We had another full house last night at our second Something Rhymed Salon, when we talked about the devaluing of so-called women’s issues. Our speakers fed us a gloriously varied platter of food for the mind, and the conversation continued over madeleines, sparkling water and plenty of wine.
Emily and I were pleased to welcome both men and women to our shindig, and we were particularly happy to hear people comment on the friendly atmosphere created by our fantastic panellists: Arifa Akbar, Sarah LeFanu, Karen Maitland and Michèle Roberts.
Do join us for our third and final salon, next Thursday May 12th at 6.30pm, when we’ll have an equally stellar line-up:
Melanie Abrahams: Founder of Renaissance One – a literary events company committed to diversity in the arts.
At tonight’s Something Rhymed salon, journalist and literary critic, Arifa Akbar, will be sharing a behind-the-scenes glimpse of her experiences as a literary editor and reviewer.
If you would like to join in the conversation, please nab one of the last spots by emailing SomethingRhymed@gmail.com.
The Independent Arts Correspondant Arifa Akbar.
Arifa Akbar is a journalist and literary critic. She is the former literary editor of The Independent, where she worked from October 2001 until April 2016, as a reporter and arts correspondent before joining the books desk in 2009.
She was a judge for the Orwell Prize in 2013, the Fiction Uncovered Prize in 2014, and the British Book Industry Award in 2016.
Arifa has chaired author interviews at the London Literature Festival, Foyles, Asia House and the Bath Literature Festival.
She is a regular newspaper reviewer on Sky News, and reviews books in print and on radio. She studied English Literature at university and then completed a Masters in Gender Studies, specialising in French Feminism and ‘writing the body’.
We are honoured that Michèle Roberts has agreed to speak about the devaluing of so-called ‘women’s issues’ at tomorrow’s Something Rhymed salon.
Female friendship is at the heart of her writing and feminism – something she reflected on with her own literary friend, Sarah LeFanu, in September’s guest post.
Michèle Roberts (left) and Sarah LeFanu (right) at Sissinghurst in 1981.
Michèle Roberts has published over twenty books: novels, poetry, essays, memoir, artist’s books. She is Professor Emeritus at the University of East Anglia, a Chavalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Her latest publication, with Jenny Newman and Sarah LeFanu, is The Lille Diaries. She currently teaches a Guardian Masterclass (mistressclass?) on novel-writing.
We are delighted that Sarah LeFanu has agreed to share her wealth of experience with us at the Arts Council sponsored Something Rhymed salon on May 4th. It will be a particular delight to meet Sarah since we were so captivated by the thoughts on female literary friendship that she explored in her guest post last year.
Sarah LeFanu
Sarah LeFanu was an editor at The Women’s Press for ten years, and was responsible for their ground-breaking feminist science fiction list. She has edited seven anthologies of original stories (including three all-women anthologies), and her books include Rose Macaulay: A Biography and its companion volume, Dreaming of Rose: A Biographer’s Journal. For six years (2003 – 2009) she was Artistic Director of the Bath Literature Festival, where she consistently promoted women writers.
If you would like to join Sarah LeFanu, Karen Maitland, Arifa Akbar and Michele Roberts to discuss the problem of gender inequality in the literary world, do email us at SomethingRhgymed@gmail.com.
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’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 FirstMurder, 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.
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.
Please click on the image below to enlarge the information:
Our 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/rhymed
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.
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.
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 collectionFishing 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
Longstanding readers of Something Rhymed will remember that novelist Maggie Gee wrote a piece back in 2014 about her friendship with poet Salena Godden.
You 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.
Please click on the image below to enlarge:
You will now have the opportunity to meet Maggie in person at Something Rhymed’s literary salon on Thursday April 28th at 
Something Rhymed 