Podcasts about commonwealth prize

Greetings Glocal Citizens! We are nearing the end of our Writing As Activism series @ the 2024 Pa Gya! Literary Festival in Accra. This week, Ghanaian writer and editor winning acclaim as a children's author, poet, broadcaster and novelist, Nii Ayikwei Parkes joins the conversation. Winner of multiple international awards including the ACRAG (Arts Critics and Reviewers Association of Ghana) award, his novel Tail of the Blue Bird won France's two major prizes for translated fiction – Prix Baudelaire and Prix Laure Bataillon – in 2014. Nii Ayikwei is the founder of flipped eye publishing (https://flippedeye.net), a leading small press; serves on the boards of World Literature Today and the AKO Caine Prize; and was chair of judges for the 2020 Commonwealth Prize. Translated in multiple languages, he has also written for National Geographic, Financial Times, the Guardian and Lonely Planet. His most recent books are The Ga Picture Alphabet and Azúcar (https://www.peepaltreepress.com/books/azucar), a novel. Currently Producer of Literature and Talks at Brighton Festival, he is also author of two collections of poetry The Makings of You (2010) and The Geez (2020), both published by Peepal Tree Press. In this conversation, we journey with Nii Ayikwei through his works, his entreprenuership, his love for food and rum, and much more! See Nii in converation at Pa Gya! here (https://www.youtube.com/live/fEFByAZDgwo?si=Cp2R4hSp5XcNiOva). Where to find Nii Ayikwei? On LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/niiayikwei/) On Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/niiayikweiparkes/) On Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/ayikweiparkes/) On X (https://x.com/BlueBirdTail) On YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/c/NiiParkes_A) On Tik Tok (https://www.tiktok.com/@niiayikweiparkes) On BlueSky (https://bsky.app/profile/niiayikwei.bsky.social/post/3kbj5pcnbso2l) What's Nii Ayikwei listening to? Gene Noble (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCRUMqB8CNGlFwJpwjALL-w) Blues Man Robert Cray (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Cray) The Roots (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Roots) Cody Chesnutt + The Roots (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKw_umLS56A) and Headphone Masterpiece (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Headphone_Masterpiece) Nii's Pan-African Activism essential reading list: Howard W. French, Born In Blackness (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/oct/26/born-in-blackness-howard-w-french-review-africa-africans-and-the-making-of-the-modern-world) Mongo Beti's (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongo_Beti), The Poor Christ of Bomba (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Poor_Christ_of_Bomba) Ama Atta Aidoo's, No Sweetness Here (https://www.feministpress.org/books-n-z/no-sweetness) Franz Fanon, Black Skin, White Mask (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Skin,_White_Masks) You Can't Get Lost in Cape Town (https://web.facebook.com/watch/?v=804875960113686), Zoë Wicomb Kofi Awoonor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kofi_Awoonor), This Earth My Brother Other topics of interest: Historic Jamestown, Accra (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamestown/Usshertown,_Accra) Oto Blohum, Old Accra (https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/geography/old_accra.php#google_vignette) North Kaneshie (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaneshie#:~:text=Kaneshie%20is%20a%20suburb%20in,beginnings%20as%20a%20night%20market.) Thornton Heath, UK (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thornton_Heath) About Courttia Newland (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courttia_Newland) Learn more about Nii's uncle Frank Kobina Parkes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Kobina_Parkes) Nkyinkyim (https://www.adinkrasymbols.org/symbols/nkyinkyim/#:~:text=Nkyinkyim%20is%20an%20Akan%20word,symbol%20of%20dedication%20to%20service.) in the Adinkra (https://www.adinkrasymbols.org) On Ghana's Chop Bars (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chop_bar) About Spanish-Caribbean Rum (https://www.gotostcroix.com/st-croix-blog/spirited-history-caribbean-rum/) About Rhum Agricole (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhum_agricole) Special Guest: Nii Ayikwei Parkes.

Lloyd Jones is well known for his numerous novels including Mister Pip which won the Commonwealth Prize for Literature and was shortlisted for the Man Booker.

In 2024 Eveline Pierre had the opportunity to speak with Myriam J.A. Chancy about her literary career and how she got started take a listen and learn more about Myriam in Episode 1 "Liveres Haitiens" for the Re-Boot of H.A.PS. Myriam J. A. Chancy is the author most recently of the novel Village Weavers (Tin House). Her previous novel, What Storm, What Thunder, was named a "Best Book of 2021," by NPR, Kirkus, Library Journal, the Boston Globe, Globe & Mail, shortlisted for the Caliba Golden Poppy Award & Aspen Words Literary Prize, longlisted for Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize & the OCM Bocas Prize, and awarded an ABA from the Before Columbus Foundation. Her past novels include: The Loneliness of Angels, winner of the 2011 Guyana Prize in Literature Caribbean Award, Best Fiction 2010; The Scorpion's Claw and Spirit of Haiti, shortlisted in the Best First Book Category, Canada/Caribbean region of the Commonwealth Prize, 2004.

One of Australian literature's biggest names, Kate has written countless novels about her country, her family and the complexity of the stories we tell. Her book, The Secret River, was Shortlisted for the Booker and won what is now the Women's Prize, as well as the now retired Commonwealth Prize. It's a set text for many teens across Australia and in leading universities. She's shortlisted for this year's Women's Prize with her latest work, Restless Dolly Maunder, which imagines the life of her grandmother during what Kate calls the "hinge generation". Get a copy here, or at your local bookshop.

