The news is in - Monique Roffey has been shortlisted for the 2020 Costa Best Novel Award. The Mermaid of Black Conch by Monique Roffey joins excellent books by Susanna Clarke, Denise Mina, Julian Barnes, Rachel Long, Martha Sprackland, Caroline Bird and the late Eavan Boland in making the Costa Book Awards lists across fiction, non-fiction and poetry.
With the Booker shortlist featuring books which deal with trauma, BBC Radio's Front Row explores the issues for writers in writing about trauma in both fiction and non fiction with writers Meg Rosoff and Monique Roffey, and the critic Suzi Feay. Monique talks about writing on trauma with Dodo Ink for their upcoming anthology, TRAUMA: Art as a response to mental health.
Black Women and Books – Zoom Webinar
Thursday 26 November 2020, 7-9pm
(Book online)
The event is free for those who cannot afford to contribute, but spaces are limited so please do donate if you can. The Feminist Library is collaborating with BookLove, an online Multicultural Travelling Carnival and shop, to organise an exciting series of online events around Black women in the business of books!
Hosted by Marc Wadsworth, the annual Claudia Jones Memorial Lecture, organised by the National Union of Journalists, this year features Dr Francesca Sobande. Sobande is a lecturer in Digital Media Studies at JOMEC, with research interests and expertise in issues related to race, gender, structural inequalities, media, and the marketplace.
An article on Marc Wadsworth's Comrade Sak and the legacy of Shapurji Saklatvala appeared recently in Eastern Eye (Issue 1582, Friday 30 October 2020, page 14).
In his book, Wadsworth concludes: “As Saklatvala repeatedly charged, and is documented in my book, Labour in power frequently displayed attitudes and practices towards empire, colonialism and, frankly, in the racist immigration laws it brought in, that differed little from those of the Conservatives.
Image credit: Q.U.I
This is a writing workshop, led by Peepal Tree poet Maya Chowdhry, that'll explore how to enliven artefacts of the natural world. Book now to reserve your place.
Image credit: Naadir Shahul
As part of the last Sunday Morning show’s marking of Black History Month, BBC Radio Scotland host Connie McLaughlin was joined by a special guest editor: the winner of the prestigious TS Eliot Prize for poetry, our very own Roger Robinson.
The show audio expires in 19 days, so catch it while you still can!
You may need a BBC account to listen, and the show may not be available to some listeners outside the UK.
Guardian Weekend magazine and gal-dem are launching a memoir writing competition for UK-resident Black womxn and non-binary writers aged 16-21 on the theme of ‘conversations’. You can find out more information at the Guardian website.
Writer, poet, theatre maker and educator, Malika Booker (@malikabooker) personifies Mars in this poem about planetary siblings, as part of BBC Earth.
Photo by Victor Garcia
We're pleased to announce that Malika Booker won The 2020 Forward Prize for Best Single Poem (worth £1,000) for her poetic contribution to Magma 75: The Loss Issue, edited by our very own
