Birmingham Lit Fest Presents….

Episode 6: June, Roy Mcfarlane

In this episode, poet Roy Mcfarlane reflects on the month of June as both a time of rest and reflection, thinking about the summer solstice and sunny days alongside the ongoing issue of racism in football and the Windrush scandal as we marked Windrush Day on the 22nd June. The piece is read by Shantel Edwards.    

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 6, Roy Mcfarlane

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 Roy Mcfarlane and this is June’s Monthly Writers Blog for Birmingham Literature Festival.

Try to praise the mutilated world. 
Remember June’s long days, 
and wild strawberries, drops of wine, the dew. 
-Adam Zagajewski, "Try to Praise the Mutilated World" 

June the month of strawberries and creams and the longest day of the year, 21st June, summer solstice day. Boris Johnson tried to bring an end to the mutilated world we’re living in, having visions of Freedom Day as if we were part of the cast of Independence Day, but with a Delta variant fighting back, celebrations had to be put on hold. 

Summer solstice day, solstice from the Latin word ‘sun standing still,’ the timing between planting and harvesting crops has been traditionally the time to relax. As writers we know of planting words, half written in a notebook, or a body of work in files; over the last few months I’ve been planting seeds in competitions, magazines, anthologies and commissioned work, seeing which will flourish, find their roots and blossom in the next collection. June will be the closest I’ll get to relaxing, and getting away from writing, online and social media interaction.

During this month my walks along canals with herons, coots and a gang of seagulls chilling on telegraph wires, watching me walking through their neighbourhood has been exchanged for morning jogs along the sea front where the June sun gives iridescent blue seas and a convention of seagulls, bigger and bolder than the ones from Tipton who stride with swagger.

But the writer in me can’t be quietened, I go into full rage in response to Priti Patel’s interview, encouraging football supporters to boo in response to England football players, both black and white, taking a knee in response to online racism, racism in the stands and the ongoing racism that leads to death. And yet Priti Patel’s response is no different to Donald Trump’s inciting aggressive response to Colin Kaepernick taking the knee. Also, it’s 5 years on from the Jo Cox murder, influenced by divisive, dividing words which inspired such a backlash in the lead to Brexit. 

Thank god for Windrush Day, 22nd June, acknowledging the impact and importance of migration to the making of Britain. The emblematic Empire Windrush signalling the arrival of Caribbean post-war migrants to Britain in 1948; a date in the British identity as paramount as 1066, Henry VIII and all his wives, and 1966 ‘They think it’s all over! It is now.’

In Wolverhampton the unveiling of a blue plaque brought mixed emotions for many, as we acknowledged Paulette Wilson Windrush Campaigner ‘likkle but tallawah’ a reminder of how the government turned a Caribbean post-war migration dream of Windrush into an “illegal immigrants” of the state nightmare.  

I’m reading Just Us by Claudia Rankine, the title taken from the wonderful stand-up comedian Richard Pryor; ‘you go down there looking for justice, that’s what you find just us.’ I guess in taking the knee, in Windrush celebrations, we are simply looking for a sun that will rise on all of us with the same warmth, same freedoms, a sun that shakes hand with the night and meets us back in the morning, alive and well.

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 5: May, Maisie Chan

Next month debut author Maisie Chan’s first novel, Danny Chung Does Not Do Maths, is published. In this month’s piece she writes about feeling adrift from friends and family in the Midlands, the difficulties of writing your second novel and the lack of representation of British Chinese protagonists in children’s fiction.

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 5, Maisie Chan

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 Maisie Chan and I wrote May’s piece for the Birmingham Literature Festival.

I’ll start this blog in a very British way and talk about the weather. May is usually ‘the summer’ in Glasgow, which is where I now live, and the hottest month of the year for us. But not this year. It’s been damp and grey. I’m feeling a little grey myself. I haven’t been able to travel to Birmingham to see my friends and family since 2019. I feel discombobulated. 

However, I have to live in the present moment and May has been up and down, I won’t lie. 

I’m trying to work on multiple writing projects at once which is great as I’m now a full-time writer. I am learning to juggle, however, as I have around four book projects on the go at once and I’m pitching for a children’s TV show, hoping to get my first screenwriting credits in children’s animation. I feel split down the middle with one part of me in ‘debut author’ mode and the other in drafting mode. 

I’m writing a new novel, which is going very slowly and like pulling teeth. And at the same time, I am promoting my debut novel, Danny Chung Does Not Do Maths, a children’s book out in June. It’s an exciting thought to know a book I started writing in 2018 is going to hit the shelves. And I’m feeling both elated and a little scared that my first novel will be out there, for people to read and judge. It’s not lost on me that my book will be one of the very few with a British Chinese boy on the front cover, there aren’t many even in 2021. Hate crimes against East and Southeast Asians (ESEA) all over the world have increased massively and I hope that my small contribution can help make people like me more visible in the world of children’s publishing. If we aren’t seen at all, then are we real? Are we human? 

I am in ‘second novel syndrome’ which according to many published authors is very real! I definitely feel it. When you write your first novel, it’s not usually under contract, so you can take your time. For the second one, however, you have a smaller time scale in which to write it (mainly for children’s novelists who churn out a novel a year it seems). It’s not been the most inspiring year, my creative well has not been filled. I’ve spent a lot of time stuck inside.

