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Dateline:
10th May, 2005
Debut Authors at the Traverse
The Traverse is hosting the Debut Authors Festival between Friday 3rd
and Sunday 5th June. It will introduce the most exciting new writers
from Britain and beyond, including writers from a range of backgrounds,
ages and styles. It will focus on how the writers chose what to write
about, how they approached it, how they found an agent and got published.
This festival, the theatre says, has something for everyone who enjoys
reading and writing.
The Unpublished Jam Session
7.00 pm on 3rd June : Tickets £6 (£4 concs)
An opportunity to read your unpublished work in front of an expert
panel. Mark Stanton (Literary Agent, Jenny Brown Associates), Alan
Taylor (Literary Editor, Sunday Herald & Editor, Scottish Review
of Books), Bomi Odufunade (Publicity Manager, Faber & Faber) and
Helen Walsh (author of Brass) will judge the winner, who, if
appropriate, will have their entire manuscript read by an agent, and
take home a bottle of whisky.
Each author may read from their work for four minutes; the work,
not the author, must be unpublished. To take part in this event as
an author, please email pru@authortalks.org
to be placed on the running order.
Writing Lives
12 noon on 4th June : Tickets £6 (£4 concs)
The writers taking part in this event have all written in response
to a particular experience or event for their first books. Talking
about how they chose fiction or non-fiction to explore their own lives,
and how cathartic this process might have been, will be:
- Jennie Erdal, whose time as a ghost writer is the basis for her
highly successful autobiography, Ghosting
- Nick Flynn, who has based his devastating memoir, Another Bullshit
Night in Suck City on the life of his down-and-out poet father
- David Nwokedi, who has used his own upbringing to explore family
and identity in his debut fiction Fitzerald’s Wood
- Chris Cleave whose powerful novel Incendiary has concentrated
the effect global terrorism has on a ‘normal’ family living
in London.
Poetry
2 pm on 4th June : Tickets £6 (£4 concs)
Getting your first collection of poetry published is no mean feat.
The standard of these three poets is so high that publishers just
couldn’t afford to ignore them. Discussing their poetry will
be:
- Matthew Hollis, who was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book
Award 2004 for his collection Ground Water
- Jacob Polly, whose collection The Brink was published after
he won the Arts Council England/BBC Radio 4 First Verse Award and
the Eric Gregory Award in 2002
- Choman Hardi, who has recently had her first collection, Life
For Us, published in English, having already been published
in her native Kurdish.
Literary Ambitions
5 pm on 4th June : Tickets £6 (£4 concs)
This panel session will focus on the distinctive literary style of
these three outstanding new writers. Discussing their imaginative
prose and creative storytelling will be:
- Will Napier, acclaimed for his unnerving look at an unusual teenager
in Summer of the Cicada
- Patrick O’Keeffe, whose collection of stories, The Hill
Road, takes an evocative look at rural Ireland
- 2005 Orange Prize shortlisted Diana Evans, whose heartbreaking
story of mixed race twins in 26a is a part fairytale, part
nightmare, about having and losing everything.
A Sense of Place
2 pm on 5th June : Tickets £6 (£4 concs)
For these four writers, a sense of place and belonging has been of
particular relevance. Discussing how they explored their identities
in their books will be:
- Vesna Goldswothy, whose autobiography, Chernobyl Strawberries,
describes her experience of growing up in the former Yugoslavia
and moving to Britain
- Robert Douglas, whose evocative memoir, Night Song of the Last
Tram, is a love letter to Glasgow, the city of his childhood
- Rob Penn, who travelled around Britain to find his inner Celt
in The Sky is Falling on our Heads
- Helen Walsh, whose novel Brass is a brave and powerful
look at a modern young woman living in Liverpool.
Extraordinary Ordinary
4 pm on 5th June : Tickets £6 (£4 concs)
These four fabulous writers have all concentrated on the domestic,
using the family and home as the place where extraordinary and profound,
beautiful and tragic things happen.
Discussing the broad appeal of this setting will be:
- Chris Cleave, who has explored the effect of a terror attack on
London through the eyes of an East London housewife in Incendiary
- Carole Cadwalladre, who has considered nature versus nurture and
the lasting effect of the 1970s in The Family Tree
- Kate Long, who has written an hysterical tale of motherhood over
three generations in The Bad Mother’s Handbook
- Rodge Glass, who has described eight profound days in the life
of an ‘ordinary’ man in his compelling and poignant novel,
No Fireworks.
How to Get Published
6 pm on 5th June : Tickets £6 (£4 concs)
Experts from the publishing world deliver top tips about getting your
work published successfully. Bob McDevitt, publisher at Hodder Headline
Scotland, Jenny Brown who runs the very successful literary agency
Jenny Brown Associates, and Francis Bickmore, an Editor of Canongate
Books, will share their vast knowledge and experience.
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