Birmingham Lit Fest Presents….

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.
 
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 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...

This month's piece is written by singer songwriter and Wednesbury Poet Laureate Brendan Hawthorne, reflecting on the changing seasons and the cosiness of autumn as the leaves and weather change around us. 

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.

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.

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 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...

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 and the way that stories can connect us and promise a much more hopeful future.

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...

Join us for a dinner party with 6 amazing women across history – plus our wonderful dinner party hosts Jo Bell, Tania Hershman and Ailsa Holland, authors of On This Day She: Putting Women Back Into History, One Day at a Time. Find out which historical figure was fond of geese at a dinner party, as we add six important figures back into a story of the past that unfairly confines women to the margins.   

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

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.

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...

September, Rupinder Kaur

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.

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 be able to continue to connect readers and writers in the Midlands, and far beyond.

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...

Episode 8: August, Elizabeth Lee

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.

Episode 7: July, George Bastow

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.