Richard Flanagan's masterful new novel Question 7 is his most personal book yet: a tribute to his parents and to his island home of Tasmania, and a hypnotic melding of dream, history, place and memory. Beginning with Flanagan's father's imprisonment near Hiroshima when the atom bomb was dropped, Question 7 traces a chain reaction of events, from the turbulent romance between literary giants H.G. Wells and Rebecca West, to the intricate world of 1930s and 40s nuclear physics, to a young Flanagan trapped on a perilous Tasmanian river rapid. One of Australia's most revered novelists, Flanagan was awarded the Man Booker Prize for The Narrow Road to the Deep North and the Commonwealth Prize for Gould's Book of Fish. He joins host Astrid Edwards to discuss Question 7's unique blend of history, fiction and autofiction, and its examination of the stories we construct about ourselves and others. This event was presented in partnership with RMIT Culture.It was recorded on Thursday 9 November 2023 at The Capitol. The official bookseller was Readings.Featured music is ‘Different Days' by Chill Cole.Support the Wheeler Centre: https://www.wheelercentre.com/support-us/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mit dem Roman "Chinaman" gelang dem Schriftsteller Shehan Karunatilaka 2010 ein viel beachteter Debüterfolg, der unter anderem mit dem Commonwealth Prize ausgezeichnet wurde. Seither gilt er als wichtigste literarische Stimme Sri Lankas und dementsprechend groß waren die Erwartungen an seinen zweiten Roman. Für den aber ließ sich Shehan Karunatilaka dann länger Zeit: 2022 erschien "Die sieben Monde des Maali Almeida", in der deutschen Übersetzung liegt er erst seit kurzem vor. Corinne Orlowski hat ihn gelesen.

Booker Prize-winning Tasmanian writer Richard Flanagan's new novel looks at the choices we make and the chain reaction that follows. By way of a literary love affair through nuclear physics to Flanagan's father's time as a Japanese POW, to Richard's own near-death experience, Question 7 explores the power of language, and of dreaming. Richard Flanagan's novels are published in forty-two countries. He won the Booker Prize for The Narrow Road to the Deep North and the Commonwealth Prize for Gould's Book of Fish. A rapid on the Franklin River is named after him.

This is a conversation Kate has been waiting years to have. She spoke to Richard Flanagan at the end of his most recent tour, in person at State Library Victoria. Richard Flanagan's novels have received numerous honours and are published in forty-two countries. He won the Booker Prize for The Narrow Road to the Deep North and the Commonwealth Prize for Gould's Book of Fish. A rapid on the Franklin River is named after him. His latest book is Question 7.  Kate and Richard discuss: wanting to be a writer at four years old and writing stories for his sister getting his debut novel Death of a River Guide written and published  writing a 'memoir' for conman John Friedrich which Flanagan went on to fictionalise in his novel First Person On structure and form: 'A novel without form is like a jellyfish, it lacks spine and movement. A novel should be a Great White Pointer - it has to move and it has to excite and it has to surprise.' Working around writing with a young family Collaboration with his publisher Nikki Christer  The influence of Yolgnu writer Siena Stubbs who introduced Flanagan to the idea of a 'fourth tense' in Yolgnu language Richard's article and speech Does Writing Matter in 2016 Donating prizing money (and the picture with Abbott!) and his father's philosophy on money Richard says there 'needs to be a culture change in this country whereby there is a respect accorded writers' Richard's debut recommendation: The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass Check out show notes for this episode on our website www.thefirsttimepodcast.com or get in touch via Twitter (@thefirsttimepod) or Instagram (@thefirsttimepod). You can support us and the making of Season Six via our Patreon page. Thanks for joining us!

Welcome to Episode 3 of Season 2 of Creeks to Peaks: The Understory. In part 1 of another 2-part interview, we introduce you to Lonnie and Ellen Thompson who are world-renowned glaciologists, climatologists, explorers, and West Virginians. The Thompsons have not only been celebrated the world-over for their polar expeditions and research in places like Antarctica, Tibet, and Mt. Kilimanjaro, but they've also been married to each other for just over 51 years, which in itself is no small feat. Still serving as professors at Ohio State University's Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center, the Thompsons' studies have been influential in helping us understand global warming and climate change since the 1970s. Their combined awards and accolades include: the National Medal of Science, the Seligman Crystal, the Benjamin Franklin Medal, The Commonwealth Prize for Science and Innovation, and the Distinguished Explorer Award of the Roy Chapman Andrews Society. As always, take a listen!

The traditions of fable and myth – Ovid's Metamorphoses, the tales of Aesop and Grimm, Homer's Iliad and the pūrākau of Polynesia, to name a few – have acted as compasses for millennia, exploring human experience and answering timeless questions. Join two contemporary writers at the height of their powers – Commonwealth Prize winner and Man Booker-shortlisted Lloyd Jones ('The Fish') and 2022 Ockham NZ Book Awards Jann Medlicott Acorn Prize Fiction winner Whiti Hereaka ('Kurangaituku') – in conversation with Claire Mabey – to interrogate the history and power of these ancient storytelling forms and why each has chosen them for their recent narratives. SATURDAY 27 AUGUST 2022 – 3.30-4.30PM WAITĀKERE ROOM, AOTEA CENTRE

David Cronenberg's new film Crimes of the Future is a science fiction body parts horror movie starring Viggo Mortensen, Kristen Stewart and Léa Seydoux. In a time when pain no longer exists a couple are using organ removal surgery as performance art. Leila Latif reviews and gives a run down on the films being shown at this year's Venice Film Festival, including The Whale and Banshees of Inisherin. Tom Chaplin came to fame as the lead singer of Keane. With the release of his third solo album Midpoint, he talks to Tom Sutcliffe and performs two songs - Gravitational, and Overshoot - live in the studio. We hear from one of the thirteen writers on the Booker Prize longlist, Sri Lankan Shehan Karunatilaka, who's waiting to hear if he'll also be on the shortlist announced tomorrow. His 2010 debut novel, Chinaman, was garlanded with awards, including the Commonwealth Prize. Will his second book, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida, also be a winner? Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe Producer: Nicki Paxman

