Ncw Online

Jackie Kay revealed her list of 10 BAME writers for the International Literature Showacse at the Cheltenham Literature Festival earlier this month. This recording of the event has Jackie in conversation with three of her selected writers: Eric Ngalle Charles, Zaffar Kunial and Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi.The International Literature Showcase is a partnership project presented by us and British Council, with support from Arts Council England and Creative Scotland.Apologies for the audio quality of this episode - hopefully the quality of the discussion more than makes up for it!Hosted by Simon Jones and Steph McKenna.Music by Bennet Maples.

"I had no examples of people like me in the page." Writer Sara Collins joins us on the pod to talk about representation in literature - both behind-the-scenes and within stories. Sara was in town to discuss her debut novel The Confessions of Frannie Langton at the Noirwich Crime Writing Festival.Hosted by Steph McKenna and Simon Jones.Find out more at https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/More about Noirwich: https://noirwich.co.ukMusic by Bennet Maples.

Richard Lambert's debut novel The Wolf Road is set for release in February 2020. The book is finished, edited, proofed. What's it like to be in the in-between stage between completion and publication? We talk to Richard about how he got to this stage in his writing, and where he's going next.Also on the pod today: we're very excited about the third and final International Literature Showcase of 2019, with Jackie Kay curating a list of 10 amazing BAME writers working in the UK today. Join us on Saturday 5th October at 12.45 for the live stream reveal.Hosted by Simon Jones and Steph McKenna.All about us: https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.ukILS live stream: http://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/ils/showcase-3-live/Early Career Awards: http://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/early-career-awards/Richard's website: https://richardlambert.org/The Escalator scheme for writers: https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/escalator/Music by Bennet Maples

The King of Helsinki Crime and the 'funniest writer in Europe' Antti Tuomainen joins us on the pod to talk about his books including The Man Who Died and Little Siberia, plus how the crime fiction genre is the perfect engine for telling stories.Many thanks to the Finnish Literature Exchange (FILI) for supporting Antti's visit to the UK.Meanwhile, Steph and Simon introduce the Early Career Awards, launched TODAY, including the news that we are now running the Desmond Elliott Prize.We also share the writing prompt from our first drop-in writing session; "Out of the ashes rose..." Fill in the rest by sending us your microfiction responses on Twitter @writerscentre!Hosted by Simon Jones and Steph McKenna.Find out more: nationalcentreforwriting.org.ukEarly Career Awards: http://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/early-career-awards/Noirwich: noirwich.co.uk

Today we have something particularly special on the pod, in the form of George Alagiah's 2019 Noirwich Lecture.George is of course best known for his journalistic work with the BBC, in particular as presenter of BBC News at Six. He's just released his first work of fiction, The Burning Land, and in his lecture he talks about the power of fiction to better illuminate facts, and how the book complements the factual work he's done as a journalist throughout his career.Hosted by Simon Jones.Find out more about Noirwich: https://noirwich.co.ukWhat we do: https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.ukUEA: https://www.uea.ac.uk/Music by Bennet Maples.

Jeremy Tiang returns to the pod, this time accompanied by fellow translator Anton Hur and Kate Griffin. In this wide-ranging chat they take in their inaugural Dragon Hall translator residencies, the BCLT summer school, how mentorships can help people getting into translation, the work of Tilted Axis, the history of Singapore and queer Korean literature.The residencies were supported by the National Arts Council of Singapore and the Literature Translation Institute of Korea.Hosted by Simon Jones and Steph McKenna.Find out more about our work at https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.ukGet your Noirwich tickets: https://noirwich.co.ukhttp://www.jeremytiang.com/https://antonhur.com/http://www.bclt.org.uk/summer-schoolhttps://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/emerging-translator-mentorships/https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/article/erasing-histories/https://www.tiltedaxispress.com/https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/article/june-2019-korean-queer-korean-litearture-is-stepping-outanton-hurhttp://www.cedilla.comp

How do you start a new bookshop in 2019? Leanne Fridd from Bookbugs & Dragon Tales tells us about her new children's bookshop and why she left a comfortable job to start a new business.Meanwhile, Steph and Simon catch up about the first Primadonna Festival, which took place last weekend in Suffolk.Hosted by Simon Jones and Steph McKenna.Sign up to our newsletter: https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/https://bookbugsanddragontales.com/https://primadonnafestival.comMusic by Bennet Maples.

Claire McGowan is the prolific writer of crime fiction including the Paula MacGuire series and the recently release What You Did. Ahead of her workshop during the Noirwich Crime Writing Festival we got her on the pod to discuss techniques for crafting characters for crime fiction.Hosted by Simon Jones and Steph McKenna.Find out more about Noirwich: https://noirwich.co.ukBook onto Claire's workshop: https://noirwich.co.uk/the-line-up/#event-200-detailsClaire's website: https://www.ink-stains.co.uk/Primadonna Festival: https://www.primadonnafestival.com/Noirwich is a partnership project between the National Centre for Writing and the University of East Anglia.Music by Bennet Maples.

Earlier this month our intrepid explorers Steph McKenna and Roisin Batty ventured up to Edinburgh for the festival. While there they had the opportunity to visit two independent bookshops and speak to the people who work there: Julia Danskin of The Golden Hare and Mairi Oliver from Lighthouse Books.Apologies for some of the audio quality in the first interview: due to being on location we didn't have access to our usual equipment!Hosted by Simon Jones and Steph McKenna.Golden Hare Books: https://goldenharebooks.com/Lighthouse Books: https://www.lighthousebookshop.com/The International Literature Showcase: https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/ilsFind out more about what we do: https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/Music by Bennet Maples

"I think words change the world, reader by reader."Val McDermid joins us on this very special episode, talking with Guardian Books Online editor Sian Cain about her newly revealed International Literature Showcase selection of UK-based LGBTQI+ writers.The International Literature Showcase is produced in partnership with the British Council. Find out more at https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/ils/Hosted by Simon Jones and Steph McKenna.Music by Bennet Maples.