As I bid a farewell to the month of May and prepare to welcome June, with my book launch and birthday around the corner and the hope of sunny skies, I give thanks as I am going to get my first vaccination this month. Perhaps that is the most prized thing of all? 

Signing off. A true Gemini. 

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.

The Birmingham Literature Festival podcast connects writers with readers. Join us for exciting and inspiring conversations about writing, poetry, big ideas and social issues with writers from the Midlands and beyond. New episodes monthly from April 2021.

• Episode 4: April, Sue Brown

 
In April 2021, US police officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty of the murder of George Floyd in May 2020. In this month’s piece performance poet Sue Brown reflects on the ways that institutionalised racism has come to the fore of public consciousness across the past year. 

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 4, Sue Brown

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

My name is Sue Brown and I wrote the Birmingham Literature Festival poem in April 2021.

A year in a month: April 20th 2021, ONE person was found guilty of a crime that many thousands have been privileged to walk away from aided and abetted by the law.

May 25th 2020, the world witnessed the death of another Black man, George Floyd, by the systemised enforcement of racism. An act played out daily in various degrees around the globe for centuries. 

With credible witnesses, daily protest, the sad truth is that Black Lives is the Matter, a 'Problem'…  and yes, contrary to a commissioned government report, institutionalised racism still breathes today, alive and kicking even within the U.K.

The past year has presented nothing new, and once again, it was televised.

2020 started like any other year; 

I was unaware that the world was on the verge of an insidious order of events that would be drip-fed by the mainstream and social media, Western Governments and scientists.

Late February, reports about a virus began hitting the news daily, although… there was a distance between it and my reality. 

The West pointed fingers towards the Chinese; a plethora of conspiracy theories flowed. 

As the COVID-19 crises took shape, I got a sense that something untoward was emerging. WhatsApp messaging 'ramped up' subversion with creative facts. Public health responses to the outbreaks on cruise ships belied what was coming to the shores of Britain.

Boris led the charge with; hands face space - which became one of the pandemics mantras, spoon-fed between mixed messaging, confusion, and blatant lies to the nation, directing the focus to a new world order.

Imagine my surprise when Black folks, like myself, were identified as 'highly' susceptible to a so-called 'Chinese foreign' virus. Mainstream media drew attention to N.H.S. workers dying, particularly African, African Caribbean and Asian workers. Somehow, we had become a distraction, a dangerous proliferation of the pandemic. 

Diverse communities now herded into a BAME description, while the rhetoric by officials only subjugated our already marginalised identity, and blame became linked to BAME.

Government and health spokespersons 'ramped up' the campaign in trying to 'coax' the vaccine to the 'vaccine hesitant', those who reflected their lack of trust in the 'powers that be' based on hundreds of years of apprehension and suspicion.

Cultural appropriation dominated the nation, yet our voices weren't narrating our story, our experiences, our concerns, fuelling the fear that spread faster than the pandemic itself.

I felt the usual disdain, patronised by misinformation and lack of transparency in this hegemonic system. 

Ultimately racism is an inherent power - driven by fear and greed for control. It's an ideology woven into a social structure subtly, savagely and ominously perpetuated only to remain an active justification of superiority.

Until we can identify the facts, the CORE of racism for what it is, and the many levels on which it operates, we will not be able to make the real change necessary for each person to live their purpose without fear of being 'Hue-man', while celebrating and expressing origins.

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.

The Birmingham Literature Festival podcast connects writers with readers. Join us for exciting and inspiring conversations about writing, poetry, big ideas and social issues with writers from the Midlands and beyond. New episodes monthly from April 2021.

• Episode 1: January, Thomas Glave

This month’s piece is written by Thomas Glave, a Birmingham based writer and professor from Binghamton University in Upstate New York. He takes us on a walk amongst the silence of New Street’s squares and parks, finding birds and greenery in unexpected places and moments of peace in the quietness of our third lockdown.

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 1, Thomas Glave

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

My name is Thomas Glave and I wrote this piece for the Birmingham Literature Festival, January 2021 Writers’ Blog.

What has this past month, partly a time of Covid-caused lockdown, been like? ‘Weird’, is how a Birmingham friend extremely fond of that word might have described it. But ‘weird’ is too vague, and doesn’t make room for all the specific moments. Moments like a walk I took one chilly dusk through Birmingham’s Brindleyplace, where, amidst all those tomb-quiet buildings, it was easy to imagine the opening scene of the zombie-apocalypse film 28 Days Later, that showed an unnervingly deserted London: ‘Hallo-hallo-hallo’, anyone could have shouted that evening, imagining the final-days echo: ‘Is anyone there-there-there?’ And what about the seagulls that flock through the West Midlands (and all the UK) throughout the year, hijacking unsuspecting people’s lunches? Didn’t they appear to be moving closer to the very few human beings out walking, as the darkness encroached and began to whisper, How’s this, you fancy this? And really, except for maybe one or two runners who darted past (and even they, so thin, might have been just birds or the ghosts of birds), there was almost nobody else about. . .nobody except a lone Brindleyplace security guard, who for a few seconds bent his head over a match’s flare to light a cigarette, before he disappeared behind one of those buildings as if he too had existed in real life only for a moment, then had been drawn back into the realm of dreams where security guards, cigarette in hand, wander alone forever, half-alive and half lockdown apparitions that melt into dusk in this city of hills and tall buildings and twisting stretching canals. . . on lockdown evenings like that one, the dusk always descended in time for the ensuing quiet to gather entirely around and wrap itself, its soft thick arms, all around your shoulders: the quiet of pandemic nights, of people gathered indoors and sometimes also isolated there, sometimes alone. 