Myriam J. A. Chancy-Guggenheim Fellow & HBA Chair of the Humanities at Scripps College, is a Haitian-Canadian/American writer born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and subsequently raised there and in Canada.  After obtaining her BA in English/Philosophy (4-YR ADV, with Honors), from the University of Manitoba (1989) and her MA in English Literature from Dalhousie University (1990) [pronounced Dal-house-zie], she completed her Ph. D. in English at the University of Iowa (1994).   Myriam Chancy was awarded the 2011 Guyana Prize in Literature Caribbean Award for Best Fiction 2010 for her third novel, The Loneliness of Angels (Peepal Tree Press 2010; also shortlisted in the fiction category for the 2011 OCM Bocas Prize in Caribbean Literature), garnered a shortlisting for Best First Book, Canada/Caribbean region category, of the Commonwealth Prize in 2004 for her first novel, Spirit of Haiti (London: Mango Publications, 2003), and published a second novel, The Scorpion's Claw (Peepal Tree Press 2005) to critical praise. Her novel on the 2010 Haiti earthquake, What Storm, What Thunder will appear fall 2021 with Harper Collins Canada and Tin House in the USA. At the end of a long, sweltering day, as markets and businesses begin to close for the evening, an earthquake of 7.0 magnitude shakes the capital of Haiti, Port-au-Prince Award-winning author Myriam J. A. Chancy masterfully charts the inner lives of the characters affected by the disaster.

Isla Morley grew up in South Africa during apartheid, the child of a British father and fourth-generation South African mother. In 1994 she was one of the youngest magazine editors in South Africa, but left career, country and kin when she married an American and moved to California. The Last Blue, her third novel, was selected by the Southern Fiction Review of Books as a “must-read” Best Book of May 2020. It has been translated into French. Her debut novel, Come Sunday, was awarded Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize for Fiction, was a finalist for the Commonwealth Prize, and was longlisted for The Sunday Times award. It has been translated into seven languages. Above was chosen as a Best Buzz Books 2014 by Publishers Lunch and was an IndieNext must-read. She has lived in some of the most culturally diverse places of the world, including Cape Town, London and Honolulu. Now in the Los Angeles area, she shares a home with her husband, their daughter and a menagerie of pets. Learn more about Isla at http://www.islamorley.com/ The Storytellers hosted by Grace Sammon, focuses on individuals who choose to leave their mark on the world through the art of story. Each episode engages guests and listeners in the story behind the story of authors, artists, reporters and others who leave a legacy of storytelling. Applying her years of experience as an educator, entrepreneur, author, and storyteller herself, Grace brings to listeners an intimate one-on-one experience with her guests. To contact Grace about being a guest on the show, email her at grace@gracesammon.net The Storytellers is a copyrighted work © of Grace Sammon and Authors on The Air Global Radio Network. #authorsontheairglobalradionetwork #authorsontheair #gracesammon #thestorytellers #IslaMorley

Isla Morley grew up in South Africa during apartheid, the child of a British father and fourth-generation South African mother. In 1994 she was one of the youngest magazine editors in South Africa, but left career, country and kin when she married an American and moved to California. The Last Blue, her third novel, was selected by the Southern Fiction Review of Books as a “must-read” Best Book of May 2020. It has been translated into French. Her debut novel, Come Sunday, was awarded Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize for Fiction, was a finalist for the Commonwealth Prize, and was longlisted for The Sunday Times award. It has been translated into seven languages. Above was chosen as a Best Buzz Books 2014 by Publishers Lunch and was an IndieNext must-read. She has lived in some of the most culturally diverse places of the world, including Cape Town, London and Honolulu. Now in the Los Angeles area, she shares a home with her husband, their daughter and a menagerie of pets. Learn more about Isla at http://www.islamorley.com/ The Storytellers hosted by Grace Sammon, focuses on individuals who choose to leave their mark on the world through the art of story. Each episode engages guests and listeners in the story behind the story of authors, artists, reporters and others who leave a legacy of storytelling. Applying her years of experience as an educator, entrepreneur, author, and storyteller herself, Grace brings to listeners an intimate one-on-one experience with her guests. To contact Grace about being a guest on the show, email her at grace@gracesammon.net The Storytellers is a copyrighted work © of Grace Sammon and Authors on The Air Global Radio Network. #authorsontheairglobalradionetwork #authorsontheair #gracesammon #thestorytellers #IslaMorley

