by William Gallagher.

Wolverhampton Spark Young Writers are part of the Spark Young Writers programme which is a project of Writing West Midlands. Spark Young Writers aims to encourage and inspire young people from the region to write creatively and experience a wide variety of writing genres. There are 17 groups running this year: three online and the rest meeting in person. We have fun in the sessions, with the focus being on creativity not grammar and spelling, and offer a supportive community of young writers with a sincere love of writing.

The Wolverhampton Group meets in Wolverhampton Art Gallery once a month for ten months of the year. The group is lead by professional writer William Gallagher and the assistant writer is Lisa M Billingham.

You can find out more about the programme by visiting www.sparkwriters.org

Birmingham Lit Fest Presents presents six separate stories, all set late on the same night at Wolverhampton train station. Written by Wolverhampton's Spark Young Writers, the tales are funny, serious, scary -- and every character is in for a surprise during the concluding story.

Produced by William Gallagher.

Wolverhampton Spark Young Writers are part of the Spark Young Writers programme which is a project of Writing West Midlands. Spark Young Writers aims to encourage and inspire young people from the region to write creatively and experience a wide variety of writing genres. There are 17 groups running this year: three online and the rest meeting in person. We have fun in the sessions, with the focus being on creativity not grammar and spelling, and offer a supportive community of young writers with a sincere love of writing.

The Wolverhampton Group meets in Wolverhampton Art Gallery once a month for ten months of the year. The group is lead by professional writer William Gallagher and the assistant writer is Lisa M Billingham.

You can find out more about the programme by visiting www.sparkwriters.org

Produced by William Gallagher.

Wolverhampton Spark Young Writers are part of the Spark Young Writers programme which is a project of Writing West Midlands. Spark Young Writers aims to encourage and inspire young people from the region to write creatively and experience a wide variety of writing genres. There are 17 groups running this year: three online and the rest meeting in person. We have fun in the sessions, with the focus being on creativity not grammar and spelling, and offer a supportive community of young writers with a sincere love of writing.

The Wolverhampton Group meets in Wolverhampton Art Gallery once a month for ten months of the year. The group is lead by professional writer William Gallagher and the assistant writer is Lisa M Billingham.

You can find out more about the programme by visiting www.sparkwriters.org

Birmingham Lit Fest Presents presents six separate stories, all set late on the same night at Wolverhampton train station. Written by Wolverhampton's Spark Young Writers, the tales are funny, serious, scary -- and every character is in for a surprise during the concluding story.

Produced by William Gallagher.

Wolverhampton Spark Young Writers are part of the Spark Young Writers programme which is a project of Writing West Midlands. Spark Young Writers aims to encourage and inspire young people from the region to write creatively and experience a wide variety of writing genres. There are 17 groups running this year: three online and the rest meeting in person. We have fun in the sessions, with the focus being on creativity not grammar and spelling, and offer a supportive community of young writers with a sincere love of writing.

The Wolverhampton Group meets in Wolverhampton Art Gallery once a month for ten months of the year. The group is lead by professional writer William Gallagher and the assistant writer is Lisa M Billingham.

You can find out more about the programme by visiting www.sparkwriters.org