The Irish Government, in partnership with the Arts Council for Ireland, has announced that Jennifer Thorp will be a recipient of the Decade of Centenaries Markievicz Award bursary scheme for artists in 2021.
The award, named in honour of artist Constance de Markievicz provides support for artists from all backgrounds and genres in producing new work that reflects on the role of women in the period covered by the centenary commemorations and beyond.
A full press release can be found here.
Adnan Al-Sayegh and Jenny Lewis will be reading from their ground-breaking dual-language Arabic/English version of part of Al-Sayegh’s astonishing anti-war epic poem ‘Uruk’s Anthem’. Giving voice to the profound despair of the Iraqi experience of recent wars, this superb translation brings the eloquent original Arabic epic to a new readership.
“To see such a significant selection from this major work of world literature in this thrilling translation gives me great pleasure. This fine poet of terror and tenderness has found the translators he deserves.” – Leona Medlin, Mulfran Press, Cardiff
MSt alumna Lani Yamamoto’s Ours and Others has been shortlisted for The Novel Prize 2020, “a new biennial award for a book-length work of literary fiction written in English by published and unpublished writers around the world”. The publishers are Fitzcarraldo Editions, Giramondo and New Directions.
Selected from from close to 1500 submissions worldwide, the six book shortlist includes:
(from the announcement)
“- Lani Yamamoto’s Ours and Others’, a metaphysical mystery of sorts in two parts. In the first, the child of a fallen cult leader tracks an escaped sibling through an endless forest; in the second, the amnesic narrator wakes in a strange, desolate land, and tries to piece together the past. Lani Yamamoto has written and illustrated six children’s books, published in fourteen languages. Her work has been nominated for the Nordic Council Children and Young People’s Literature Prize, the Icelandic Literary Prize for Children’s and YA Books, the Reykjavík Children’s Book Prize, and the Italian Scelte di Classe Award. She holds a BA in psychology from Bryn Mawr College, and master’s degrees in both creative writing and the study of religions from the University of Oxford. from the US, she has lived in Iceland for twenty-five years.
…
The Novel Prize offers $10,000 to the winner in the form of an advance against royalties, and simultaneous publication of their novel in the UK and Ireland by the London-based Fitzcarraldo Editions, in Australia and New Zealand by Sydney publisher Giramondo, and in North America by New York’s New Directions. The judges are looking for novels which explore and expand the possibilities of the form, and are innovative and imaginative in style.
The Novel Prize is managed by the three publishers working in collaboration. Submissions were open from 1 April to 1 July 2020, with Fitzcarraldo Editions reading submissions from Africa and Europe, Giramondo from Asia and Australasia, and New Directions from the Americas. The winner will be announced in February 2021, and published in early 2022.”
MSt tutor Rebecca Abrams’ Jewish Treasures from Oxford Libraries, published in 2020 and co-edited with Cesar Merchan-Hamann, has been long-listed for the 2021 Wingate Literary Prize.
From the Wingate Prize announcement:
“The 2021 Wingate Literary Prize long list explores a diverse range of important themes this year, including the Russian Empire, the Holocaust and climate change.
Now in its 44th year, the annual prize, worth £4,000 and run in association with JW3, is awarded to the best book, fiction or non-fiction, to translate the idea of Jewishness to the general reader…
The Wingate Prize short list will be announced late January and the winner will be announced at the end of February.”
MSt tutors Jenny Lewis & George Szirtes will be reading at Poets & Writers Studio International, organised by Sudeep Sen and Indran Amirthanayagam on Saturday 9 Jan 2021 at 4 pm (GMT)/11 am (EST)/9.30 pm (IST).
