5x15

Roger Robinson is a writer who has performed worldwide. He is the winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize 2019 and RSL Ondaatje Prize 2020. He was chosen by Decibel as one of 50 writers who have influenced the Black-British writing canon. His latest collection ‘A Portable Paradise’ was a New Statesman book of the year. He is an alumnus of The Complete Works and was shortlisted for The OCM Bocas Poetry Prize, The Oxford Brookes Poetry Prize, commended by the Forward Poetry Prize and is currently shortlisted for the Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry 2020.

He has received commissions from The National Trust, London Open House, BBC, The National Portrait Gallery, V&A, INIVA, MK Gallery and Theatre Royal Stratford East where he also was an associate artist.

He is an experienced workshop leader and has toured extensively with the British Council. His workshops have been part of a shortlist for the Gulbenkian Prize for Museums and Galleries and were also a part of the Webby Award-winning Barbican’s Can I Have A Word. He is co-founder of both Spoke Lab and the international writing collective Malika’s Poetry Kitchen. He is the lead vocalist and lyricist for King Midas Sound and has also recorded solo albums with Jahtari Records.

5x15 brings together outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each.

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Ben Okri is a poet, novelist, essayist, short story writer, anthologist, aphorist, and playwright. He has also written film scripts. His works have won numerous national and international prizes, including the Booker Prize for Fiction.

5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each.

Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com

Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories

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Parwana Fayyaz was born in Kabul, Afghanistan. She is currently working towards a Ph.D. on the medieval Persian poet Jami at Trinity College, Cambridge. She is a poet and would like to stay in academia. She recently won Best Single Poem at the Forward Prizes 2019 for her poem ‘Forty Names’, which draws inspiration from both narrative and lyrical medieval Persian traditions, and brings to life a story that Fayyaz heard from her parents when she was a child. ‘It is about a mountain called kohi chehal dokhtaran, “the forty girls’ mountain”. My poem tries to re-narrate the story by giving the forty women their names, a lamp and their colourful scarves.’

Recorded live at The Tabernacle in London on 18th November 2019.

5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each.

Learn more about 5x15 events: www.5x15stories.com

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Jennifer Ackerman has been writing about science and nature for 30 years and is the author of eight books. Her most recent book is The Bird Way: A New Look at How Birds Talk, Work, Play, Parent, and Think, forthcoming from Penguin Press in May 2020. Jennifer is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including an NEA Literature Fellowship in Nonfiction, a Bunting Institute Fellowship, and a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. Her work aims to explain and interpret science for a lay audience and to explore the riddle of humanity’s place in the natural world, blending scientific knowledge with imaginative vision.

5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each.

Recorded at our second online 5x15 via Zoom on 18th May 2020.

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Patrick Barkham is the natural history writer for the Guardian. He is the author of the books The Butterfly Isles, Badgerlands, Coastlines, Islander and Wild Child. He has been interviewed on Radio 4 and Radio 2 and has written for a wide range of media outlets, as well as co-editing the ‘People’s Manifesto for Wildlife’ with Chris Packham and Robert Macfarlane. He lives in Norfolk with his family.

Recorded at our second online 5x15 in May 2020.

5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each.

Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com

Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories

Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories

Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

For more than thirty years, Michael Pollan has been writing books and articles about the places where nature and culture intersect: on our plates, in our farms and gardens, and in our minds. He is the author of the multiple New York Times best sellers, including How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence, Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation (2013), Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual (2010); In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto (2008); The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (2006) and The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World (2001).

In his latest audiobook Caffeine: How caffeine created the modern world, Michal Pollan offers his provocative look into the profound ways that what we eat affects how we live. Caffeine, it turns out, has changed the course of human history: Pollan’s reporting explores how caffeine has won and lost wars, changed politics, and dominated economies. The science behind caffeine addiction forms the fascinating backdrop to this definitive look at an insidious drug that hides in plain sight. With his wide-ranging talent to entertain, inform, and perform, Michael Pollan’s Caffeine is essential listening in a world where an estimated two billion cups of coffee are consumed every day.