Richard Flanagan is a legend of Australian letters. His much-lauded novels are published in 42 countries. He won the Booker Prize for The Narrow Road to the Deep North and the Commonwealth Prize for Gould's Book of Fish. His latest novel, The Living Sea of Waking Dreams, offers a tender, haunting portrait of a world disappearing around us. With Laura Tingle, he reflects with characteristic eloquence on the purpose of literature, the nature of time, the democratic freedom of the novel and the truths of our world.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We wanted to talk holiday writing—as in, writing ABOUT holidays, not writing during the holidays. So we went strolling through the holly-bedecked halls of the Internet—because, #dominantculture, holiday books as they appear without a more specific web search means Christmas books and specifically, the 250 page equivalent of a bonbon of a Lifetime Christmas movie. We found Natalie Cox, author of the debut romcom Mutts and Mistletoe. And then we found that Natalie Cox is also Betsy Tobin, author of five other novels, co-owner of a bookshop in North London and just generally appearing to live an authorial dream life. So of course we invited her on to talk about not just holiday writing, but switching genres, the real meaning of “debut” and whether or not owning a bookstore in London is as much fun as it sounds like it would be. Links from the episode (which was itself as much fun as it sounds like it would be) follow.As for writing DURING the holidays, if you’re a supporter, you can check out the Top 5 Hacks for Holiday Writing—and if you’re not, why not? Give yourself a little holiday giftie and us a little holiday boost clicking the button below to support the podcast you love, get weekly #WriterTopFives with actionable advice and occasional bonus #MiniSupporter podcasts for just $7 a month. As always, this episode (and every episode) will appear for all subscribers in your usual podcast listening places, totally free as the #AmWriting Podcast has always been. This shownotes email is free, too, so please—forward it to a friend, and if you haven’t already, join our email list and be on top of it with the shownotes and a transcript every time there’s a new episode. To support the podcast and help it stay free, subscribe to our weekly #WritersTopFive email.LINKS FROM THE PODCAST#AmReading (Watching, Listening)Betsy:Three Women, Lisa Taddeo KJ: Beside Herself, Elizabeth LaBanSarina: Reindeer Falls, Book 1: The Boss Who Stole Christmas, Jana AstonReindeer Falls, Book 2: If You Give a Jerk a Gingerbread, Jana AstonReindeer Falls, Book 3: The One Night Stand Before Christmas, Jana Aston#FaveIndieBookstoreINK@84 Our guest for this episode is Betsy Tobin, aka Natalie Cox. Find more about her at BetsyTobin.co.uk.This episode was sponsored by Author Accelerator, the book coaching program that helps you get your work DONE. Visit https://www.authoraccelerator.com/amwritingfor details, special offers and Jennie Nash’s Inside-Outline template.Find more about Jess here, Sarina here and about KJ here.If you enjoyed this episode, we suggest you check out Marginally, a podcast about writing, work and friendship.Transcript (We use an AI service for transcription, and while we do clean it up a bit, some errors are the price of admission here. We hope it’s still helpful.)KJ:                                        00:02                    Hey there listeners, it's KJ. What with Jess starting in on a new project lately, we've been talking a lot about nonfiction and research. If that's your kind of work, our sponsor, Author Accelerator can help and you don't have to go all in with full on book coaching if you're not ready. Check out their new four week long nonfiction framework program that will help you nail down your structure before you start to write, or after your writing and realizing, dang, this thing needs a backbone. Authors of self-help, how-to, and academic texts will find the shape of their books, create a working one page summary that helps reveal that shape at a glance, and develop a flexible table of contents to guide you through the drafting and revision process. You can find a lot more, including previews of much of the material, by going to authoraccelerator.com/nonfictionframework. Is it recording?Jess:                                     01:00                    Now it's recording.KJ:                                        01:01                    Yay.Jess:                                     01:02                    Go ahead.KJ:                                        01:03                    This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone and try to remember what I'm supposed to be doing.Jess:                                     01:07                    Alright, let's start over.KJ:                                        01:08                    Awkward pause and I'm going to rustle some papers.Jess:                                     01:11                    Okay.KJ:                                        01:11                    Now, one, two, three. Hey, I'm KJ Dell'Antonia and this is #AmWriting. #AmWriting is our weekly podcast about writing all the things - fiction, nonfiction, book proposals, essays, pitches, and as we say every week, this is the podcast about getting the work done.Sarina:                                 01:40                    And I'm Sarina Bowen, the author of 30 plus romance novels. And you can find more of me at sarinabowen.com. I am KJ Dell'Antonia, author of a novel coming out next summer. Also of How To Be a Happier Parent, former lead editor of the Motherlode blog at the New York Times and all of the other things that I say every week. And our usual cohost, Jess Lahey, is missing this week. Sarina and I are soloing, but we have a guest. In fact, you could argue that we have three guests. We are going to talk today with Betsy Tobin, who is the author of five books of literary fiction/mystery/I'm not even quite sure how to describe it. Natalie Cox, the author of a new romcom, which is called Mutts and Mistletoe, it's a holiday theme and it is incredibly fun. And the co-owner of the Ink@84 bookstore bar cafe in North London. Conveniently, however, all of these guests are wrapped up into the same person. It's just going to make it much easier to ask questions.Sarina:                                 02:52                    Of course. So welcome, Betsy.Betsy:                                  02:54                    Gosh, with an intro like that it's going to be hard not to disappoint. I'll do my best. I'll do my best to be three people in one. Thank you very much. And also 30 books, my goodness. Respect, Sarina. That's amazing, respect.KJ:                                        03:08                    So I'm going to just own it all for our listeners (as we do every week) which is that originally we thought, you know what would be really fun? It'd be fun to talk to somebody who wrote a book with a holiday theme. Because have you ever written a book with a holiday theme?Sarina:                                 03:27                    Undeveloped, but barely.KJ:                                        03:29                    Right, but barely. I've written many an essay with the holiday theme, and many a gift guide with a holiday theme, many a freelance thing, but I've not done a book. So that was our original thought. So we, we sort of went looking around to see who would be interesting and came across Natalie Cox's debut romcom author of Mutts and Mistletoe. And reached out to her only to discover that she is scarcely a debut author at all. So while I hope to get to the use of the holiday and the trope and the fun that is all involved in that, we really want to start with, Betsy, get us to this point. Walk us through if you don't mind.Betsy:                                  04:17                    How did I start writing?KJ:                                        04:19                    Yeah, how did you start writing? Let's start there.Betsy:                                  04:23                    My very first foray into writing was that I took an evening class in journalism and the teacher told me that my style was too literary. And he really sort of slightly took the wind out of my sails. I was in my mid-twenties and I thought this might be a great career. So I went and did an autobiographical essay writing course and the very first exercise that that teacher set was to write a brief story about your life that incorporated a lie and try to make the juncture between the lie and the truth totally seamless. And I thought that was a really fantastic exercise.KJ:                                        05:19                    That is an interesting exercise. And one I've never heard.Betsy:                                  05:23                    Yeah. I mean, one that it would never have occurred to me to write fiction. And I didn't really grow up in a family where there were any kind of artists or people working in creative industries. We were kind of quite rational type people. And I thought I was going to have a career in a rational kind of occupation. And I don't think I would've had the courage to write fiction until he set this exercise. And immediately I just found it incredibly liberating, because you could make it all up. And to be honest, that was it, I mean I just never looked back from there. I started writing short fiction. I went and did an MFA. I did work briefly when I first moved to London as a reporter. Eventually I was really rubbish at it. I wasn't thick-skinned