These past weeks were the unaccustomed quietness of pubs shuttered, restaurants stilled, railway stations and airports emptied, and all of us, the living and the waking, wondering what all this meant or could mean, and – often more insistently -- when it was going to end. Simultaneously, if we knew people who had fallen ill, we worried about them, prayed for them, and did all we could to ensure that they wouldn’t leave us just yet: not leave like that. Not so suddenly, so intubated. Not whilst gasping for breath behind some sterile partition, sequestered in a fluorescent-lit hospital ward. Not like that, without our hands to hold and our face to stroke, as we in turn wanted to hold and comfort them.  Through it all, as we thought of them and seasonal gifts like the sorely missed brighter-than-bright Birmingham Christmas market, there was always the cloaking dusk, and then the sound of our own footsteps.  Our feet that, as the season progressed, began to mutter Slow down, won’t you….please, for goodness’ sake, you simply must slow down.

And out of the slowing down, if we listened to those feet, arose a kind of blessedness as well. The kind that might have moved us to put up festive lights a little earlier in the season, aware that the increased lights and colours may have helped to cheer our neighbours. The kind that may even have moved us in an era of global stress and anxiety to speak with neighbours a bit longer when we saw them, and with more solicitous interest than usual, especially the elderly and the vulnerable. . . although hopefully always at a two-metre distance. 

Our warming planet, meanwhile, began to thank us for lockdown and our decreased travel and traffic. Birds, other creatures, and every tree and bush expressed and continue to express their gratitude, from the Jewellery Quarter to Acocks Green and all the way to Kings Heath, as nature raised its eyebrows at our actual ability to step back and take a breath. Someone told me this week that I should listen carefully, in order to hear the sound of nature politely applauding our efforts.  But if we can’t hear it, he said, this will be only because of the silence in between all other occurring things… the silence that assures that in spite of everything else, our hearts really are still in wonderful working order, still fond of us, and nowhere near prepared to stop.  

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.

The Birmingham Literature Festival podcast connects writers with readers. Join us for exciting and inspiring conversations about writing, poetry, big ideas and social issues with writers from the Midlands and beyond. New episodes monthly from April 2021.

• Episode 2: February, Abda Khan

A year after the last full month of ‘normality’ for us all in February 2020, novelist and lawyer Abda Khan reflects on how a year of Covid-19 restrictions has impacted her and how much our lives have changed in hundreds of ways, from the major to the insignificant, since then. 

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 2, Abda Khan

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 Abda Khan and here is a blog I wrote for Birmingham Literature Festival in February 2021.

When I was asked to write about how February has been for me, I started by looking back at photos from the same time last year. It struck me that during the almost yearlong state of lockdown, not only has life changed in ways previously unimaginable, but certain phrases have evaporated from our vocabulary, whilst others have taken hold. As a writer, I am intrigued by this.

February 2020; kicked off at a packed restaurant for a family birthday, I gave a talk about my Sidelines to Centre Stage Project at Wolverhampton Literature Festival where I mingled with attendees over tea and samosas, travelled to Glasgow and sat in a mosque full of hundreds of mourners after the death of my uncle, went into Tamworth Radio to talk about my novel Razia with three of us crammed into an airless studio smaller than a boxroom, had lunch with and gave a talk at Solihull Rotary Club, visited mac at Cannon Hill Park for discussions over coffee about a forthcoming project. And there were many more everyday happenings, not documented by the click of a phone camera, all of which are now unthinkable; legal work at the office where multiple clients would attend together, meeting friends in overcrowded coffee shops, enjoying the pictures with my kids (although they tell me that firstly, no one says ‘pictures’ anymore and secondly, as the youngest is now nearly 16, they’re no longer kids). 

Now, life is Zoom, and Teams, hand sanitiser, and face masks, and everyone knows what WFH means. The most exhilarating activity is my weekly click and collect trip to Asda. Hands, face, space - now, we must all “look like letter boxes”, and the PM must think it peculiar how words come back to bite you.

No more does anyone ask “what are your plans for the weekend?” or “where are you going for your holiday?” No longer are we faced with dilemmas such as “how do I get out of that works do?”, nor does anyone wish “this dinner party would end.” 

The loneliness that comes with being a writer has not changed. It is a solitary pursuit, often undertaken late into the night with only silence for company. Yet, other aspects of my life as a writer have disappeared, and these I miss; interacting at events face to face, being part of the buzz and chatter that can’t be replicated in a Zoom call (which always starts with “you’re on mute”). Still, technology has been a godsend; I have continued with book club, delivered numerous talks, attended courses, taught courses, persisted with my yoga, been to parents evening, hosted a poetry event, and watched every single episode of Spooks.

Having had a nasty run in with COVID myself, I feel fortunate to be alive, to have the hope that at least February 2022 will look more like my February 2020, and that the period of lockdown in between the two will eventually seem like that experience in your life which you hated every minute of, but one from which you learnt a great deal.

