The Corrymeela Podcast

Juliane Okot Bitek is a poet. Her 100 Days (University of Alberta Press, 2016) was nominated for several writing prizes including the 2017 BC Book Prize, the Pat Lowther Award, the 2017 Alberta Book Awards and the 2017 Canadian Authors Award for Poetry. It won the 2017 IndieFab Book of the Year Award for poetry and the 2017 Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry. Her second collection, A is for Acholi (Wolsak and Wynn, 2022), was shortlisted for the 2023 Pat Lowther Memorial Award and is a finalist for the 2023 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize, and the 2023 Jim Deva Prize for Writing that Provokes. Her most recent collection of poetry, Song & Dread (2023), is published by Talonbooks under the name Otoniya J. Okot Bitek. She is an assistant professor of Black Studies, joint appointed in English and Gender Studies at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario.

A full transcript of the episode, along with group discussion questions, is available here.

Pádraig Ó Tuama is joined by Sarah Perry, the internationally bestselling author of the novels Melmoth (Serpent’s Tail, 2018), The Essex Serpent (Serpent’s Tail, 2016), and After Me Comes the Flood (Serpent’s Tail, 2014), and the non-fiction Essex Girls (Serpent’s Tail, 2020). She is a winner of the Waterstone’s Book of the Year Awards and the British Book Awards, and has been nominated for major literary prizes including the Women’s Prize for Fiction, the Dylan Thomas Prize, the Folio Prize and the Costa Novel Award. She is the Chancellor of the University of Essex, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Her essays have been published in the Guardian, the New York Times, the Observer, and the London Review of Books. She has been the UNESCO City of Literature Writer in Residence in Prague, and the Writer in Residence at the Savoy Hotel in London. Her no. 1 bestseller The Essex Serpent was adapted for television starring Clare Danes and Tom Hiddleston in the lead roles. Her new novel, Enlightenment, will be published by Jonathan Cape (UK) and Harper Collins (US) in May 2024.

A full transcript of the episode, along with group discussion questions, is available here.

Pádraig Ó Tuama is joined by Richard Holloway, who was the Bishop of Edinburgh in the Scottish Episcopal Church from 1986-2000. Richard is the author of thirty books, including Godless Morality: Keeping Religion Out of Ethics (Canongate, 1999), Stories We Tell Ourselves (Canongate, 2020), and Waiting for the Last Bus (Canongate, 2018). His book Leaving Alexandria: A Memoir of Faith and Doubt (Canongate, 2012) was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize and won the PEN Ackerley prize. He was chairman of the Scottish Arts Council from 2005-2010, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. A frequent broadcaster, he has presented a number of television series and radio programmes, including Three Score Years and Ten for BBC Radio 4.

A full transcript of the episode, along with group discussion questions, is available here.

Pádraig Ó Tuama is joined by Duncan Morrow. Duncan is a lecturer in politics and Director of Community Engagement at Ulster University. In 1998, he was appointed as a Sentence Review Commissioner, and from 2002-2012 he was chief executive of the Northern Ireland Community Relations Council. He has also chaired the Scottish government's advisory group on tackling sectarianism. Duncan’s academic interests include conflict, ethics, and religion.

Duncan joins Pádraig to talk about the shifting nature of our identities, the importance of relationship in politics, and the necessity of acknowledging complicity in conflict.

A full transcript of the episode, along with group discussion questions, is available here.

Pádraig Ó Tuama is joined by Veena O’Sullivan. Veena has worked for the international relief and development charity Tearfund since 2000. She has focused particularly on HIV, peacebuilding, and violence against women and girls. Originally from Bengaluru in the southern part of India, Veena has lived in Ireland since 2015.  In 2021, she became the international director of Tearfund UK. 

Veena joins Pádraig to talk about the complexities of ‘relief and development’, and what sustains her in her work.

A full transcript of the episode, along with group discussion questions, is available here.

Pádraig Ó Tuama is joined by Dr. Jude Lal Fernando.
Jude is a campaigner and peace activist who coordinated the People’s Tribunal of Sri Lanka. He teaches interreligious theology and ethics at the Irish School of Ecumenics in Trinity College Dublin, and directs the Trinity Centre for Post-Conflict Justice. His publications include Religion, Conflict and Peace in Sri Lanka: The Politics of Interpretation of Nationhoods (Lit Verlag, 2013), and Resistance to Empire and Militarization: Reclaiming the Sacred (Equinox, 2020).

A full transcript of the episode, along with group discussion questions, is available here.

Pádraig Ó Tuama is joined by Oliver Jeffers.
Oliver is a visual artist and author working in painting, bookmaking, illustration, collage, performance, and sculpture. Curiosity and humour are underlying themes throughout Oliver’s practice as an artist and storyteller. While investigating the ways the human mind understands its world, his work also functions as comic relief in the face of futility. His acclaimed picture books have been translated into over fifty languages, and have sold over 14 million copies worldwide.

His original artwork has been exhibited at such institutions as the Brooklyn Museum in New York, the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin, and the National Portrait Gallery in London. Oliver grew up in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and currently divides his time between there and Brooklyn, NY.

A full transcript of the episode, along with group discussion questions, is available here.

Pádraig Ó Tuama is joined by Marina Cantacuzino.
Marina is an award-winning British journalist and founder of The Forgiveness Project, a UK charity that uses the real stories of victims and perpetrators to explore how ideas about forgiveness, reconciliation and restorative justice can be used to impact positively on people’s lives.

Marina is also the creator of The F Word Podcast, and author of three books on the topic of forgiveness, including Forgiveness: An Exploration, which was published by Simon & Schuster in 2022.

A full transcript of the episode, along with group discussion questions, is available here.