Given all the wonderful successes of our alumni, we’ve decided to create a list. This is by no means complete, and we will be updating it as we go along. It’s in alphabetical order (work in progress), by first name, by the way, do use “Find” or “Search” if you are looking for someone or a particular work:
Alexandra Strnad, H Is for Hadeda (Poetry Salzburg 2017)
Pilgrims (Eyewear, 2018)
Annette Pas, The Country Where I Love You (Uitgeverij Vrijdag 2008),
A Strange Intimacy (Prometheus 2013)
Art Allen, The Nurseryman (Kernpunkt Press, 2019)
Bette Adriaanse, Rus Like Everyone Else (Unnamed Press 2015)
Blanka Cechova, Total Balkans (O.S.N. Opravdu Skvělé Nakladatelství – Jaroslav Čech 2017)
Cam Ralphs, Malkin (Emma Press 2015)
Catherine Higgins-Moore, Strange Roof (Finishing Line Press 2017)
Charlotta Larsson, Förvandlerskan (Bokförlaget Forum 2015)
Carlos Llaza, Naturaleza muerta con langosta (Buenos Aires Poetry 2017)
Chris Viner, Lemniscate (Unsolicited Press 2017)
Cressida Peever, The Glass Spider (Lazy Bee Scripts 2016), first performed as part of the Chesil Theatre 10×10 New Writing Festival;
Sex Education – performed at the Edinburgh Fringe 2017
Daisy Johnson, Fen (Vintage 2017),
Everything Under (Jonathan Cape 2018)
Sisters (Penguin 2020)
David Shook Our Obsidian Tongues (Eyewear 2013)
Elena Kaufman, Love Bites (Unbound 2018)
Emma Fenton-Wells,C*mbucket – Scriptspace 2018 finalist and performed at The Space, London. In development for 2021 production.
Populist produced by Part of the Night, 2019 R&D supported by Arts Council England, and 2021 UK tour.
The End of Us – performed at 2020 Two Fest festival at The Space, London.
Frances Macken, The Diary of Natalya Zlota (Frances Macken 2015)
You Have to Make Your Own Fun Around Here (Oneworld, April 2020)
Gry Strømme, Under samme sol(Vigmostad & Bjørke AS 2020)
Hazel Barkworth, Heatstroke (Headline Review 2020)
Humphrey Astley, Alexander the Great: a Folk Operetta three-part album and stage-show (PinDrop/PRSF, 2013-15)
The Gallows-Humored Melody (Albion Beatnik Press, 2016)
Reasons Not to Live There (Sabotage Reviews Recommended Release, 2012),
The One-Sided Coin (Rain Over Bouville, 2018)Humphrey ‘Huck’ Astley –
James Benmore, Dodger (Quercus 2013),
Dodger of the Dials (Quercus 2014),
Dodger of the Revolution (Quercus 2016)
James Ellis, The Wrong Story (Unbound 2017),
Happy Family (Unbound 2020)
James Roderick, The Salesman’s Shoes (Modern English Tanka Press 2007)
Jana Casale, The Girl Who Never Read Noam Chomsky (Knopf 2018)
JC Niala, Contributor to Contemporary Plays by African Women (Unsettled) (Methuen Drama 2019)
Jen Thorp, Librettos: The Schubert Project: Heideröslein, commissioned by Oxford Lieder Festival, Oct 2014;
Four Motets After Bach, commissioned and performed by Armonico Consort, Sept 2015;
Madrigals, commissioned for Rambert Dance Company, Sept 2015;
After Orlando, commissioned and performed by Exultate Singers, Oct 2016;
The Astronomer’s Carol, commissioned and performed by Armonico Consort, Dec 2015;
Under The Surface,
commissioned by the Life Of Breath Project at the University of
Bristol, performed by the Brabant Ensemble & Bristol University
Singers, Nov 2016;
Music, Make: Anthem For St Cecilia,
commissioned for the Festival Of St Cecilia annual event held by the
Musicians Benevolent Fund. Performed by the combined choirs of
Westminster Abbey, St Paul’s Cathedral and Westminster Cathedral Choir,
and performed at Westminster Abbey, Nov 2016;
Annual Official Christmas Carol, commissioned by BBC Music Magazine, Dec 2017;