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.

The Birmingham Literature Festival podcast connects writers with readers. Join us for exciting and inspiring conversations about writing, poetry, big ideas and social issues with writers from the Midlands and beyond. New episodes monthly from April 2021.

• Episode 3: March, Michael Amherst

This month, author Michael Amherst writes movingly about the death of his mother and losing her to cancer during a pandemic year. In a year when illness and death has been so much on all our minds, and spoken of daily all around us, Michael's thoughts on his very personal experience of caring for his mother reflect the heartbreak felt by families all over the region, and beyond, as we grieve with those who have lost loved ones in this past year. The piece is read by Ceri Morgan.

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 3, Michael Amherst

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

Birmingham Literature Festival Writers Blog, March 2021. Written by Michael Amherst and read by Ceri Morgan.

This March we buried my mother. She died of cancer, not Covid, something that these days almost immediately needs clarification. There is then the mental gymnastics as to the comparative awfulness of both - the pandemic that prevents victims from saying goodbye to their families or the pandemic that makes victims of other, terminal illnesses unable to live their final months or year.

There is also another mental gymnastics - the dance around the rules and the opprobrium of others. I spent my Mum's final month staying with her and her husband to help look after her. Her doctors encouraged this, in spite of the pandemic, and yet there is a background anxiety that at this, one of the most difficult moments of our lives, we will have been found wanting by others, fortunate enough not to be in this position and faced with these choices.

Her decline was relatively rapid. Even in September I think we believed she might yet recover, certainly that her illness would allow her a year or two at worst. In August she had booked a holiday for us all in a farmhouse in Wales. However she cancelled this as her oncologist advised her that contracting Covid was too great to warrant the risk. My sister and I encouraged her to cancel it - we said there'd be other times, we could do it again next year. Had we known she only had six months left, I think we would all have decided to take the risk. 

The other consequence of a year lived in stasis, in which nothing feels real, or everything feels real in new ways, is that her death does not, cannot feel real at all. For much of the last twelve months my communication with her was daily phone calls. I saw her maybe four or so times, before moving in to help. Usually I'd have visited at least once a month. So her absence has, in some cruel way, already happened. What is new is the lack of her voice on the phone or her loving gestures received by post. I joke that the last year feels like nothing more than a bad radio play. We are all waiting for it to end. And yet, there are brief moments where the reality of her death can be felt, almost as though from the corner of my eye, and I want to howl. Only for it to be swept on by, lost in the last twelve months. 

The greatest comfort I have found has come from an unlikely source: Joseph Frank's Lectures on Dostoyevsky, a book I bought after happening upon a review. There have been times where it has felt the only currency is a rank pessimism - to hope, to look to after this, a failure of some kind. Some people seem to relish the potential horror of this pandemic never being past. Frank writes, 'For faith, in Dostoyevsky's terms, needs (or should need) nothing beside itself. Its purity is enhanced by the fact that it is assumed freely and quite independent of all proofs and rewards.' In different ways I think we are all learning the need and merit of faith of all kinds, even as we feel incapable of it. So I've started with a belief in my mother: her life, her choices, the things she made meaningful and the meaningful nature of her last year, different as it has been from what we all may have wanted.

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 podcast, we’re joined by novelist Elisa Shua Dusapin, whose debut novel Winter in Sokcho was translated and published in the UK this year. In conversation with Dr Sandra van Lente and joined by her translator Aneesa Abbas Higgins, they discuss shared identities, isolation and the relationship between writing and translation.

The Birmingham Lit Fest Presents... podcast brings writers and readers together to discuss some of 2020’s best books. Each Thursday across the next few months we’ll be releasing new episodes of the podcast, including wonderful discussions
about writing, poetry, big ideas and social issues. Join us each week for exciting and inspiring conversations with new, and familiar, writers from the Midlands and beyond.

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)
Guest Curator: Kit de Waal
Production: 11C/ Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands

TRANSCRIPT

BLF Podcast Transcription, Episode 13: Elisa Shua Dusapin and Aneesa Abbas Higgins  

Kit de Waal 

Welcome to the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents…podcast series. I’m Kit de Waal and I’ve worked with  the Festival Director, Shantel Edwards, as Guest Curator of this year’s podcast series. Each Thursday  across the next few months we’ll be releasing new episodes of the podcast, including wonderful  discussions about writing, poetry, big ideas and social issues. In this podcast, we’re joined by novelist  Elisa Shua Dusapin, whose debut novel Winter in Sokcho was translated and published in the UK this  year. Elisa’s novel follows a young French-Korean woman who works as a receptionist in a tired  guesthouse in a deserted tourist town on the border between South and North Korea, and the  uneasy relationship she forms with a French man who checks into the hotel. Joined by her  translator, Aneesa Abbas Higgins, they discuss shared identities, isolation and the relationship  between writing and translation. 

Pro Helvetia Message 

This episode of the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents…podcast is supported by the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia. 

