Author: emmaclairesweeney

Writer and lecturer.

Karen Maitland to Speak at Second Something Rhymed Salon

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We are delighted to welcome bestselling author Karen Maitland to the second Something Rhymed salon on Wednesday May 4th.

If you’d like to talk with her about the devaluing of books that explore so-called women’s issues, please book your free ticket via SomethingRhymed@gmail.com.

Karen Maitland
Karen Maitland

Karen Maitland’s medieval thrillers explore the extraordinary lives of ordinary women who have been written out of history. Her historical novels include The Owl Killers –  a novel about the beguinages, the medieval cities of women – Company of Liars, The Gallows Curse, Falcons of Fire & Ice, The Vanishing Witch and The Raven’s Head. She is published by Headline UK, Penguin UK and Random House USA.

Karen is also one of six historical crime writers – Philip Gooden, Susannah Gregory, Michael Jecks, Bernard Knight and Ian Morson – together known as the Medieval Murderers. Karen has written five historical crime novels with the group—The Sacred Stone, Hill of Bones, The First Murder, The False Virgin and The Deadliest Sin, published by Simon & Schuster.

Her first novel, The White Room, was short listed for The Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award. In 2008, Company of Liars was shortlisted for the Macavity Award USA, for Best Historical Mystery. The Owl Killers was shortlisted for the Shirley Jackson Award USA, in 2009, and in 2015 Karen won the Prix du Balai d’or for her novel La Malédiction du Norfolk (The Gallows Curse). French translation published by Sonatine.

Karen has doctorate in Psycholinguistics. She is a member of the Crime Writers Association, International Thriller Writers, the Historical Novelist Association and the Society of Authors. She is also one of The History Girls bloggers and her history blog appears on their website on the 8th of each month.

  • Salon Two: So-called Women’s Issues 
  • Wednesday May 4th, 6.30pm-9.00pm 
  • New York University in London, 6 Bedford Square (Gower/Bloomsbury Street side), WC1B 3RA
  • Nearest tube: Tottenham Court Road. Holborn, Russell Square, Goodge Street and Warren Street are also close by.
  • Disabled access and facilities. Please do let us know if you have any access needs.

Our friends at Naked Wines have kindly provided the wines for our salon series, and they are even offering a discount especially for our readers.
Our friends at Naked Wines have kindly provided the wines for our salon series, and they are even offering a discount especially for our readers.

So-called Women’s Issues

Published on by emmaclairesweeney1 Comment

The first Something Rhymed salon was full of informed discussion and spirited debate, all washed down with great wine and plentiful supplies of madeleines. Guests came alone or accompanied by old friends, and plenty a new friendship was forged.   

Our panellists gave candid accounts of their thoughts on the latest VIDA count, which shows the continuing lack of gender parity across the literary pages. And they provided us with behind-the-scenes glimpses of the gender issues they’ve confronted during their careers in the media and publishing.

We will keep track of the suggestions for accelerating change that crop up during this salon series, and we’ll post a list on the site. If you have any ideas, please do share them by using the comments facility and we’ll make sure to include them in our roundup.

Our second salon is fast approaching, and we have an equally stellar line-up of guests. This Wednesday, you can meet journalist and literary critic, Arifa Akbar; biographer and former senior editor at The Women’s Press, Sarah LeFanu; bestselling author, Karen Maitland; and Booker Prize shortlisted novelist, Michèle Roberts.

Tickets are free but must be booked in advance via SomethingRhymed@gmail.com  

Something Rhymed Salon 2 flyer

Please click on the image below to enlarge the information:

Something Rhymed Salon 2 flyer p2Our friends at Naked Wines have kindly provided the wines for our salon series, and they are even offering a discount especially for readers of Something Rhymed: www.nakedwines.com/rhymedwww.nakedwines.com/rhymedSomething Rhymed Salon 2 flyer p3

Michael Caines to Speak at First Something Rhymed Salon

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Introducing the final guest in Thursday’s line up: Michael Caines.