The Choice,
frame opera libretto commissioned by Vocal Futures, performed at
Britten Theatre, conducted by Suzi Digby, 14-15 October 2016;
Beowulf,
commissioned by Armonico Consort & AC Academy Singers with a score
by Toby Young, performed with soprano Elin Manahan Thomas and harpist
Catrin Finch;
Witch: An Opera, commissioned
by the University of Oxford Faculty of Music, with a score by Toby
Young, performed at the Jacqueline de Pre theatre
Jeremy Hughes Dovetail (Alcemi Press 2011), Wingspan (Cillian Press 2013)
Jing Lee, If I Could Tell You (Marshall Cavendish 2013),
How We Disappeared (Oneworld, 2018)
Jingan Young, Jingan Young, Filth or “Failed in London, Try Hong Kong” ,Hong Kong Arts Festival, March 2014
Foreign Goods (Oberon Books, 2018)
Jonny Flieger, You are Among Monsters (Palimpsest Press 2017)
Katherine MacInnes, Love and Death and Mrs Bill: A Play About Oriana, Wife of Polar Explorer Edward Wilson (Snow Widow 2013)
Oriana: Woman with Iceberg Eyes (History Press 2019)
Kiran Millwood Hargrave, Splitfish (Gatehouse Press, 2014)
The Girl of Ink and Stars (Chicken House 2016),
The Island at the End of Everything (Chicken House 2017),
Orpheus and Eurydice (Bloomsbury 2017),
The Way Past Winter (Chicken House 2018),
The Mercies (Picador 2019),
The Deathless Girls (Orion Childrens’ Books, 2019)
A Secret of Birds and Bone (Chicken House, 2020)
Lani Yamamoto, Stína (V & A Publishing 2015)
Laura Theis, How to Extricate Yourself (Dempsey & Windle 2020)
Lex Coulton, Falling Short (John Murray 2018)
M J Holmes, Heliotrope with Matches and Magnifying Glass (Pindrop Press 2018)
Don’t Tell the Bees (Ad Hoc Fiction, 2020)
Dihedral (Live Canon Press, 2020)
Madiha Bee, The Lightworkers (Pinyon Publishing 2020)
Mariah Whelan, the love i do to you (Eyewear, 2019)
The Rafters are Still Burning (Dancing Girl Press, forthcoming 2021)
Maya Popa, The Bees Have Been Canceled (Southward Press 2017),
You Always Wished the Animals Would Leave (New Michigan Press, 2018)
American Faith (Sarabande, 2019
Michael Collins, The Death of All Things Seen (Head of Zeus, 2016)
Morgan Christie, Variations on a Lobster’s Tale (New Plains Review Publishing Group 2018)
These Bodies (Tolsun press, 2020)
Nabin Chhetri, Bini (Red Mountain Press 2016)
I, Father (forthcoming with Eyewear publishing)
Nemat Sadat, The Carpet Weaver (Penguin India June 2019)
Nick Bruckman, Pufferfish – performed at the Pleasance, April 2016
Pat Toland, Stockholm (Templar Press 2014)
Patrick Cash, The Chemsex Monologues (Play – Bloomsbury 2016)
The HIV Monologues (Play – Bloomsbury 2016)
Anti-Hate Anthology (Editor – Spoken Word London 2019)
‘Cracks’ in The London Magazine (Short story – 2021)
Prajwal Parajuly, The Gurkha’s Daughter (Quercus 2014),
Land Where I Flee (Quercus 2015)
Romola Parish, Crying in the Silicon Wilderness: Meditations on Faith (OxfordFolio 2017)
Rory Gleeson, Rockadoon Shore (John Murray 2017)
Rose Edwards, The Harm Tree (UCLan 2019)
Sabyn Javeri, Nobody Killed Her (HarperCollins India 2017)
Sam Bully-Thomas, Cane (Wundor Editions 2017)
Sam Moore, All my Teachers Died of AIDS (Pilot Press 2020)
Samir Guglani, Histories (Riverrun 2017)
Sabyn Javeri, Hijabistan (Harper India 2019)
Sarvat Hasin, This Wide Night (Penguin Books India 2017),
The Giant Dark (Dialogue Books 2021)
Sophy Roberts, The Lost Pianos of Siberia (Doubleday 2020)
Stephanie Chong, Where Demons Fear to Tread (Harlequin 2011),
The Demoness of Waking Dreams (Harlequin 2012)
Stephanie Scott, What’s Left Of Me Is Yours (Weidenfeld & Nicolson / Doubleday 2020)