Sandra van Lente 

Thank you all for tuning in. My name is Sandra van Lente. I'm a freelance cultural project manager  and academic who works on the lack of diversity in the publishing industries. I have the great  pleasure to introduce you to today's guests on the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents…podcast series,  Elisa Shua Dusapin and Aneesa Abbas Higgins. Elisa Shua Dusapin is a Franco Korean author who  lives in Switzerland and wrote the novel Winter in Sokcho which we will be talking about today. Her  debut novel was originally written in French and published by the Swiss indie publisher Editions,  Zurich. Winter in Sokcho was translated into 13 languages if I'm not mistaken, among them English,  translated by Aneesa Abbas Higgins and published by Daunt Books, and German, translated by  Andreas Jandl and published by Blumenbar. Elisa has won several prizes for her novels, among them  the Robert Walser prize, the Prix Alpha and the French Prix Régine Desforges for Winter in Sokcho.  She has two more novels out that we might hear about more later.  

Aneesa Abbas Higgins is a literary translator and translates from French to English. She spends most  of her time between London and a small village in France. In addition to Elisa Shua Dusapin’s novel,  she has also translated from Tahar Ben Jelloun, Nina Bouraoui and Vénus Khoury-Ghata. Her translations won several awards, for example, her translation of the Goncourt winner, What Became  of the White Savage by François Garde, and a translation of A Girl Called Eel by Ali Zamir, which was  published by the indie publisher Jacaranda books in 2019. Aneesa has kindly agreed to translate  those of Elisa's answers that she might give in French today. Thank you both for joining us for this  podcast. Can we please start with you, Elisa, and how you became an author. So how and why did  you start writing? 

Elisa Shua Dusapin (translated by Aneesa Abbas Higgins) 

She never, it wasn't that she specifically always wanted to become a writer. It was more questions  that she had herself about the multicultural upbringing that she'd had being a mixture of Korean and  French. So, when she was 13 she went to Korea for the first time and it came as quite a shock to her  to realize that her family was not unique that there were plenty of other people in the world like her  and it made her start thinking about things and it made her start to read a great deal and as she was  reading she began to realise that writing might be a way of addressing the questions that she had  about her own identity. So, Elisa was very lucky to have some wonderful teachers when she was in  high school who encouraged her to write and she began writing - never thought about writing a  novel - she was writing short texts that were to do with her French Korean identity. And it gradually  grew into what became the novel Winter in Sokcho that, in fact, she wrote between the ages of 17  and 21. But she never thought about getting it published. And it wasn't published until she was 23 and that again was on the encouragement of a former teacher. 

Sandra van Lente 

Thanks a lot for sharing this Elisa. So, can you share with us, what did you set out to explore in your  first novel? 

Elisa Shua Dusapin (translated by Aneesa Abbas Higgins) 

She wanted to write, create a character who was something of a mirror image of herself. The  opposite in a way but the same, so a young woman who had grown up in Korea, and who knew the  French language through literature and studying and who also had this feeling of being a foreigner, a  stranger in her own land even though she understood the culture and the language and that she had  the same feeling of being out of place, but in two places also. She started writing this as she was  coming out of adolescence at an age when we're thinking a great deal about our body, our  relationship to our body, body image, our own image and she wanted to write something about the  violence really that is done to women in South Korea in terms of the pressure to have plastic surgery done on one's face to make one conform to a certain image and how the young woman, the  character in her novel relates to all of this violence and body image and pressure to have one's face  look a certain way. 

Sandra van Lente 

Was there a character that you found more difficult to write than the others, Elisa, and if so, why? 

Elisa Shua Dusapin (translated by Aneesa Abbas Higgins) 

The male character Kerrand was the most challenging, not so much difficult, but he was a character  who she didn't first imagine that he would have to have a whole life story, a history, be a fully  rounded person, she just wanted him to be there as an example of the male ga...

Today’s episode brings together 3 Midlands women, authors Mandy Ross, Abda Khan and Roz Goddard, in conversation about the importance of literature in creating connections and fostering empathy. As members of interfaith organisation Nisa Nashim, Mandy and Abda run a monthly book club that brings together Muslim and Jewish women. In conversation with Roz Goddard, they talk about the intersections of faith and feminism and the power of literature to provide space for exchange and connection.

The Birmingham Lit Fest Presents... podcast brings writers and readers together to discuss some of 2020’s best books. Each Thursday across the next few months we’ll be releasing new episodes of the podcast, including wonderful discussions
about writing, poetry, big ideas and social issues. Join us each week for exciting and inspiring conversations with new, and familiar, writers from the Midlands and beyond.

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)
Guest Curator: Kit de Waal
Production: 11C/ Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands

TRANSCRIPT

BLF Podcast Transcription, Episode 12: Roz Goddard, Abda Khan and Mandy Ross 

Kit de Waal 

Welcome to the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents…podcast series. I’m Kit de Waal and I’ve worked with the  Festival Director, Shantel Edwards, as Guest Curator of this year’s podcast series. Each Thursday across the  next few months we’ll be releasing new episodes of the podcast, including wonderful discussions about  writing, poetry, big ideas and social issues. Today’s episode brings together 3 Midlands women, authors  Mandy Ross, Abda Khan and Roz Goddard, in conversation about the importance of literature in creating  connections and fostering empathy. As members of interfaith organisation Nisa Nashim, Mandy and Abda  run a monthly book club that brings together Muslim and Jewish women. Each month they read a book  written by a Jewish or Muslim woman, finding within the pages, and their discussions, more things that  unite them than divide them. In conversation with Roz Goddard, they talk about the intersections of faith  and feminism and the power of literature to provide space for exchange and connection. 

