On This Day She on Dan Snow's History Hit podcast

Happy International Women's Day! Over at On This Day She, every day is international women's day - and we were delighted to be interviewed for Dan Snow's History Hit podcast about our Twitter account and our new book! You can listen here or wherever you get your podcasts. More info about the book here: https://onthisdayshe.com/

On This Day She Book Launch Recording & Bunker podcast

 If you missed our On This Day She book launch the other night, it's available to watch again here - we had a blast, I think that's pretty clear!

And we're interviewed about our project over at The Bunker podcast.

Celebrating Libraries for National Libraries Week

 

 

"I wake up dreaming of libraries..." 

 Listen to my love letter on the RLF's latest podcast to two of Manchester's glorious libraries for National Libraries week: Manchester's Central Library and The Portico, it's privately-owned sister just a few minutes' walk away. https://rlf.org.uk/showcase/wa_episode289/ #LoveLibraries #LibrariesWeek

My stories on Stinging Fly Podcast

I was astonished to discover today that the wonderful Irish writer Cathy Sweeney is reading and discussing two of my short stories on the Stinging Fly literary magazine podcast. What an honour. And Cathy has a great conversation with the Stinging Fly's editor about genre boundaries, as well as reading one of her own fabulous stories. You can listen here if you'd like!

Why I write: A sense of wrongness

I'm over at the RLF's Vox audio podcasts today, with a piece I wrote and recorded for their "Why I Write" series. I had no idea what I was going to say before I started writing the piece - and thinking about it, I realised something I hadn't understood before, that I write out of a sense of wrongness: "For the first forty-four years of my life I’ve always felt in some way or other, myself, wrong. Wrong inside this body. Wrong inside my head. Not a strong wrongness, but a slight vague feeling." You can listen to the rest of my musings on wrongness, rightness and writing here!

Manchester! End of All Things Podcast & Bad Language

I had a wonderful week last week, with 2 visits to Manchester - first to read at the amazing Poets and Players science-themed event, with Jemma Borg and David Morley! Video will be available soon.

After the event, Rob Cutforth whisked me and Jo Bell off to a cafe to interview us for his End of All Things podcast. This is the result (the interview begins about 8 minutes in) and involves much giggling, some talk of Ovid, and, perhaps, bits of usefulness about writing, I will leave that to you to judge!




Then, after a trip to London to talk to a very enthusiastic and delightful group of students and staff at South Bank University, back to Manchester to "headline" (what a nice word) at Bad Language, the live lit event I have been eyeing jealously on Twitter each month, wishing I was nearer.

What a fantastic event Fat Roland and Joe Daly create - do get yourself there! There's an open mic, a mix of poetry and short stories, and one headline act in the middle. I had a brilliant time, here's a picture courtesy of David Gaffney:

So, a very active week for me, from which I am now recovering, as we introverts need to. But so lovely that copies of my poetry chapbook are now out in the world, many ordered through my website and posted by me and others bought at the above events. I've had some wonderful responses already, each one unexpected, some by people I don't know and am probably not related to. Joyous, it is!

Podcast of Bloomsbury Short Story Evening

Just to let you know that you can hear a podcast of the permission-themed short story event I chaired with the wonderful Jon McGregor, Lucy Wood and Eliza Robertson - hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed the evening!

Lydia Davis

I can't tell you how thrilled I was to hear that one of my favourite, favourite writers, Lydia Davis, has won the International Man Booker Prize, given for a body of work rather than one particular book. She is a writer of short and very very short "things" - are they stories, poems? As I said in my Litro blog post - Who the hell cares, really? They're sublime, funny, dark, moving, insightful, memorable.

For a taste of her writing, listen to the excellent James Salter read a story here on the Guardian podcast, I found it immensely moving. And you can read my review of Lydia Davis' Collected Stories on The Short Review. It's a must-read for anyone who loves words, rhythms, wordplay, stories, the dark and light of life.