Minor Literature[s]

For the fourteenth episode of no longer new Quarantine Hotline series, Fernando Sdrigotti speaks to Bonny Brooks, from Dorset, UK.

Some of the topics discussed are social media and everyday life, so-called cancel culture, and Good Choices, her forthcoming novelette with Open Pen.

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Bonny Brooks is a fiction writer, commentator and researcher. Her short fiction has been shortlisted for prizes like Fish and she has won Arts and Humanities Research Council Awards. She has appeared on the BBC World Service and her poetry has been broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Her commentary has appeared in outlets such as The Independent and The Huffington Post, and she is Associate Editor for Arc Digital, a digital pluralism project. Her work has been published in Japanese. @Brooks_Bonny

Music: opening credits, Aerosilla, Charlie Egg; closing tune, Oriente, Gina Valenti. Both songs licensed under Creative Commons and available from PXVA 2020, a compilation of music from Rosario, Argentina, by arts collective and label Planeta X.

Thirteen is the unlucky number! Our guest this week was unwell and couldn’t join our call, so instead of cancelling, Fernando Sdrigotti chose his favourite short novels from Latin America, available in English. Why short? Because why not? And yes, there’s a lot of writing from Argentina and the Southern Cone — that’s his list. Feel free to use social media to get angry that this is not the same list you would have produced, and even suggest your own favourite short novels, as this is the beauty of lists: generating easy engagement.

We were going to list the titles here but then what would be the point in listening, right?

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Fernando Sdrigotti is one of the members of the Minor Literature[s] cargo cult. His latest book is JOLTS. Twitter: @f_sd

Music: Blk09, Blunke, Creative Commons, https://open.spotify.com/album/0t8OA93jRuxjU0rWqCt0QI?si=Qj3axpsuR7WcjY1clvRd0w. This is from the new compilation by Planeta X, available here.

An interview series in which we beat the lockdown blues reaching out to friends for a nice and informal telephone chat. In our twelfth episode, Fernando Sdrigotti talks to John Tretry, writer and editor of Inside the Castle, an indie press based in Lawrence, Kansas, USA.

Some of the topics discussed: the work of Inside the Castle, avoiding easy labels when discussing challenging literature, the cliché of the writer suffering with the chore of writing, books as texts, the influence of architecture in John’s writing, Crocs (yeah, Crocs, sorry), et cetera

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John Trefry is an architect and the author of the books Plats, Thy Decay Thou Seest By Thy Desire, and Apparitions of the Living. Current works-in-progress: Massive (a novel) & Inanimism (a nonfiction poem). More diminutive writings have appeared in various other outlets. He lives in Lawrence, Kansas, and on Twitter @trefryesque.

Music: dronephonia, Audiodélica, Creative Commons.

An interview series in which we beat the lockdown blues reaching out to friends for a nice and informal telephone chat. In our eleventh episode, Fernando Sdrigotti talks to Irenosen Okojie, who is in London.

Some of the topics discussed: her new collection, Nudibranch,writing short stories versus writing novels, writing in short bursts, writing in-between places, the pointless label of magical realism (among others), the demand to speak for a group, et cetera

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Irenosen Okojie is a Nigerian-born short story and novel writer working in London. She is the author of Speak Gigantular, Butterfly Fish, and Nudibranch. Twitter: @IrenosenOkojie

Music: Desierto, Audiodélica, Creative Commons.

An interview series in which we beat the lockdown blues reaching out to friends for a nice and informal telephone chat. In our tenth episode, Fernando Sdrigotti talks to Sarah Manvel, who is in London.

Some of the topics discussed: her new novelette — You Ruin It When You Talk — writing longhand, finding time to write, etc.

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Sarah Manvel was born in the USA and now lives in London. She is a film and book critic. Her first book, You Ruin It When You Talk, is forthcoming (November 2020) with Open Pen. Twitter: @typewritersarah.

Music: opening — Nocturna Pato; closing — Cumbia de la costa; from Grabaciones orilleras, Creative Commons.

An interview series in which we beat the lockdown blues reaching out to friends for a nice and informal telephone chat. In our ninth episode, Fernando Sdrigotti talks to Youssef Rakha, from Cairo, Egypt.

Some of the topics discussed: Cairo the Myth versus Cairo as a lived city, self-exiles and returns, writing and not writing during the lockdown.

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Youssef Rakha is a bilingual writer of fiction, poetry and non-fiction. Based in Cairo, his birthplace, he graduated from Hull University, England, in 1998. He has worked in mostly English-language journalism since then. @Sultans_Seal

Music: können, Audiodélica, Creative Commons.

An interview series in which we beat the lockdown blues reaching out to friends for a nice and informal telephone chat. In our eighth episode, Fernando Sdrigotti talks to Wendy Erskine, from Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Some of the topics discussed: unfinished / unwritten stories, finding time to write, when to give up writing, and so on.

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Wendy Erskine is the author of Sweet Home (Stinging Fly, Picador).

Music: Protocretina, Charlie Egg, Creative Commons.

An interview series in which we beat the lockdown blues reaching out to friends for a nice and informal telephone chat. In our seventh episode, Fernando Sdrigotti talks to Mona Kareem, who is currently in lockdown in New York, USA.

Some of the topics discussed: protest, postcolonialism in the USA, the trap of nationalism in minority movements, writing in a second language as a liberating act.

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Mona Kareem (Kuwait, 1987) is a poet, translator, and scholar. She has published three poetry collections in Arabic – Naharaat maghsūla bi Ma-e el ’atash (2002), Ghiyab bi asabi’ mabthūra (2004), and Ma anamū min adjlihi el yaum (2016). Twitter: @monakareem.

Music: Azul, Rodrigo Jávega, Creative Commons.

An interview series in which we beat the lockdown blues reaching out to friends for a nice and informal telephone chat. In our sixth episode, Fernando Sdrigotti talks to Andrew Gallix, who is currently in lockdown in Paris, France.

Some of the topics discussed: 3:AM Magazine, making something out of nothing, punk, money and literature, and the myth of Paris.

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Andrew Gallix is an Anglo-French writer and occasional translator, who teaches at the Sorbonne and edits 3:AM Magazine. His work has appeared in the Guardian, Financial Times, Irish Times, Stinging Fly, New Statesman, Independent, Literary Review, Times Literary Supplement, Dazed & Confused, as well as on BBC Radio 3, and elsewhere. His books include Unwords (a collection of essays and reviews forthcoming from Dostoyevsky Wannabe, 2020) and We’ll Never Have Paris (Repeater Books, 2019) alongside Love Bites: Fiction Inspired by Pete Shelley (Dostoyevsky Wannabe, 2019) and Punk is Dead: Modernity Killed Every Night (Zero Books, 2017) which he co-edited.

Music: opening track, Esquizofrenia, Gina Valenti; closing track, Llegan los cuerpos, Maitreya. Both Creative Commons.

A new interview series in which we beat the lockdown blues reaching out to friends for a nice and informal telephone chat. In our third episode, Fernando Sdrigotti talks to Miggy Angel, who is currently in lockdown in Nottingham, UK.

Some of the topics discussed: poetry as an activist weapon, working class culture, the gentrification of South London, and his latest books Boy Bestiary (IceFloe Press) and Hour of the Dog (Saló Press).

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Miggy Angel is a spoken word artist and poet. Originally from South London he now lives and works in Nottingham. He is the author of Extreme Violets, Grime Kerbstone Psalms, Boy Bestiary, and The Hour of the Dog, among other titles. Twitter: @miggyangelpoet.

Music: Anagrama, by Esteban Porronett, Creative Commons, edited by Planeta X. Download here.