Sponsor message: Birmingham City University 

This episode of the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents…podcast is brought to you in partnership with the School  of English at Birmingham City University. Visit our website at www.bcu.ac.uk/english for details of our  undergraduate, postgraduate and research degree programmes. 

Roz Goddard 

Hello, and welcome to the Birmingham Literature Festival. My name's Roz Goddard. I'm a poet living in the  Black Country and seem to have embraced Zoom as my home office. I'm delighted to be hosting this  podcast from my loft, where I'll be in conversation with Abda Khan and Mandy Ross. They're the founders of  Nisa-Nashim, an interfaith book group based in Birmingham. Nisa-Nashim is also a national Jewish Muslim  Women's Network working to promote interfaith understanding. So first, introductions. Mandy Ross has  written over 60 children's books and also poetry and plays for adults. With Ronne Randall she co-edited [For  Generations:] Jewish Motherhood, published by Five Leaves Publications. This year Mandy is the Tree  Whisperer: Poet of the Woods for the Ledbury Poetry Festival. A member of Birmingham Progressive  Synagogue, Mandy has worked in many interfaith settings and has a longstanding interest in using reading  to explore cultural identity. Abda Khan is a lawyer turned writer, her published novels being Stained (2016)  and Razia (2019). She's currently writing her next novel. Abda is also a project creator, campaigner,  volunteer, mentor and Lloyds Bank Women of the Future Ambassador. Abda was highly commended in the  NatWest Asian Women of Achievement Awards 2017 and won British Muslim Woman of the Year at the  British Muslim Awards 2019, and most recently shortlisted for the Law Society Lifetime Achievement Award.  Welcome to you both. 

Mandy Ross 

Thank you. 

Abda Khan 

Hi Roz.  

Roz Goddard 

Hello. To Abda then first of all to get us started. Could you tell us something about the background to Nisa Nashim and how you and Mandy came to collaborate and develop it? 

Abda Khan 

Mandy and I met at an event that we both attended as speakers. So, it was the Writing West Midlands  National Writers' Conference. And we just got chatting. And when we got chatting we just started talking  about, you know, a lot of the issues that we were interested in. And then Mandy mentioned Nisa-Nashim as  an organisation. And she said, 'Oh, you know, we've got this organisation, Nisa-Nashim; I don't know if you'd  be interested in us – just Jewish [and] Muslim women getting together, talking about and dealing with  certain issues'. And I said, 'Oh, yeah, just, just pop me on your mailing list and then that'd be great'. So what  happened then was, Mandy emailed me and said – it was actually Mandy that set up the Nisa-Nashim book  club, I have to say, but obviously, I jumped in. And then she emailed me and she said, 'Oh, I'm setting up this  Nisa-Nashim book club. Would you like to come as a guest author, and come speak about your book, Razia?'  So, I attended the first meeting not as a member of the book club, but as somebody who just went along to  speak about her book. And actually, it was just such a lovely environment. And the women were so, so nice.  And I think that there was just this lovely sort of camaraderie and this exploring of common themes and  common ideas, common issues, common problems. And I just enjoyed it so much that I then joined it. And  then from there it's just been great. It's been developing throughout this year. It's been wonderful getting  together initially in person but, obviously, later on now it's been through Zoom since COVID. So really it was  just this kind of friendship we struck up at an event. I had nothing to do with Nisa-Nashim, which just shows  you how you can just come together when you've got things that you find out are in common. It's just that  human touch, isn't it? It's just that human aspect of talking to somebody and then actually realising that  you've got so much in common – okay, I'm Muslim and Mandy's Jewish but through literature and through  exploring books and themes we just realised that me and all these other women and Mandy together we  actually have so much that, you know, kind of unites us, and we find out so much about each other and  even ourselves. And that's kind of how the book group has developed.

Roz Goddard 

And isn't it incredibly fortuitous when we meet someone as you did with Mandy and you realise that there  is that underlying connection, that rapport that can be developed? And that's the very best way to start.  Yeah, so thank you for that. Really lovely background info there. Mandy, could you give us a flavour of how  the meetings are organised and actually how books are selected? &nbs...

In today’s podcast, we welcome debut author Elle McNicoll in conversation with Dr Melanie Ramdarshan Bold about her first novel A Kind of Spark. Join Elle and Melanie as they discuss the importance of representing neurodiversity in children’s
fiction, inclusive publishing and recognising buried histories.

The Birmingham Lit Fest Presents... podcast brings writers and readers together to discuss some of 2020’s best books. Each Thursday across the next few months we’ll be releasing new episodes of the podcast, including wonderful discussions
about writing, poetry, big ideas and social issues. Join us each week for exciting and inspiring conversations with new, and familiar, writers from the Midlands and beyond.