Michael Caines

Michael works at the Times Literary Supplement. He has edited an anthology of plays by eighteenth-century women, and written a book about Shakespeare and the eighteenth century. He is currently working on a very short book about the failings of literary prizes. Perhaps he’ll reveal more on Thursday!

Something Rhymed is keen to include both men and women in the conversation about gender equality, and, in order for the salons to be more than just talking shops, it’s crucial that we have panellists who have associations with some of the publications that appear to come out poorly from the VIDA survey.

Emily Midorikawa will be hosting this salon at New York University London, and I will be chairing the discussion between Michael Caines, Maggie Gee, Harriett Gilbert and Salena Godden.

Please join them and us this Thursday for drinks, snacks and fruitful conversation.

  • Salon One:VIDA Count 
  • Thursday April 28th, 6.30pm-9.00pm 
  • New York University in London, 6 Bedford Square (Gower/Bloomsbury Street side), WC1B 3RA
  • Nearest tube: Tottenham Court Road. Holborn, Russell Square, Goodge Street and Warren Street are also close by.
  • Disabled access and facilities. Please do let us know if you have any access needs.

RSVP: SomethingRhymed@gmail.com

 

 

Salena Godden to Speak at First Something Rhymed Salon

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In the spirit of Something Rhymed, Salena Godden will be joining her literary friend, Maggie Gee, at our first salon. The pair will be discussing the latest VIDA count, which reveals major imbalances at premiere publications.

Please do join them and us on Thursday April 28th at New York University London, 6.30pm. To get your name on the guest list, please email SomethingRhymed@gmail.com.

Salena Godden

Salena Godden is one of Britain’s foremost spoken word artists and poets. A regular performer at literary festivals in a career that is now entering its third decade, Salena tops the bill at literary events both nationally and internationally.

She’s appeared as a guest and writer for many BBC Radio programmes including The Verb, Saturday Live, Loose Ends and Fact To Fiction and she has written and presented several arts documentaries and a play for the BBC too. Burning Eye Books published her first full collection Fishing In The Aftermath: Poems 1994 – 2014, marking twenty years of poetry and performance, with the majority of the work included previously unpublished in book form. Her literary childhood memoir Springfield Road was successfully crowd funded and published with Unbound Books in 2014.

Widely recognised as a trailblazer for fellow performers, Salena has also dedicated herself to mentoring newcomers to the scene. Her voice is distinctive and unique, her performances are electrifying, hilarious, intensely powerful and full of warmth.

New Book News

• Various poems by Salena Godden will be published in ‘Untitled Two‘ The Neu Reekie anthology. Published by Polygon Books and Neu Reekie, publication date, May 1st 2016

• Short Story ‘The Camden Blood Thieves’ by Salena Godden will be published in The Unreliable Guide to London – a collection of London short fiction, published with Influx Press, launched July 18th 2016

• Commissioned essay ‘Shade’ by Salena Godden will be included in ‘The Good Immigrant’ / Twenty-one authors writing about what it means to be BAME in the UK in 2016, edited by Nikesh Shukla, published by Unbound Books and released September 22nd 2016

Press Quotes

‘Salena Godden is a powerhouse.’ Sabotage Reviews

‘Godden writes about a past that is at once deeply personal yet also belongs to the everyman figure; her descriptions of childhood are timeless.’ The Literateur

‘Her writing is urgent and detailed, colourful and clamorous. Like all love stories, her memoir is intense and intimate.’ The Times

“Salena Godden is an absolute master of, knowing your assumptions, playing to them, and then flipping them completely.” Write Out Loud

“Salena Godden follows up her recent poetry anthology with a lyrical and witty memoir painting a portrait of the artist as a young girl. Springfield Road tells the wide-eyed tale of Godden’s childhood as the daughter of a jazz musician and a go-go dancer set against the lovingly rendered backdrop of 1970s Hastings. Springfield Road’s prose wavers effortlessly throughout, from tender poignancy to raw, gritty realism and this lovely book serves to remind us that however much the world has changed in the last forty years, in many ways it is still exactly the same.” Loud and Quiet Magazine

  • Salon One:VIDA Count 
  • Thursday April 28th, 6.30pm-9.00pm 
  • New York University in London, 6 Bedford Square (Gower/Bloomsbury Street side), WC1B 3RA
  • Nearest tube: Tottenham Court Road. Holborn, Russell Square, Goodge Street and Warren Street are also close by.
  • Disabled access and facilities. Please do let us know if you have any access needs.