enough.Betsy:                                  06:13                    And I knew it was just a matter of time before I kind of was able to get myself in a position to write fiction. So that's kind of how it happened. I thought initially I would write plays and scripts. But I struggled early on with the pacing of longer format prose fiction. I wrote a lot of short stories and it was a mystery to me how you pace a novel and then suddenly I kind of cracked it in one go where I wrote something and I looked at it and I thought, 'Oh my goodness, this is not a short story. This is a novel.' And I remember, cause I left the first, like eight or nine pages lying on my desk and my husband kind of wandered by and read it and he sort of came to me and he said, 'You know, what is this?' And I said, 'I'm not sure, but I think it's a novel.' And he said, 'I think it's a novel, too.' And that was my first book, Bone House, which did very well. It sold in the U.S., and the UK, and abroad, and was optioned for film.KJ:                                        07:13                    And that was what, about 2008?Betsy:                                  07:16                    Gosh, no, it was published in more like 2000.KJ:                                        07:23                    I was on Amazon and saw probably what is the latest edition.Betsy:                                  07:27                    That could be, yeah. And I kind of never looked back from there. It did well. I mean it wasn't a bestseller. I've never had what I would say was a huge rating success. I've had critical successes. That book was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Prize, unfortunately up against Zadie Smith, who has since gone on to glittering careers.Betsy:                                  07:50                    But yeah, it kind of put me on the map as a writer. It got me an agent. I wrote another historical novel after that. Then I wrote a third book was mythic/historical. I kind of turned to myth and I looked at the Norse body of literature.KJ:                                        08:11                    How much time is it taking?Betsy:                                  08:12                    So for literary fiction, I would say three years for me. That's definitely what it takes for me to write a novel. And you need about a year where the idea is bubbling along and gestating. And also those novels were very heavily researched, all of them actually. So it took quite a long time to be able to start writing. Although research is something that I use all the way through the writing process. I'm a great fan of using it as a kickstarter for creativity. Anytime somebody comes to me saying they've got writer's block that's probably my single biggest tip is just, you know, plunge yourself into some research on the background of what you're writing. And it's those tiny details that you uncover that will kickstart your creativity and get you going again. So yeah, I eventually wrote five novels.KJ:                                        09:08                    And the fifth one was a bit of a departure too...Betsy:                                  09:11                    That was a comic novel. It was the first thing I'd written based on my own kind of personal history a little bit...KJ:                                        09:22                    So that one is called Things We Couldn't Explain.Betsy:                                  09:26                    That one's called Things We Couldn't Explain. When I first started writing in the UK, I'd only lived over here for about five years and I didn't feel comfortable writing about contemporary Britain. And equally, I was starting to feel a little bit out of touch with the U.S. So I ended up setting my first novel in the distant past. And I felt like that was a middle ground where my readership and I would be on the same sort of footing. We'd all be kind of equally unfamiliar with the terrain.KJ:                                        10:00                    I had never thought of that. Although, you know, Sarina sets her books kind of around here and somewhere else that she's lived. And the novel that I've got coming out is set where I grew up and I'm just now doing one for living around here. And I've lived here for about 10 years and I had the same thought. Can I really? You know, I ended up writing about a newcomer to the area because that felt better. People don't really talk about that, how hard it is.Betsy:                                  10:27                    You have to feel comfortable in the skin of your novel. And then the setting is the skin. And if you're not comfortable sitting in the skin of it, you just won't approach it with confidence. I wrote a lot about identity and displacement in my literary fiction for years. That was kind of a theme that just cropped up over, and over, and over. My fourth novel, Crimson China, was about illegal Chinese migrants living in the UK and I think it is because I was a displaced person. And so I was struggling with that sense of identity and belonging and what happens to your sense of identity when you're taken out of the place of your birth and taken away from your family, and your friends, and the culture that you know. So that was a really big theme for me. And the novel that is set in Ohio was the only thing I'd ever written that was really tapped into my own background. So it was quite close to my heart, actually. So this segues deeply into the holiday issue, because that fifth novel came out in November. And the publisher I was with at the time was very, very big on digital publishing. It was sort of the heyday of digital and digital has come off the boil a bit since then in more recent years. But at the time, she was convinced that there was a lot of money to be made with eBooks. She did a lot of other much, much more commercial fiction and I watched her commercial fiction authors soar right past me in the digital charts that November, December, particularly with the holiday books. While my book kind of languished somewhere in the high tens of thousands in the rankings.KJ:                                        12:23                    Tell me when this was.Betsy:                                  12:25                    This would have been probably about five, six years ago.KJ:                                        12:32                    Right. I think Things We Couldn't Explain was 2014. So you already have sort of a fun commercial read, but it's just not doing what you hoped it would do.Betsy:                                  12:47                    No, and what I would say is My first impulse for writing a holiday book was envy. I absolutely, you know, had envy of watching all of these holiday books, many of which frankly, I read some, I wasn't very impressed. My daughter and I were big fans of romcom. She's in her kind of mid twenties. We looked at each other and we said, 'We could do this, we could do so much better.' And of course it's not, it's deceptively difficult to get it right. And we were far too overconfident, but that said, we did sit down and we came up with a concept which was the doggy, the canine rom-com concept. And we set out to do it and I wrote it. She helped me with some of the plotting. She's a great sort of reality check for me as a writer. She sees through the holes in everything, really - plot, character, theme. So I use her as a sounding board a lot for my writing.KJ:                                        13:52                    How old is your daughter?Betsy:                                  13:52                    She's in her mid twenties nowKJ:                                        13:57                    As is the main character in Mutts and Mistletoe.Betsy:                                  14:00                    Yes, exactly. So yeah, so we sat down to that and then I wrote about 50 pages of it. And then I got very interested in the idea of opening the bookshop and I shelved that book and really for the next three years did nothing but find and open the shop, which really sucked up kinda 200% of my energy. And when the shop was up and running for I would say two and a half years probably, I was ready to go back to writing. And I went back to this 50 pages that I had written, which really I had just done on a lark. It was nothing more than a lark. And I honestly thought I would probably self-publish it myself, digitally only. And I mentioned it to my agent. I have a wonderful UK agent who I'm very loyal to, I've been with from the beginning. And she said, 'Show it to me.' And I knew she didn't really handle that sort of material normally, but I sent it to her and the agency read it, they all loved it. They were like, 'You must write this.' So I did. I wrote that over the next say year, it probably didn't take me more than about another six to nine months to finish. And that was how Mutts was born. It's done really well, it won romantic comedy of the year here in the UK, and it's sold all over really, all over Europe, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, Russia. I never dreamed that it would be as successful as it's been.Betsy:                                  15:57                    You know, literary fiction is incredibly laborious. You agonize over every word, every sentence, every phrasing. You know, Mutts and Mistletoe, you're basically trying to get all the elements that you normally tackle as a writer - story, character, setting. But you're basically also just trying to make it really funny. And so it's just such a laugh, you know, I just