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)
Guest Curator: Kit de Waal
Production: 11C/ Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands

TRANSCRIPT

BLF Podcast Transcription, Episode 11: Elle McNicoll  

Kit de Waal 

Welcome to the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents…podcast series. I’m Kit de Waal and I’ve worked with the  Festival Director, Shantel Edwards, as Guest Curator of this year’s podcast series. Each Thursday across the  next few months we’ll be releasing new episodes of the podcast, including wonderful discussions about  writing, poetry, big ideas and social issues. In today’s podcast, we welcome debut author Elle McNicoll in  conversation with Dr Melanie Ramdarshan Bold about her first novel A Kind of Spark. Elle’s novel follows 11- year-old Addie as she campaigns to fund a memorial to commemorate the witch trials that took place in her  Scottish hometown, drawing nuanced parallels between the ignorance surrounding Addie’s autism and that  which fuelled historic witch trials. Join Elle and Melanie as they discuss the importance of representing  neurodiversity in children’s fiction, inclusive publishing and recognising buried histories. 

Bournville Book Festival Sponsor Message 

This brilliant episode of the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents…podcast is brought to you in partnership with  Bournville Book Fest, Birmingham’s book festival for children. 

Melanie Ramdarshan Bold 

Hello, and welcome to the Birmingham Literature Festival. I'm Melanie Ramdarshan Bold. I'm an Associate Professor of Publishing and Book Studies – dream job – at University College London, and I am utterly delighted to be speaking to the lovely debut author, Elle McNicoll today. Elle is the author of the delightful,  warm and funny Middle Grade novel [for readers between the ages of eight and 12], A Kind of Spark, which is about Addie, an 11-year-old autistic girl campaigning for a memorial for the witches trials that took place  in her Scottish village. I had the absolute pleasure of teaching Elle during her Publishing MA at UCL, and it  has been a joy to see her career blossom over the last year. Elle, hello.  

Elle McNicoll 

Hi. 

Melanie Ramdarshan Bold 

I'm so excited to speak to you today. 

Elle McNicoll 

Oh, that was surreal having you introduce me.

Melanie Ramdarshan Bold 

It's so weird, isn't it? But lovely.  

Elle McNicoll 

Yeah, really nice.  

Melanie Ramdarshan Bold 

So I'm so delighted to see, you know, the reaction to your book and you as an author over the last few  months. Why don't we start by speaking a wee bit about your route into authorship? 

Elle McNicoll 

Yep. So like Mel just said, I was doing a Publishing MA and I was doing that MA with every intention of going  into publishing as, you know, an editorial assistant or, you know, someone working on the production of  books, not as an author at all. I don't recommend Publishing MAs if you want to be an author, although UCL  was phenomenal, and allowed me to do all the research that I needed for this book, which was the reason I  went. But I wasn't, you know, I wasn't planning on it, and I set up a meeting with Knights Of, who are the  publishers of A Kind of Spark (and I think we'll probably talk about them a bit more later on). But I set up a  meeting with them purely to kind of offer my services as a graduate saying, 'if you ever want a  neurodivergent book on your list, you know, I've got a lot of research on it; I've got my own experience as an  neurodivergent person; I can do any sensitivity reads, proofreading, editing – wherever you need.' That was  the intention of the meeting. And somehow it got turned around to, 'have you written a book?' to which I  stupidly said 'yes'. Even though the book was, you know, had about 2,000 words left to write of it - I've not  told anyone this actually - I went home and wrote those 2,000 words that day. And it's purely by accident Kind Of ended up in the publisher's hands that way. I was looking for a job, I wasn't looking for a book deal. 

Melanie Ramdarshan Bold 

Well, you got a job as an author at the end, and that's so fortuitous. And I love that idea of Knights Of, you  know, sort of seeing the potential and developing that potential. 

Elle McNicoll 

I hope so. I hope that's what it was. I think David, who's the co-founder of Knights Of [Media], and who's  the person that I took the meeting with, I think he's very, just sort of, 'Have you got a book? Anyone got a  book?' He's just that way, he's very inclusive and encouraging to people. And I think it's very that much the  belief that everyone kind of has a book in them. And, you know, I'm just very lucky that he asked, and I  don't know why I said yes. But if I hadn't, we wouldn't be here, so.

Melanie Ramdarshan Bold 

Delighted that you did say yes. So you talked a wee bit, obviously, I know, you've done the Publishing MA,  and you have developed sort of skill sets and experience and knowledge of the publishing industry, not only  over the course of your MA but before and afterwards as well. So how would you say that your publishing  experience and that experience and knowledge has played into your writing?  

Elle McNicoll 

Well, I don't know how it played into the writing. But I think it definitely played into your kind of business  mindset as an author because nowadays authors have to kind of have that marketing sort of mindset as  well. You know, it's only a small few who are privileged enough to kind of lock themselves away and be  creative and not have to do any kind of PR or marketing or self-promotion. So I think the MA really helped  me kind of hone an idea of where the industry is at the moment. My research and the MA 100 per cent  gave me the confidence to say where the gaps in the industry are (and that's a whole other conversation).  But, you know, it gave me that kind of data and analysis to be, you know – and I'm not an academic writer.  Like please, people listening, d...

This week’s guest is Birmingham’s own artist and political commentator Cold War Steve. In this week’s episode, Steve talks to writer Kit de Waal about the ways his work tells the story of Birmingham and the Midlands, the power of art call
out fascism and art as therapy.

The Birmingham Lit Fest Presents... podcast brings writers and readers together to discuss some of 2020’s best books. Each Thursday across the next few months we’ll be releasing new episodes of the podcast, including wonderful discussions
about writing, poetry, big ideas and social issues. Join us each week for exciting and inspiring conversations with new, and familiar, writers from the Midlands and beyond.