RSVP: SomethingRhymed@gmail.com

Salena will be joining Maggie Gee, Harriett Gilbert and one final panellist, whom we will introduce tomorrow.

 

Maggie Gee to Speak at First Something Rhymed Salon

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Longstanding readers of Something Rhymed will remember that novelist Maggie Gee wrote a piece back in 2014 about her friendship with poet Salena Godden.

imageYou will now have the opportunity to meet Maggie in person at Something Rhymed’s literary salon on Thursday April 28th at New York University London, 6.30pm.

Along with Harriett Gilbert, Maggie will be discussing the problem of gender inequality in the literary world. Together with input from the audience, our speakers hope to come up with some positive solutions.

Maggie has written twelve novels, including The White Family, shortlisted for the Orange Prize and the International Impac Prize, The Ice People (revised edition 2008), and two linked satires about Britain and Uganda, My Cleaner and My Driver (2009), which were called ‘worldly, witty, enjoyable, impressive’ by Doris Lessing. She has also written an acclaimed writer’s memoir, My Animal Life, 2010, (‘exceptionally interesting and brave…a wonderful book”, Claire Tomalin) and a collection of short stories, The Blue.

Maggie is Vice-President of the UK’s Royal Society of Literature and was its first female Chair of Council, 2004-2008. Her books have been translated into 13 languages including Chinese, and she is Professor of Creative Writing at Bath Spa University. Though her themes include war, ecological catastrophe, global warming and racism, her books are always funny as well as serious.
In 2012 there was an international conference about her work at St Andrew’s University.

Maggie Gee’s latest novel, Virginia Woolf in Manhattan, is a comedy that brings Virginia Woolf back to life in the 21st century in Manhattan and Istanbul.

  • Salon One: VIDA Count 
  • Thursday April 28th, 6.30pm-9.00pm 
  • New York University in London, 6 Bedford Square (Gower/Bloomsbury Street side), WC1B 3RA
  • Nearest tube: Tottenham Court Road. Holborn, Russell Square, Goodge Street and Warren Street are also close by.
  • Disabled access and facilities. Please do let us know if you have any access needs.

RSVP: SomethingRhymed@gmail.com

Maggie will be joining Harriett Gilbert on a panel of four writers and industry professionals whom we’ll introduce over the next few days.

Harriett Gilbert to Speak at First Something Rhymed Salon

Published on by emmaclairesweeney1 Comment

We are delighted to welcome Harriett Gilbert to Something Rhymed’s first literary salon on Thursday April 28th at New York University London, 6.30pm.

The salons are aimed at writers, reviewers, bloggers, editors, journalists, agents and others who work in the literary industries or who are simply interested in this topic.

You are invited! Come alone, or, in the spirit of SomethingRhymed.com, you might want to invite a literary friend. Either way, please do join us for drinks and fruitful conversation. To get your name on the guest list, please email SomethingRhymed@gmail.com.

 

Harriett Gilbert

Harriett Gilbert presents A Good Read on Radio 4 and World Book Club on the BBC World Service.

She began writing fiction in her twenties, when she was not long out of drama college and had just been touring the primary schools of England with an adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories; she played the Mother Elephant. It was winter; the only job on offer was a small part in an Agatha Christie one-acter, for no pay. She owned an Olivetti portable. Authorship suddenly seemed attractive.

Since then, she’s published six novels, including Hotels with Empty Rooms and The Riding Mistress. In 2004 she founded the MA in Creative Writing (Novels) at City University London, and was course director for four years.

For many years Harriett also worked for the press, reviewing and writing about books and authors for Time Out magazine before becoming literary editor of the New Statesman. She’s published non-fiction books on journalism, feminism and sexuality.

