To mark the first anniversary of Their Majesties’ Coronation, it has been announced Her Majesty The Queen will take on patronage of the Royal Literary Fund from the late Queen Elizabeth II, who was Patron of 492 organisations at the time of her death. Only 376 organisations will be retained by Their Majesties or other…
The first issue of The Review by WritersMosaic & Jhalak is out today. The Review is an editorially independent, 20-page biannual literary journal, produced by and featuring writers of the global majority, available as an insert in The Bookseller, the UK’s main book trade magazine. While its placement in The Bookseller ensures visibility to the…
I shouldn’t be here. No, I didn’t have a near-death experience; it was Glasgow that almost died, bulldozed into oblivion. This large, lovely, light-filled flat stood in the way of progress, or, more precisely, the path of a proposed motorway approach-road. It was the early seventies and the promised land could be glimpsed just across…
Memoirs are as much about what is excluded as what is included. This edition examines how you can evoke the truth in writing memoirs whilst drawing on memories that are sometimes fallible or contested.
Publishing News RLF Fellow Trish Cooke’s new children’s book, The Magic Callaloo, is set to be published by Walker Books on 4th April. Illustrated by Sophie Bass, The Magic Callaloo is based on the fairytale Rapunzel and inspired by stories of enslaved Africans, in a vibrant story of community, magic, love and family. Trish says:…
I’ve always known that I’ve preferred to be outside. To be an outsider – literally, and, specifically, amongst wild places – has been my preferred state so that with every project, I’ve packed my pen and paper, and headed out. This love of the outdoors has always shown itself in my work. Since the beginning…
“There are two ways to lose oneself: by segregation in the particular or by dilution in the ‘universal’.” — Aimé Césaire (Lettre à Maurice Thorez, 1956). In 1977 I was nine when my Dad told me we were going to live in Nigeria. Up until that point, Nigeria was a place my brother and I…
Dreda Say Mitchell is a best-selling and award-winning author appointed an MBE by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth for her services to literature and education work in prisons. She received the CWA’s John Creasey Dagger in 2004, the first time a Black British author has received this honour. She writes across the crime and mystery genre…
Paula Hawkins worked as a journalist for fifteen years before turning to fiction. She is the author of two #1 New York Times bestselling novels, Into The Water and The Girl on The Train. An international #1 bestseller, The Girl on the Train has sold 23 million copies worldwide and has been adapted into a major motion picture. Her third thriller, A Slow Fire Burning,…
This is what I’ve come to believe. No matter how long I live in a country I wasn’t born in, to some extent I will always be on the outside. There is an unspoken language children pick up, and which cannot be learned later in life. The subtle ways a culture operates are absorbed with…
Is it possible to depict dramatically The Holocaust without descending into morbid fascination?
There is a myth about the business of being an author. It goes something like this: “Once upon a time there was a little girl who wanted to be a writer. So she worked very hard, scribbling lots of stories. Years passed and still the little girl, who was now a woman, wrote her stories.…