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)
Guest Curator: Kit de Waal
Production: 11C/ Birmingham Podcast Studios for Writing West Midlands

TRANSCRIPT

BLF Podcast Transcription, Episode 10: Cold War Steve  

Kit de Waal 

Welcome to the Birmingham Lit Fest Presents…podcast series. I’m Kit de Waal and I’ve worked with  the Festival Director, Shantel Edwards, as Guest Curator of this year’s podcast series. Each Thursday  across the next few months we’ll be releasing new episodes of the podcast, including wonderful  discussions about writing, poetry, big ideas and social issues. I am very excited to introduce this  week’s guest, artist and political commentator Cold War Steve; interviewing him for the Birmingham  Lit Fest podcast was a career highlight for me as a long-time fan of his work. Cold War Steve is a  Birmingham born and based artist who specialises in surreal, satirical and hilarious collages originally  made on his phone and iPad. Since 2016 Cold War Steve’s Twitter account, with almost daily posts  commenting on current social and political issues, has been a lifeline to many in these dark times. In  this episode we talk about the ways his work tells the story of Birmingham and the Midlands, the  power of art to call out fascism and art as therapy. 

Kit de Waal 

The first question I want to ask you is, do I call you Cold War Steve or do I call you Chris? 

Cold War Steve  

Well, you can call me either, really, but I think at the moment, I get called Steve, probably 50% of the  time and then Chris, the other 50%. Even my wife and kids start calling me Steve as well, so it really  doesn’t matter. 

Kit de Waal 

Well, I'm gonna call you Cold War Steve because that, for me, encapsulates who you are. What a  privilege for me to get to interview you, I have admired your work. In fact, when did you start these  pictures? How long ago? 

Cold War Steve 

It was March 2016. 

Kit de Waal 

Right. And what made you start doing them?  

Cold War Steve 

So Cold War Steve, my alter ego, began in March 2016. I'd done quite a few different parody type  things on Twitter, just for something to do really, then that time, February, March 2016, was a quite  a low point for me. I had, you know, suffered with pretty poor mental health most of my adult life,  but that period was, you know, I was hospitalized. And then coming out of hospital, part of my new  focus and therapy really was to channel more of my anxiety and stuff into just creating these images,  quite crude at first just putting Phil Mitchell in a famous Cold War scene and just uploading it on  Twitter and seeing what happened, but it got really popular really quickly. And it really, you know,  that gave me something that I could focus on that was positive. And it certainly helped me  enormously with my mental health and it kind of grew from there really and it didn't start becoming  the kind of satirical thing that it is now, until the Brexit referendum happened. So, none of my pieces  were particularly political or satirical. But then the night that the result came in, it was, you know,  just felt so crushing for me. And I've diverted my anxieties into more and more satirical pieces and  it's just grown from there, the more inept the government have been, the more material I've got,  and it's kind of grown hand in hand with their ineptitude. 

Kit de Waal 

Absolutely, I can remember that I saw an interview that you gave, I think it was just after Brexit, but  before the pandemic, and before the abomination that is the present government, the reincarnation  as it is now and you said, yeah, you know, we'll have to see what happens, I don't think I’m going to  run out of material. You could not have predicted how bad things would get because, you know,  obviously, I know, so many of your pictures that were very Brexit focused, but you could actually lift  some of those, you know, motifs that you've done there and it would apply to the current chaos. 

Cold War Steve 

Oh completely, yeah, it's just, it's almost seamless because Brexit happened, and I was always gonna keep shining a light on the government, regardless, but a lot of people were saying, look, it's done  now what are you gonna do and then bang, pandemic arrived. So I was, how do I deal with this?  

Kit de Waal 

You couldn't have predicted that it would be this catastrophic. 

Cold War Steve 

And you're right in saying that it's, you know, the parallels between the two, it's almost like you've  got the same people that were, you know, lying to people about getting the Brexit vote and pro Brexit and everything. They've all now moved on to being disastrous in managing you know, the  country's responses to this pandemic. So, a lot the pieces are, you know, I sometimes just retweet  one from Brexit days and people go, ‘oh, yeah, so on the money’ but that was like a year ago.  

Kit de Waal 

Yes. And it's amazing that they’re at least as much, at least as applicable now as they were then. And  I saw the other day one of the tweets that you’d done, which said, ‘I've just spent an hour blocking  fascists’ and a couple of choice words, which I completely applaud, which I won't say. But tell me  about being attacked online by the fascists who clearly can feel the power and strength of your  work. 

Cold War Steve  

Well, thank you for saying that because, initially when I first got people sending not particularly nice  things. It was always Brexiters or Tories and stuff. And the first ones are quite jarring because I get  lots, you know, I might get hundred that say ‘oh that's brilliant’, but then just one that says, you  know, lefty this that and the other and it seems to have more power and it really, you know, I’ve  found it quite difficult. But then I thought no, it's not going to stop me. The person I detest probably  more than any in the world is Nigel Farage and what he’s done and what he continues to do and  these things where he’s going out in his boat in the channel, you know, infuriates me. So, I was doing  pictures that obviously send up that, and compare him...