giggle all the way through writing this stuff. And you look at every page and you think, how can I make this more funny and what would be funnier, and that's really the challenge is kind of just keeping the jokes coming. I don't think you have a joke in every paragraph, but you just have to put your funny hat on and just wear it while you're writing. And it's a joy to be honest, compared to the other form.KJ:                                        16:56                    But you also have a really strong structure.Betsy:                                  17:02                    I think you have to absolutely. You have to adhere, with all writing. You have to play by the rules. I mean, there's meta fiction and some writers can bend the rules, but for most readers we need to have the elements. You have to have your ducks in line, you have to have a strong story, you have to have a strong starting proposition with a protagonist that has a problem or a need, and they're gonna they have to have an arc. All the rules adhere, there's no bending of the rules for any of this stuff. You can't take shortcuts. And I know this because I've tried to do things in a more freestyle manner and where it all just didn't work because you didn't follow the rules. And I think even a seasoned writer can fall at that hurdle if you don't pay attention. I think character is totally the single biggest driver of making compelling read. I think characters drive all good stories. And yeah, you have to have a kind of structure, ideally a kind of three act structure, and you have to have a character who learns or grows or changes. I'm a great believer in happy endings. You know, I think audiences want those.KJ:                                        18:43                    Well, you have those things very cleanly. Many writers have those things but have a lot of noise around them. And in your case, I think you found them very cleanly and it made me wonder if you had a structure that you sort of wrote around or if that just came naturally to you.Betsy:                                  19:05                    I'm not a great one for planning out all the story in advance, I guess the phrase a pants writer.Sarina:                                 19:17                    Oh yes, we use that phrase.Betsy:                                  19:19                    I think I probably am a pants writer. It's not necessarily something I recommend. What I would say is that as much as I'm somebody who doesn't plan everything in advance, I'm utterly meticulous about writing and rewriting. And to be honest, most of my published work, most pages have been edited a hundred times.KJ:                                        19:51                    Wow.Sarina:                                 19:51                    Wow.Betsy:                                  19:52                    Yeah. And I know that sounds obsessive, but that's the sort of writer I am.KJ:                                        19:57                    No, it sounds great. I'm a noisy writer to use the metaphor or whatever that I was just using, which is there tends to be a lot of stuff around my bones and I need to have less stuff around my bones. And it's kinda reassuring to hear that you're peeling stuff away as opposed to never putting it down, which certainly sounds like a simpler way to do it to me. But unfortunately I can't get there.Betsy:                                  20:19                    I mean, I think it means that you won't produce work as fast if you're that fastidious. And I think in commercial fiction the industry demands a certain pace of writers. And I think I'm not able to meet that pace. I'm sure my publishers would say that. But that's just me. I'm afraid I just can't not do it the way I want to do it. And I'm not prepared to put a sentence out until it's perfect.Sarina:                                 20:47                    One thing you said about characters really stuck with me. Because a few minutes ago you were saying you have to really turn on the funny and you know, be funny on every page if you're writing a comedy. But that's so much harder if you don't have a character who can give that to you through all of her flaws and misperceptions of the world, then you just have to spontaneously be funny. Whereas if you have a character who is really set in her ways, then the comedy is easier to find because it's...Betsy:                                  21:20                    Absolutely, it has to be character driven. All the comedy has to be character driven and situation driven. It's not like you're making jokes leap off the page in and of themselves. You're pulling the comic material out of your characters and what's happening to them. It's like you're birthing it.Sarina:                                 21:38                    I had a couple of questions for you about this book specifically. So one is, did you ever just get sick of Christmas, you know, when you were editing the hundredth time in August or whatever where you're just like, 'Ugh'?Betsy:                                  21:54                    I dunno, I mean, I think one of the things - my character is this kind of Scrooge-like character and part of her journey is that she has to learn to love Christmas. So I was able to kind of feed both sides of that debate. It's a book that serves both Christmas lovers and Christmas haters, I think. For that reason. So it was quite amusing to kind of look at the dark side of the holidays. It amused me anyway. To be honest, Christmas became a setting, right? So, yes, it has fantastic comic potential. It has all these iconic tropes and symbols. But really what it was, was a setting and that's how you have to approach it was that you're going to set your novel in a biscuit factory. There's going to be all kinds of comedy that flows from the shop floor. In that way, Christmas was the biscuit factory setting for this. There are writers who make their career out of holiday books. Gosh, more power to them. They're the ones that you should probably be putting that question to are the ones that are writing them year, after year, after year. I'm not writing a holiday book at the moment. I wouldn't rule one out again though, cause I didn't even plumb all the depths of the comic possibilities for Christmas with that first one. I think it's rich terrain for comedy, so I could see me going back to it.Sarina:                                 23:34                    So then my other question involves just a really practical thing about about writing a holiday book. So my first published book, practically another lifetime ago, is a winter-themed cookbook and it is very winter-themed. The sales for that book (it's 10 years old now) they look like a sign wave on the author portal. They peak right at Christmas and then they bucket in July. And I'm just curious if fiction is expected to do the same thing or not.Betsy:                                  24:12                    It absolutely does the same thing. But that's the other beauty of writing seasonal stuff is that there's a readily identifiable market for it, which is why publishers love it. And you know, your cookbook might have died a very quick death decades ago or years ago, had you not had that seasonal hook that brings it back and makes it relevant again in the marketplace each year. I'm a great believer in, you know, I don't believe the world owes us a living as writers. And I think we have to write stuff that people want to read. So I'm sort of quite business minded as a writer. And and I think you need to do the publisher's job for them a little bit when you want to sell a prospective title because you have to be able to identify what the market's going to be. So yeah, I think whereas novels, (and I know this because I'm a book seller) the shelf life of a hardback is something like six weeks to three months. And after that they get sent back. And the shelf life of a paperback is 18 months. And after that, you know, unless you're a bestseller, or a prize winner, or an evergreen your book will be gone. And you know, that's just the reality. Whereas seasonal titles, actually, I think there is an upswing year after year for the best ones.KJ:                                        25:49                    So, wait. Do you put them in a box in the shop and put them aside or do you send them back and then get some new ones?Betsy:                                  25:56                    We send them back when we get new ones. We're ruthless.KJ:                                        26:00                    Isn't that funny - you're both the author who's like, 'No, hold on to my book and the bookseller who's like, 'Nope, sorry.'Betsy:                                  26:08                    It's awful. Authors don't want to know how much gets sent back. I don't know if the retail industry works quite the same way in the U.S. but books are one of the only areas of retail that are full sale or return or at least partial sale or return. You know, that doesn't happen in the clothing industry, right? The stores don't get to send the merchandise back if it doesn't sell. And so yeah, we are ruthless about culling titles that languish on our shelves.KJ:                                        26:42                    Do you think that's part of why you're going back in for another romcom or do you think it has more to do with sort of where you are in life and what you want to write or is it some combination therein and that it would be hard to tease out?Betsy:                                  26:55                    