Several of his books have been adapted for television. Netflix created a four-part documentary series based on Cooked in 2016, and documentary adaptations of In Defense of Food (2015) and The Botany of Desire (2009) both premiered on PBS. Pollan also appeared in the Academy Award nominated 2009 feature documentary, Food Inc. In 2015-2016, Pollan was a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard. In 2013, he was awarded Italy’s Premio Nonino prize. In 2012, he was given the Distinguished Service Award from the National Association of Biology Teachers. In 2010, Pollan was named to the 2010 TIME 100, the magazine’s annual list of the world’s 100 most influential people. Also in 2010 he was also awarded the Lennon Ono Grant for Peace by Yoko Ono. In 2009 he was named by Newsweek as one of the top 10 “New Thought Leaders.”

Recorded at our second online 5x15 in May 2020.

5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each.

Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com

Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories

Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories

Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

George Monbiot is an author, Guardian columnist and environmental campaigner. His best-selling books include Feral: Rewilding the land, sea and human life and Heat: how to stop the planet burning; his latest is Out of the Wreckage: a new politics for an age of crisis. George cowrote the concept album Breaking the Spell of Loneliness with musician Ewan McLennan; and has made a number of viral videos. One of them, adapted from his 2013 TED talk, How Wolves Change Rivers, has been viewed on YouTube over 40m times. Another, on Natural Climate Solutions, that he co-presented with Greta Thunberg, has been watched over 50m times.

5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each.

This talk was recorded at the second online 5x15 in May 2020.

Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com

Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories

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Recorded at the 5x15 zoom online event on 20th April, 2020.

This wonderful talk by Jonathan Drori contained pictures of trees. We listed the names of the trees mentioned in his presentation slides below and we hope this would help you follow his talk better, enjoy!

00:44:00 Dieffenbachia/ Dumb Cane (US)

01:49:00 Opium Poppy

02:53:00 Wax Palm (Colombia), Quiver tree (Namibia), Banyan Tree, Dragon Tree (Socotra), Baobab tree (Madagascar)

03:31:00 Coastal Redwood, (other trees shown in slides: Swam Gump, Douglas Fir)

06:03:00 Pachypodium (Madagascar), Oak Trees

06:38:00 Cherry laurel, Manchineel, Caffeine

07:32:00 Kauri Tree (New Zealand)

09:43:00 (Example shown in slide: Delonix Regia)

11:54:00 Coconut

12:33:00 Coco De Mer

10:15:00 Durian flower

Ravenala/ Traveller’s palm (Madagascar), Raffed Lemur (animal)

15:14:00 Cedar of Lebanon

16:09:00 Quiver tree (The national tree of Namibia)

Jonathan Drori is a Trustee of The Eden Project and the Raspberry Pi Foundation, and on the Board of Cambridge University Botanic Garden. He is a member of the Council of Ambassadors of the WWF and is also an Ambassador for the Woodland Trust and Botanic Gardens Conservation International.

He is a former Trustee of The Woodland Trust and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (where he also chaired its commercial arm). He is a Fellow of the Linnean Society, the Royal Geographical Society and the Zoological Society of London.

Jonathan has previously been Head of Commissioning for BBC Online, and before that, an Executive Producer and Director of more than fifty prime-time BBC television science and technology documentaries and series. He’s also known for several TED talks on pollen, seeds and flowers - which have been viewed more than 3 million times. He was made CBE by H. M The Queen in December 2006.

5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each.

Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com

Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories

Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories

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Recorded from the first online 5x15 event on April 20th 2020.

James Naughtie, special correspondent for BBC News, is one of the country's best-known broadcasters. He presented Today on Radio 4 for 21 years, and has reported for the BBC from around the world for more than three decades. Alongside his journalism he has wide cultural interests, and has written and produced many documentaries on music and books, and presented concerts from across Europe for radio and television. On Radio 4, he has hosted every edition of Bookclub since it began in 1998. James has been travelling in America since the 1970s - witnessing many of the important events that have shaped the country as it is today. On the Road is an account of his experiences, the places and people he has encountered, and the changes he has seen.

5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each.

Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com

Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories

Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories

Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

Recorded at the first online 5x15 event on April 20th 2020.

Hadley Freeman grew up in New York City and London. She has been a staff writer at the Guardian since 2000 and has contributed to many other publications, including Vogue (US and UK.) House of Glass is her fourth book. She lives in London with her partner and their three children.

5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each.

Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com

Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories

Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories

Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories