Kategorie Blog

Best of 2019

Liz Mc Skeane’s novel,  Canticle, was my most compelling read of  2019. It immersed me in the struggle between creativity, research and corrupt institutions. Set in Madrid in 1616, in the shadow of the Inquisition,  Canticle (Turas Press ISBN 978-0-9957916-3-3)…

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No Small Talk

NO SMALL TALK is a group of writers who have come together out of concern for the level of division and increasing hostility that has crept into the rhetoric around Brexit. We want to generate links between writers and artists…

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Hireath

When the writer, Louise Kennedy,  referred to Hireath, the Welsh word for longing for home, my friend the poet, Winifred Mc Nulty, challenged me to open up my „Heimat Coffer“ to a wider public. Louise and Winifred were both reading…

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La voix mixte

   La voix mixte, a Berlin Choir, celebrates its 30th anniversary with works from Ernst Pepping, Philip Glass, Sade Bartling among others. The link will also take you to a special composition performed at the launch of my novel Bone…

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all out

„It seems unfair that on a day when everyone is coming out on strike to protest against Climate Change, writers need to be louder, wiser and more articulate than ever. But we do. Speak out on September 20th. Use your…

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Othering

Death threats and attacks on writers for getting it wrong on gender identity or race (see below) is all part of  what Toni Morrison described as „othering“. „Othering“ is about making the “other” less than me. It is choosing to build…

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On borders

Toni Morrison speaks volumes in one paragraph on global migration which connects intimately to me as the territorial border through Ulster threatens to cut through my hybrid Irish-British-European identity.  Encouraged by her words, I claim a cross-border culture of belonging…

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Imperial

@victorinapress launched a Spanish translation of My Beautiful Imperial, Rhiannon Lewis’s novel, in the Chilean embassy in London last week. It adds an extra dimension to  #diversity in its depiction of how a seafaring Welshman is caught up in the Chilean…

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Togo

Insight into Togo in Danielle Maisiano’s  novel Ardent Witness, pub Victorina Press and launched tomorrow.

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