The Writing Life

Nazry Bahrawi & Vineet Lal in conversation

In June 2021, we welcomed three writers and translators from Singapore in virtual residence in Norwich, with the support of the National Arts Council of Singapore. Nazry Bahrawi was one of them - a literary translator, critic and academic at Singapore University of Technology and Design. Vineet Lal is our fourth Visible Communities virtual translator in residence. Vineet is a literary translator from French to English, based in Scotland. In 2010 he was awarded one of the first-ever Mentorships in Literary Translation by the British Centre for Literary Translation. We're excited to have Vineet and Nazry on the podcast today discussing some of the biggest debates in translation.

Don't miss this article by Vineet: https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/article/emerging-translator-mentorships-ten-years-on/

Translation as a Creative Act featuring Nazry: https://youtu.be/z-J4maoKkYo 

Our first podcast with Sarah Ardizzone: https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/article/creating-trust-between-a-translator-and-writer/

Sarah's pod on how to become a literary translator: https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/article/how-to-become-a-literary-translator/

Join our Discord: https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/join-our-discord-community/

We're a non-profit. You can donate to us here: https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/support-us/ 

Hosted by Simon Jones and Steph McKenna.

Music by Bennet Maples.

Carole Angier on writing the first biography of W.G. Sebald

W.G. Sebald wrote books including The Emigrants, Austerlitz and The Rings of Saturn, and mixed fiction, history, autobiography and photography . Carole Angier has now published the first biography of Sebald, Speak, Silence: In Search of W.G. Sebald, and is on the podcast today talking to Alice Kent. They go into fine detail about Carole's research, her methods for structuring a biography and the on-going ethical debates around writing about someone's life.

Hosted by Simon Jones and Steph McKenna.

Join our Discord community: https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/join-our-discord-community/ 

Sign up to our newsletter: https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/ 

Music by Bennet Maples.

Megan Abbott on crime writing‘s power to change society

Fresh from the Noirwich Crime Writing Festival comes Megan Abbott's astonishing lecture about the power of crime fiction and true crime to influence and reflect society, and the ethics and responsibilities of being a crime writer. Why has so much crime writing focused on the perpetrator, not the victim? How can representation in the genre improve, and why does it matter?

Megan is the award-winning author of nine crime novels, including the just published The Turnout, and the bestselling You Will Know Me and Dare Me. Her work has won or been nominated for the CWA Steel Dagger, the International Thriller Writers Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and five Edgar awards. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Guardian, Paris Review and the Wall Street Journal. She is also the author of The Street Was Mine, a study of hardboiled fiction, and film noir. She received her Ph.D. in American literature from New York University. A writer on HBO’s highly acclaimed The Deuce, she recently served as co-showrunner and co-creator of Dare Me, which completed its first season on the USA Network and Netflix internationally.

Introduced by Henry Sutton, co-director of Noirwich and professor of creative writing at the University of East Anglia.

Hosted by Simon Jones and Steph McKenna.

Watch the extended video version of the lecture, including a Q&A between Megan and Henry: https://youtu.be/X2J4pBgPyTY

More about Noirwich: https://noirwich.co.uk/

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Join our Discord community: https://discord.gg/3G39dRW

More about Steph's Stephen King Zine, Outsider: https://outsiderzine.bigcartel.com/product/outsider-vol-1 

Music by Bennet Maples.

Structuring a novel: Rebecca Watson talks to Chitra Ramaswamy about Little Scratch

We have a new Early Career Writers' Resource Pack, and it's all about STRUCTURE. On the podcast we're thrilled to have journalist Chitra Ramaswamy interviewing Rebecca Watson about her stunning debut Little Scratch, which was shortlisted earlier this year for the Desmond Elliott Prize. Rebecca details the book's unique design and how the story and its structure are inseparable. Find more resources on 'Structure' here: https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/pack-7-structure/ 

Our resouce packs are available for free thanks to support from Arts Council England.

Meanwhile, Simon and Steph celebrate the launch of the 2021 Noirwich Crime Writing Festival, which you can attend virtually here: https://noirwich.co.uk/ 

Hosted by Simon Jones and Steph McKenna.

Music by Bennet Maples.

Kate Mosse on the Women‘s Prize, Discoveries and research

The inimitable Kate Mosse joins the podcast to talk about her work on The Women's Prize for Fiction and her career as an author of fiction and non-fiction. Talking with Sarah Bower, Kate discusses the Discoveries writer development programme (opening for applications this month!), how the context of the Women's Prize has changed over the years, why some people still expect the prize to justify its own existence, how she goes about the research for her historical fiction and the writing of her memoir An Extra Pair of Hands.

Hosted by Simon Jones and Steph McKenna.

Join our Discord: https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/join-our-discord-community/ 

Noirwich Crime Writing Festival: https://noirwich.co.uk/

Creating Writing Online courses: https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/creative-writing-online/ 

The Women's Prize for Fiction & Discoveries: https://www.womensprizeforfiction.co.uk/