90 years ago, Virginia Woolf published her ground-breaking essay 'A Room of One's Own', which posited that to be a writer, a woman needed money and a room of her own. We joined forces with the Royal Society of Literature to offer a week-long residency at Dragon Hall to address this: giving a female-identifying writer the time, space and support to write whatever they wanted.Alicia Morgan was selected from many amazing submissions. She is a poet, playwright, performer and culture maker now based here in Norwich. She talks with Steph about being an active part of the underground New York punk scene in the 80s and 90s, working as a journalist and her move into fiction.Follow her on Instagram @alicia13morganHosted by Simon Jones and Steph McKenna.Find out about writer opportunities at https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.ukMusic by Bennet Maples.

Today we have NCW chief exec Chris Gribble talking with Jeremy Tiang, New York-based writer and translator who was the Inaugural Literary Translator of the Fair at London Book Fair earlier this year.Today's interview is timed to coincide with the release of issue 53 of In Other Words, the literary translation journal. You can find out more about it on our website.Chris interviewed Jeremy on a panel in the Literary Translation Centre at LBF.Hosted by Simon Jones and Steph McKenna.Find out more:Primadonna Festival - https://www.primadonnafestival.com/Noirwich - https://noirwich.co.uk/Val McDermid's International Literature Showcase - https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/ils/In Other Words - https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/ncw-publications/in-other-words/Creative Writing Online - https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/online-courses/Jeremy Tiang photo by Edward Hill.Music by Bennet Maples.

Henry Sutton, co-director of the Noirwich Crime Writing Festival, joins us on the pod to discuss this year's amazing festival line-up and dive into the themes being explored this September.Tickets for Noirwich are available now at https://noirwich.co.ukHosted by Simon Jones.Find out more about our work at https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.ukMusic by Bennet Maples.

"You have to be alive to the possibility that there is a story waiting to be told or discovered all around you." So says Mitch Johnson on today's episode, in which he talks with visiting Indonesian author Debby Lukito Goeyardi and Vicki Maitland about writing children's literature.Hosted by Simon Jones, who claims at the start that this is episode 52 despite it evidently being episode 53. It was going to happen eventually.Find out more about our projects and writing opportunities at https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.ukMusic by Bennet Maples.

Fantasy writer JY Yang joins us on the pod to discuss their Tensorate series of silkpunk novels. JY was our writer in residence at Dragon Hall in June and it was the perfect opportunity to explore their approach to world building, the origins of the series and what is coming next.Hosted by Simon Jones and Steph McKenna.Find out more about our work at https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.ukMusic by Bennet Maples.

Indie game Outer Wilds has been rapturously received and we were very excited to talk with Kelsey Beachum, writer on the project. We discuss writing non-linear stories, how to handle player agency and interactions, mixing game mechanics with storytelling and how to inject characterful dialogue into exposition.Hosted by Simon Jones and Steph McKenna.Find out more at https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.ukMusic by Bennet Maples.

"Books are the closest thing to magic." Chief Exec of the National Centre for Writing Chris Gribble is back on the podcast for episode #50, celebrating not only a year of the podcast but also the first full year of the Centre re-opening after the refurbishment of Dragon Hall in 2018.Inside this very podcast you will find out which two books changed Chris' life, his favourite books of the last year and who would win in a fight: Jane Austen or George Eliot.Also: the 10-year journey to bring the NCW to life, why we're based in Norwich, what the literature world can do to reduce its carbon footprint and why Dragon Hall is a bit like Marsten House in Salem's Lot (but not really).Find out more about the work we do on our website: http://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk

Author of The Essex Serpent and Melmoth, Sarah Perry, delivered this year's Harriet Martineau Lecture at the Norfolk & Norwich Festival. Sarah explores the notion of the 'Essex girl', invoking unexpected moments from history and popular culture.This year's lecture was made possible thanks to the support of The Martineau Society.Hosted by Steph McKenna and Simon Jones from the National Centre for Writing at Dragon Hall in Norwich.Find out more at http://nationalcentreforwriting.org.ukMusic by Bennet Maples: http://sonicfruit.co.uk

Today we've got an interview with Bulgarian writer Ivanka Mogilska, who stayed with us back in 2018. In the interview she discusses the writing of a new short story, 'The Miracle of St Peter Mancroft', which we're excited to also include in this very episode courtesy of a special reading from Peggy Hughes.We also talk about the monthly Dragon Hall Salons, our big writerly social get-togethers. If you haven't been along to one yet make sure you put July 16 in your diary!Find out more about what we do at nationalcentreforwriting.org.ukMusic by Bennet Maples: http://sonicfruit.co.uk

Today we've got an interview with the lovely Carl Gorham about his 2017 book The Owl at the Window: A Memoir of Loss and Hope. In it Carl writes about the loss of his wife and his attempts to rebuild his life with their six year old daughter. You have probably encountered Carl's work on TV, such as with the animated series Stressed Eric and the CITV adaptation of Meg and Mog.On the other end of the interview today is Hannah Garrard, our Learning & Participation Programme Manager. It's a really wonderful interview about Carl's approach to bereavement, and how the book emerged out of his own need to write through his grief.Meanwhile, Steph and Simon take a look back at the Norfolk & Norwich Festival, the Nottwich UNESCO conference, the Walking Norwich book and the next big festival event: the Noirwich Crime Writing Festival.Find out more about what we do at http://nationalcentreforwriting.org.ukMusic by Bennet Maples: http://sonicfruit.co.uk