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/

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

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/ 

Finding hope in an age of crisis - with Tom Whyman

Simon is joined on the pod today by Tom Whyman, author of Infinitely Full of Hope: Fatherhood and the Future in an Age of Crisis and Disaster. Part philosophical theory and part memoir, Tom wrote the book while awaiting the birth of his child and deals with the challenge of maintaining hope in increasingly desperate times.

Meanwhile, Steph and Simon take a look at our Creative Writing Online courses, get over-excited about the books they're currently reading (Daisy Jones and the Six! Lumberjanes!) and Simon finds a way to shoehorn discussion of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power into the show.

Check out our tutored online courses: https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/creative-writing-online/ 

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

Everything we do: https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/ 

Music by Bennet Maples.

Lewis Buxton on boyhood, sexuality, sport and publishing his first poetry collection

Lewis Buxton returns! Steph talks to Lewis about his new poetry collection Boy in Various Poses, which explores masculinity, mental health and sport. We're also very pleased to have The Writing Life's first references to Lizzo and The Meg. Lewis' poems have appeared in The Rialto, Ambit Magazine, Magma, Oxford Poetry and Ink, Sweat and Tears. In 2020 he won the Winchester Poetry Prize and has previously come third in the Magma Poetry Prize and been shortlisted for the Oxford Brookes International Poetry Prize and the York Literature Festival Prize. In 2018-19 he was selected as one of the Poetry School & Nine Arches Press Primers Volume 4 poets and was the recipient of the Literary Festival Bursary from the University of East Anglia. He is Director of TOAST, a live poetry event and workshops project. Working with the best poets in the UK, TOAST produces monthly events at The Norwich Arts Centre, is supported by the Arts Council England and has won a Norfolk Arts Award for supporting new writing.   

Check out out previous episode with Lewis: https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/article/poetry-in-lockdown-with-lewis-buxton/

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

Hosted by Simon Jones and Steph McKenna.

Music by Bennet Maples.

Shash Trevett & Geetha Sukumaran on translating Tamil poetry

Literary translators Shash Trevett and Geetha Sukumaran talk about their collaboration on the work of Tamil poet Nillanthan and Shash's involvement with our Visible Communities translator in residence programme. 

Geetha Sukumaran is a poet and a bilingual translator. She has published two books in Tamil: Tharkolaikku parakkum panithuli (a Tamil translation of Sylvia Plath’s poems, 2013), and her own poems, Otrai pakadaiyil enchum nampikkai in 2014. Her English translation of Ahilan’s poetry, Then There Were No Witnesses, was published by Mawenzi House, Toronto (2018). She is the recipient of the SPARROW R Thyagarajan award for her poetry in Tamil. She is a doctoral student in the Humanities at York University, Toronto.

Shash Trevett is a poet and a translator of Tamil poetry into English. She is a winner of a Northern Writers’ Award and her pamphlet From a Borrowed Land is published by Smith|Doorstop (2021). She is currently co-editing (with Vidyan Ravinthiran and Seni Seneviratne) an anthology of Tamil, English and Sinhala poetry from Sri Lanka and its diaspora communities. She is a 2021 Ledbury Critic and a Board Member of Modern Poetry in Translation.

Workshop details: https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/whats-on/workshop-nillanthan/ 

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

Hosted by Simon Jones and Steph McKenna.

Music by Bennet Maples.

Olivia Hellwell on translating from Slovene (+ the cultural importance of crisps)

On the podcast this week is Olivia Hellewell, a translator from Slovene to English of literary fiction, children's fiction, and non-fiction. Olivia is talking to Rebecca DeWald, our Emerging Translator Mentorships Programme Manager. They discuss Olivia's route into literary translation, the challenges of making a living from translation, and the importance of translating cultural references. This is a treasure trove for anyone interested in translation and also contains a surprising amount of discussion about Wotsits. Olivia was BCLT's translator in residence earlier in the year.

Meanwhile, Flo Reynolds is back on the pod to introduce the new NCW Book Club book - Sudden Traveller by Sarah Hall! Find out more and join up here: https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/the-ncw-book-club/

Here's the Meet the World video mentioned during the conversation: https://youtu.be/U_7niLTXT0g 
And the Mythical English Reader video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8oFttUu2bI 

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

We'd love your support. Find out more and donate here; https://nationalcentreforwriting.org.uk/support-us/ 

Music by Bennet Maples.

Substack, the creator economy & serialised storytelling with Elle Griffin

"Books are dead," so declares Elle Griffin, a journalist and debut writer who is preparing to serialise her first novel via a Substack newsletter. Not sure what Substack is, or why you'd publish a book via a newsletter? Disagree (or agree!) about the fate of books? Curious about whether serialised storytelling and publishing might be for you? Simon chats with Elle about emerging new (and returning!) forms and how they relate to traditional and self-publishing.

Meanwhile, Steph and Simon discuss the new Creative Writing Online courses and the revealed 2021 line-up for the Noirwich Crime Writing Festival.

Lots of useful links this week:

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

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

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

Check out Elle's newsletter: https://ellegriffin.substack.com/

Simon's newsletter: https://simonkjones.substack.com/ 

This is Buttondown: https://buttondown.email/ 

Music by Bennet Maples.