Podcasts about writers centre norwich

This week's guest is Michael Donkor whose new novel Grow Where They Fall is a meticulous and tender exploration of two formative moments in the life of one Kwame Akromah, twenty years apart. Kwame is Black, Gay, British of Ghanian descent, a dedicated teacher, a dependable friend—character traits and conditions of life that weave around each other and interact, with unpredictable results—whether for the ten-year old boy or the grown man—at times lifting Kwame up, at other times dragging him down. Grow Where They Fall manages to be as gentle as it is spirited, as moving as is fun to read, and Donkor handles the changing register of life, and of London, in these different decades, with skill and verve. It is a book not just about growing up, and perhaps growing old, but also, in a sense, about growing out — growing out of the roles handed down to us by our families, growing out of friendships, growing out of jobs, and growing out of our own fixed ideas about ourselves. It's also a book which asks the essential human question: Is it ever really possible to know where we are going without first knowing where we have come from?Buy Grow Where They Fall: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/books/grow-where-they-fall*Michael Donkor was born in London in 1985. He was raised in a Ghanaian household where talking lots and reading lots were vigorously encouraged. Michael read English at Oxford where he developed a particular interest in the works of Woolf, Lessing and Achebe, and later undertook a Masters in Creative Writing at Royal Holloway. Michael worked in publishing for a number of years, but eventually decided to put his literary enthusiasms to other uses: in 2010, he retrained as an English teacher, teaching A-Level students, trying to develop a curious excitement about books and storytelling within his students. He now lives in Portugal, where he works as a bookseller. In 2014 Michael was selected by Writers Centre Norwich for their Inspires Mentoring Scheme, and worked with mentor Daniel Hahn. His first novel, HOLD, which explores Ghanaian heritage and questions surrounding sexuality, identity and sacrifice, was published by 4th Estate in 2018, and was longlisted for the Dylan Thomas and shortlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prizes. Michael was also selected by Scottish Poet Laureate Jackie Kay as one of the most important contemporary British BAME authors. He has written for the Guardian, the Telegraph, BBC Radio 3, the TLS and the Independent. Adam Biles is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company. His latest novel, Beasts of England, a sequel of sorts to Animal Farm, is available now. Buy a signed copy here: https://www.shakespeareandcompany.com/books/beasts-of-englandListen to Alex Freiman's latest EP, In The Beginning: https://open.spotify.com/album/5iZYPMCUnG7xiCtsFCBlVa?si=h5x3FK1URq6SwH9Kb_SO3w Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Presented by LitCrawl Wellington, Harry Giles appears with the support of the British Council in partnership with Writers’ Centre Norwich, UK as part of the International Literature Showcase. We are thrilled to welcome, fresh from the Writers & Readers at the New Zealand Festival, Scotland’s Harry Giles: performer, poet, and ‘general doer of things’, who says ‘I make art about protest and protest about art and write about anything… my work generally happens in the crunchy places where performance and politics get muddled up.’ Expect the unexpected in an evening of poetry and other adventures from this theatre- and game-maker, whose one-to-one show What We Owe was listed in the Guardian’s Best of the Edinburgh Fringe, and whose work defies categorisation. With MC duties and support from Christchurch’s Ray Shipley: poet, comedian, youth worker and founder of the Faultline Poetry Collective.

This session will look at how the career of the literary translator as we know it has been changing over the last year through new opportunities, working models and self-initiated sidelines. Coming together to discuss the significance, importance and, in some cases, necessity of these new developments will be British Library Translator in Residence Jen Calleja, Ruth Clarke of new translation collective The Starling Bureau, and a member of Shadow Heroes, a project bringing translation into schools, and Shadow Heroes co-founder Gitanjali Patel. The panel will be chaired by Writers’ Centre Norwich’s International Director, Kate Griffin.

Writers‘ Centre Norwich profiled by Rosie Goldsmith for Pro Helvetia’s 12 Swiss Books magazine 2015

David Harsent is one of the UK's leading poets, as his recent T.S. Eliot Prize-win for his collection Fire Songs (Faber) re-affirmed. In August 2014, while up in Edinburgh for Book Festival, Harsent took some time to speak to the SPL. In a wide-ranging conversation, Harsent spoke about harrier hens, the heat death of the universe and the time he met Serbian war criminal Radovan Karadžić. Image: David Harsent by Writers Centre Norwich, under a Creative Commons licence.