Writing

A.S. Byatt

Celebrated poet, Peter Porter revisits his life in poetry, reading one poem from each of the collections that he has published.

Peter Porter

Mimi Khalvati and Fiona Sampson read selections and discuss their poetry.

Poetry at Kings (Mimi Khalvati & Fiona Sampson)

Margaret Atwood began writing poetry in high school, and the most thrilling moment of her writing career was the publication of her first poem: ‘I mean, all the other things that have happened since then were a thrill, but that was the biggest.’ She has gone on to publish 19 collections of poetry, as well as 14 novels – including 'The Handmaid’s Tale', 'The Blind Assassin' and 'MaddAddam', published last summer. Organised and methodical in writing fiction, she writes poetry ‘in a state of free float’, very often in hotel rooms or on planes. Her poems tend to begin with a cluster of words, around which they form – she has compared the process to ‘dipping a thread into a supersaturated solution to induce crystal formation’ – and sometimes they result in novels. In a conversation with Peter Kemp, Chief Fiction Reviewer of the Sunday Times, Atwood talks about how she believes that poetry and fiction use different parts of the brain, explains how poems can open doors into rooms which novels then enter and explore, and reads from her work.

We are grateful to the Canadian High Commission in the UK for hosting this event at Canada House. We are grateful to the TLS for supporting this event.

Margaret Atwood reads her poetry

(undisclosed number of) years, so I was thrilled to find out he was not only working but also willing to talk to me about it. His latest gig was writing for a new sketch show called "Friends of the People" that will air on Tru TV starting in October. Hugh shares that experience with me as well as what it's been like for him to chase work and find work and then chase work again and find work again and then chase work yet again and find work yet again. He hustles. That's what he does. And, equally as important, he's talented and fun to be around. Hugh's resume varies wildly including stints at "Chocolate News", "Wildnout", "Vibe", "Best Damn Sports Show", and now "Friends of the People" as well as the cartoon "Black Dynamite" on Adult Swim. He's also a great comic and performer who often appears on the show's he writes for including one particularly funny bit he did on "Vibe" called "Shy Tony". We talk about all of this in between almost constant and highly entertaining reminiscing.

Episode 42: Hugh Moore

Funny Girl is the story of a popular 1960s tv comedy series. The writers, Tony and Bill, comedy obsessives, who each harbour a secret. The Oxbridge-educated director, Dennis, who loves his job but hates his marriage. The male star Clive, who feels he's destined for better things. And most of all Sophie Straw, once Barbara Parker,  Miss Blackpool 1964, who's changed her name and abandoned her old life because she just wants to make people laugh, like her heroine Lucille Ball of I Love Lucy fame.

Nick Hornby's new novel is about popular culture, youth and old age, fame, class and teamwork. It offers a wonderfully captivating portrait of youthful exuberance and creativity, and of a period when both were suddenly allowed to flourish.

This title will be available to buy from 6th November 2014. An audiobook edition of this title, read by Emma Fielding is also available to buy on Audible and iTunes.

Nick Hornby Interview

In this edition of the Faber Podcast we talk to Australian novelist and long-time New York resident Peter Carey. His new book Amnesia is the story of a young female hacker - Gaby - whose Angel Worm virus creates havoc in the Australian prison system, and consequently also in the US, making her Public Enemy Number One. This 30-minute interview covers everything from US/Australian relations (especially post-1975 and America's role in the removal of the Gough Whitlam government), new forms of protest, activism and hacking, and those rumours that Carey was asked to ghost-write the Julian Assange story.

Peter Carey: Amnesia

This week on the Penguin Podcast we’ll be exploring how we remember information, things that have happened and even poetry through memory.  

The Penguin Podcast: Memory feat. Colm Toibin, Jeremy Paxman and Fiona Shaw

"I began my literary career with short stories," A.L. Kennedy wrote recently. "I banged together my first anthology … and a publisher actually inflicted it on a waiting world." Since the publication of that first collection in 1990, Kennedy has produced five more – her most recent, All the Rage, published earlier this year – and six novels, including the Costa Prize-winning Day. The Sunday Telegraph has called Kennedy "one of the most brilliant writers of her generation" and her prose has been described in the Observer as “pure, full of tenderness and courage". In conversation with Paula Johnson, who runs the RSL's prizes, Kennedy reads from her work, and explores the craft of the short story. The V.S. Pritchett Memorial Prize is awarded for the best unpublished short story of the year. After the announcement and presentation of the V.S. Pritchett Prize for 2014, the winning entry will be read by its author.

We are grateful to ALCS for supporting this event, to Christopher and Jennie Bland for sponsoring the V.S. Pritchett Memorial Prize, and to Prospect for publishing the winning entry.

A.L. Kennedy on the craft of the short story

Seamus Heaney in conversation with Bernard O'Donoghue about his life and the influences that inform his work , with Nick Laird, Andrew O'Hagan, Jon Stallworthy and Jo Shapcott reading selections of Heaney's work.


A Life in Poetry (Seamus Heaney)

For Alberto Manguel, the internationally-acclaimed Argentine-born Canadian writer and bibliophile, the activity of reading, in its broadest sense, defines us. Here,  Alberto Manguel and Marina Warner explore the crafts of reading and writing, reflect on those 'memory palaces' called libraries, and honour Jorges Luis Borges.


Reading the Universe (Alberto Manguel)

A.S. Byatt, Colin Thubron, Helen Simpson and Ben Okri consider four very different aspects of love: love as enchantment, and love as madness; passion in youth, and compassion in old age. They read their favourite passages on love both from their own work, and from the work of other, discussing Shakespeare's notion that 'The lunatic, the lover and the poet are of imagination all compact'.


Speaking of Love (A.S. Byatt, C. Thubron, H. Simpson, B. Okri)

Sebastian Faulks talks to Jane Thynne about how a novelist can keep learning new skills, the all-important narrative ‘voice’, his novel in progress, and the challenge of simply ‘being’ other people.

Hearing voices (Sebastian Faulks)

It's 1803, and Darcy and Elizabeth have been blissfully married for six years. But a murderer in their midst has other ideas ... 'Death Comes to Pemberley' is a brilliant new 'sequel' to Jane Austen's 'Pride and Prejudice' - but one with a deadly twist. In this extended interview, P. D. James shares her appreciation for Austen, and discusses the challenge of taking such a beloved work of fiction in a wholly unexpected direction ... 
.

P. D. James: Death Comes to Pemberley

Romesh Gunesekera and Michael Morpurgo talk about the influences that lured them into storytelling and ask questions about characters, plots and readership.  Chaired by critic and writer Nicolette Jones.

Who Needs Stories? (Michael Morpurgo, Romesh Gunesekera)

Margaret Atwood and Sir Brian Hoskins discuss their concerns for the planet anf their thoughts on producing and conserving energy in a conversation chaired by Gabrielle Walker.  An event hosted jointly by the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Society.

A Problem Shared (Margaret Atwood, Sir Brian Hoskins)

Lachrymae Rerum: Writing about Loss (D. Abse, A. Jenkins)

Peter Porter, who died in April 2010, has been described as ‘a cultural epoch all to himself’. Four fellow poets – Anthony Thwaite, who knew Porter for over half a century, Fiona Sampson, editor of Poetry Review, and Don Paterson and Sean O’Brien, who edited Porter’s recently published Selected Poems – and Peter Rose celebrate his work.

Writing

Liz Winfield 1