I think it has to do with the fact that I have a two book deal with Orion in the UK and I'm contracted to produce another one. Also, I have the pressure of my agents saying to me, 'Gosh, we have these 12 foreign publishers...', So I was under pressure, both because I'm legally obliged to write one for Orion, but in fact Orion gave me the opportunity to segue into more comic literary fiction last year. And it was really my agent who said, 'Gosh, you know, we've got these 12 publishers queued up.' Mutts is only coming out for the first time in all those markets cause it took a year to translate it. So they're the ones that are going to come knocking on our door in January or February saying, 'Oh, what about the next one?'KJ:                                        27:52                    When was the decision made to write Mutts under a new name?Betsy:                                  27:56                    Do you mean Natalie?KJ:                                        28:00                    Yeah.Betsy:                                  28:01                    Right, sorry. Okay. At the point of sale for publication, the agents, I said to them, 'What about my brand?' And they said, 'We'll sell you as a debut.' And that is what goes on in the industry. I don't know that it's the best thing. I don't know necessarily that it did me any favors as an author, but publishers of course are always looking for debuts. There's an absolute mystique in the industry about making the next big discovery. So it's easier for agents to sell debuts. So I was sold as a debut romcom writer with the caveat that it was a pseudonym for someone who had written in another genre. So publishers at the point of bidding were told that I was an existing writer.Betsy:                                  29:02                    They weren't told who I was, but I was sold as a debut. Does that make sense?KJ:                                        29:10                    Yes, it does. It's a crazy system.Betsy:                                  29:12                    It is crazy indeed. So now I have fiendish social media cause I have social media under Betsy, and I have social media under Natalie, and I also do all the social media for the bookshop. So I'm constantly toggling between Facebook and Instagram and Twitter on all three accounts and kind of posting the wrong thing from the wrong account and getting into trouble. So that's what ended up with, I don't know how desirable it is for me as a writer. One thing I would say is that this has a different title in Britain than it does in the U.S. and that is something I will never repeat again because that was even more of a nightmare publishing two...KJ:                                        29:56                    What is it called in Britain?Betsy:                                  29:57                    So in Britain, we have a really famous dog charity rescue charity, a nationwide adoption center called The Dog's Trust. And their motto is 'Dogs are for life, not just for Christmas.' It's very, very famous. It's a famous enough charity that pretty much everyone knows that line dogs life. And so my editor from day one was determined to call it Not Just for Christmas. And of course it's not a title that works at all well in the U.S., it doesn't play in America. It's not a title I wanted particularly, but it certainly works very well in this territory. I I was worried about it elsewhere and I was worried about the idea of books going out with different titles. The same book going out and it was a bit of a problem, I had kind of angry readers saying...KJ:                                        30:56                    I have as a reader, bought the same book twice.Betsy:                                  30:58                    Yes, exactly.KJ:                                        31:00                    Because I liked it so much one of the times and I thought, 'Oh, it's a different one.'Betsy:                                  31:05                    Yeah. I had irate readers kind of emailing me saying 'Who would do that?' And it didn't help that Amazon in the U.S. had both editions up. Anyway, it was a nightmare. So that's how I ended up as Natalie Cox. Gosh, Natalie was the name of my old dog, so that was a nod towards her. And Natalie's three syllables and I knew I needed a really short three letter surname for the cover. So it was either Dicks or Cox. Fox was taken. I actually did try Fox. My publisher said there was some other writer publishing under that name. So yeah, that's how I ended up with Natalie Cox.KJ:                                        32:02                    And the next one will be Natalie Cox.Betsy:                                  32:03                    Yes, this is a romcom under Natalie Cox, absolutely. And it also involves a very large dog. It's a similar kind of book, similar voice, similar tone. It's about a woman who's fed up with her life, she's got a list of problems, and she just wants to run away from it all until someone steals her identity. And then she wants her life back.KJ:                                        32:28                    Oh, that's good.Betsy:                                  32:34                    So I'm busily beavering away at that at the moment. I'm hoping to deliver that in the spring. So we will see. I do like dogs, I'm a big dog fan. I definitely discovered that almost like Christmas, there's almost an identifiable readership of people who want books about dogs.KJ:                                        32:54                    There absolutely is.Sarina:                                 32:55                    Yes, that is true. In fact, in 2017, one of my publishers said, 'These are the pitches we want next from you. It has to be dogs, or Alaska, or cowboys.'Betsy:                                  33:08                    Oh my God, that is hilarious. All three of those are great!KJ:                                        33:13                    An Alaskan cowboy dog would just walk us straight.Betsy:                                  33:19                    Oh, I would love to write any of those, that sounds fantastic. So did you write that? Did you write that book back then?Sarina:                                 33:37                    No, I didn't because I just didn't want to. And it was also said to me like this, 'This is what Walmart wants.'Betsy:                                  33:47                    Oh wow. Okay.Sarina:                                 33:48                    And I thought, you know what...I didn't want to plan my life that way.Betsy:                                  33:54                    No, and I agree. While I did make that comment about not writing in a vacuum and understanding what the market is for your books, I don't think you should let the tail wag the dog.KJ:                                        34:06                    Well, there's a difference.Sarina:                                 34:07                    Yeah. There's a difference between having an eye on it and letting it run your life. Also, you mentioned digital and so that made me curious. And as a bookseller, I bet this is something you keep an eye on, but is the digital sales ratio of your romcom higher than your literary fiction?Betsy:                                  34:29                    Well, I haven't looked at the figures, but broadly I would say yes. I mean, the thing about digital is we have pretty good understanding of what digital reading habits are now. And they do tend to be in certain genres - so mystery and commercial women's fiction, particularly romance, romance and mystery I'd say are probably two of the biggest consumers of digital. And you know, these are people who are super fans, they're veracious readers, they're constantly looking for new sources of supply, they need to source their books cheaply because they're reading so much. So gosh, what was the question?Sarina:                                 35:18                    I was just curious. So I'm very familiar with this concept because I'm about 98% digital. Or actually, if I put audio in there it wouldn't be 98 it would be more like 85. But also where is the line? So I have friends who do sort of book club women's fiction who are running at about 50/50 digital. And I was just sort of thinking that your book also looks like that midpoint between something that would be strictly a romance and a commercial women's fiction.Betsy:                                  35:55                    Well, what I would say in the U.S. for the Natalie Cox book, is that they have not pushed it digitally at all and they've priced it very, very high because I think they really want to shift paper copies. And so I've looked at my digital numbers and they're incredibly low. I would say below 5%. I mean I think that this title has legs digitally and I assume that they will eventually tap into that and market it digitally and price it to sell digitally. But at the moment they're still not doing that. In fact, I can't see from here what the digital prices in the U.S. are.KJ:                                        36:38                    It's $14.99 I think. It's quite high. And I just want to say it was super fun, I had a totally fun evening read. And I honestly wouldn't have done it if I did not also want to read it.Betsy:                                  37:31                    You totally could've winged it.KJ:                                        37:44                    But I wanted to read it.Betsy:                              