Susie Campbell, The Bitters (Dancing Girl Press 2014),
The Frock Enquiry (Annexe 2015)
I return to you (Sampson Low, 2019)
Tenter (Guillemot Press, 2020)
MSt alumnus Nabin Chhetri has been commissioned to write a poem for Stanza, Scotland’s International Poetry Festival. More details at the Stanza site
MSt alumna Laura Theis collecttion “How to Extricate Yourself” has been published by Dempsey & Windle
From the announcement:
“What would it be like to be a writer in residence on the moon? Or to wake up with hair made out of spiders? To move in with a dragon? Or to raise a demon baby by accident? Simultaneously dark and funny, these poems let the reader escape into the realm of the imagination and the fantastical. Unafraid of asking ‘what if…’, the poems’ various speakers and narrative voices try to make sense of their narrowing world and sleepless nights through self-deception and make-believe, spells and incarnations, peeks into the possibilities of other worlds and lives.
Besides being awarded the 2020 Brian Dempsey Memorial Prize, the poems in this collection have won or been shortlisted for the Acumen Poetry Prize, the Geoff Stevens Memorial Poetry Prize, three consecutive Live Canon International Poetry Awards, the Hammond House Award, the Yeovil Prize, the Wirral Poetry Festival Competition, the Blue Nib Chapbook Contest, the Yaffle Prize, the Charroux Prize andthe Oxford Brookes Poetry Prize judged by Jackie Kay.
Praise for ‘how to extricate yourself’:
“How to Extricate Yourselfcombines vivid narrative, seriousness and delight in language that moves easily between wry imaginative energy and resonant pathos. This is a debut collection of admirable wit and invention, and introduces Laura Theis – already a successful fiction writer – as a poet of distinctive new voice.”
– Jane Draycott
“No one else does weird and tender quite like Laura Theis.”
– Kiran Millwood Hargrave
“Grabbed me not just for the overall quality from poem to poem but also from line to line… I could have read these poems all night and still have read some more.”
– Paul McGrane, who selected Laura Theis as the winner of the 2020 Brian Dempsey Memorial Pamphlet Prize
“A witty and playful collection from a gifted poet who blends delicate lyricism with candid confession. An engaging and fresh new voice.”
– Anna Saunders, 2020 Wirral Prize Judge & CEO of Cheltenham Poetry Festival
“In these poems which sing and see from a distance, Laura Theis is in complete control of tone – never forced or rushed, convinced the gentlemen callers will leave having not detected the fire in the grates of the witchy girls…. It is a book of entrances and exits – the astronaut’s wife, a lover on the moon – reports from a world where jellyfish are admirable, space and distance present both in the barely punctuated lines and between partner and partner. These poems are resourceful and magical, tracing infinity ‘the way bees love to eat / honey but also make honey.’“
– Matt Bryden, Judge of the 2020 Charroux Prize
“A sparkling debut…a small treasure box filled with surprising, unusual jewels.”
– Christina Houen, Perfect Words
The book is available directly from the publisher https://www.dempseyandwindle.com/lauratheis.html(or through Waterstones / Amazon )
MSt tutor Ella Hickson has been shortlisted for the Paines Plough inaugural Women’s Prize for Playwriting
MSt tutor Jane Draycott has been made Fellow of The Royal Society of Literature.
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