Since the early 1990s she’s presented arts programmes for the BBC, including interviewing a wide range of authors: from Toni Morrison to Marian Keyes, Doris Lessing to Malorie Blackman, Arundhati Roy to PD James

  • Salon One: VIDA Count 
  • Thursday April 28th, 6.30pm-9.00pm 
  • New York University in London, 6 Bedford Square (Gower/Bloomsbury Street side), WC1B 3RA
  • Nearest tube: Tottenham Court Road. Holborn, Russell Square, Goodge Street and Warren Street are also close by.
  • Disabled access and facilities. Please do let us know if you have any access needs.

RSVP: SomethingRhymed@gmail.com

Harriett will be joining a panel of other writers and industry professionals whom we’ll introduce over the next few days.

 

 

Something Rhymed Salon Series

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We are delighted to announce that we have each been awarded a Grants for the Arts from Arts Council England.

Something Rhymed Salon flyer

Part of this grant will fund a series of salons where writers and industry professionals will discuss the problem of gender inequality in the literary world, and come up with positive solutions.

Please click on the image below to enlarge the information:

Something Rhymed Salon flyer p2

Whatever your gender, you are invited! Come alone, or, in the spirit of Something Rhymed, you might want to invite a literary friend. Either way, please do join us for drinks and fruitful conversation. We’ll look forward to seeing you at one or more of our Something Rhymed salons.

Something Rhymed Salon flyer p3

 

JANE EYRE: Radical or Reactionary?

Published on by emmaclairesweeney4 Comments

We decided to celebrate the bicentenary of Charlotte Brontë’s birth by talking about Jane Eyre – a novel that caused great scandal when it was first published in 1847 but that elicited a very different response from Brontë’s school friend and fellow writer, Mary Taylor…

Jane Austen’s Admiration for Maria Edgeworth

Published on by emmaclairesweeney3 Comments

This month, we’ve really enjoyed reading and discussing The Absentee by Maria Edgeworth. Neither of us had read the Anglo-Irish writer before, but we’d long heard of her as an influence on Jane Austen. This is particularly interesting since Edgeworth held progressive views for her time, her novels exploring issues such as inter-racial relationships, feminism and same-sex desire.

‘The authoress of Pride and Prejudice has been so good as to send me a new novel just published, Emma’
‘The authoress of Pride and Prejudice has been so good as to send me a new novel just published, Emma’
Jane Austen
Jane Austen greatly admired the novels of Maria Edgeworth. Both these images are in the public domain.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Austen singled out for praise one of Edgeworth’s most controversial books, Belinda, in her own novel, Northanger Abbey:

“And what are you reading, Miss –?” “Oh! it is only a novel!” replies the young lady, while she lays down her book with affected indifference, or momentary shame. “It is only Cecilia, or Camilla, or Belinda”; or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language.”

Austen so prized her fellow novelist’s good opinion that in 1816 she asked her publisher to send a precious presentation copy of Emma to Edgeworth in Ireland.

You might remember that a presentation copy of Emma cropped up in our post on Austen’s radical bond with the family governess and amateur playwright, Anne Sharp. Just as Sharp was the only friend whom Austen singled out to receive these rare volumes, so Edgeworth appears to have been the only professional author.

Maria Edgeworth's presentation copies of Emma, sent to her by Jane Austen
Maria Edgeworth’s presentation copies of Emma, sent to her by Jane Austen. This image is used with permission from Sotheby’s.
Anne Sharp's presentation copies of Emma, sent to her by Jane Austen. This image is used with permission from Bonham's.
Anne Sharp’s presentation copies of Emma, sent to her by Jane Austen. This image is used with permission from Bonham’s.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In our recorded conversation, we talk about Edgeworth’s and Sharp’s wildly different responses to Austen’s gift and their respective reactions to the novel itself. We also share our reasons for believing that Edgeworth’s The Absentee played a crucial and illuminating role in the unlikely friendship between Austen and Sharp.