A new story from the Commonwealth Prize-winning, Ugandan writer. Read by Babirye Bukilwa.

Meet Ghanaian performance poet, writer and publisher Nii Ayikwei Parke. Nii was a 2007 recipient of Ghana's national ACRAG award for poetry and literary advocacy. His début novel 'Tail of the Blue Bird' was shortlisted for the 2010 Commonwealth Prize and his work has been translated into Italian, French, Chinese, Dutch, German and Arabic. During this session, we talk about work, life and parenthood from a Pan-African perspective, interpreting poetry and his journey having left a financially buoyant corporate career for a fulfilling life in creative writing, arts and social commentary. Follow and say hi to Nii on Twitter: @BlueBirdTail Website: niiparkes.com

Litquake is honored to present this live recording of the recent event "Writing Cultural Identity." Short story writers Chinelo Okparanta and Vu Tran discuss the fiction of cultural identity, migration, and the craft of good writing. Born in Nigeria, Chinelo is author of the collection “Happiness, Like Water” and the novel “Under the Udala Trees.” Born in Vietnam, Vu is author of many published short stories, as well as the novel “Dragonfish.” Moderated by Commonwealth Prize winner Nayomi Munaweera. Recorded live at Z Below during the 2015 Litquake festival in San Francisco.

Today I'm talking to my friend, Sarah Selecky, about the parallels between the writing and working with intuition. We also give metaphor the love it deserves. Sarah is a dual citizen of Canada and the United States and grew up in Southern Indiana and Northern Ontario. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia, and her writing has appeared in the top Canadian magazines and quarterlies such as The Walrus, The New Quarterly, and The Journey Prize Anthology, among many others. This Cake Is for the Party is her first book, which was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, shortlisted for the Commonwealth Prize for Best First Book, and longlisted for the Frank O'Connor Short Story Award. She is also the creator of the groundbreaking online writing program, Story Is a State of Mind, and online writing school, The Story Intensive, which includes collaborations with Margaret Atwood, George Saunders, and others. She divides her time between Toronto and the rest of the world. You can find Sarah at www.sarahselecky.com and on Twitter @sarahselecky. I am not a fiction writer but I want to be because of Sarah's course. It has made my speech writing better, my course writing better and my articulation better. It's a gift you should give yourself if you have to write for your work but you're "not a writer".  You're welcome.

Canadian author Lisa Moore and Commonwealth Prize-winner Marina Endicott delivered with chair Luke Brown a captivating Book Festival event in 2010 to discuss their affecting explorations of life after death.

Canadian author Lisa Moore and Commonwealth Prize-winner Marina Endicott delivered with chair Luke Brown a captivating Book Festival event in 2010 to discuss their affecting explorations of life after death.