Tag: gender inequality in the literary world

Louise Doughty to Speak at Final Something Rhymed Salon

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Here at Something Rhymed, we take any opportunity to celebrate female literary friendship. It is therefore with great pleasure that we welcome Louise Doughty, a dear novelist friend of Jill Dawson, to our third and final salon.

Longstanding readers will already know about Jill’s bond with the Australian writer, Kathryn Heyman, because this pair kicked off our guest blog series back in 2014. Similarly, Louise blogged for us with one of her old friends, Jacqui Lofthouse.

We’ll look forward to seeing Jill and Louise together this coming Thursday, May 12th, and to hearing their ideas for achieving greater diversity in the literary world.BWphotoLD

Louise Doughty’s eighth novel, Black Water, will be published on 2nd June.  Her most recent book was the top ten bestseller Apple Tree Yard, published in 2013 by Faber & Faber UK and Farrar Straus & Giroux New York.  It was longlisted for the Guardian Not the Booker Prize, shortlisted for the CWA Steel Dagger Award and the National Book Award Thriller of the Year and is published or being translated into twenty-seven languages worldwide.  A four-part BBC1 adaptation is currently in production with Emily Watson in the lead role.  Doughty’s sixth novel, Whatever You Love, was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award and longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction. She has also won awards for radio drama and short stories, along with publishing one work of non-fiction, A Novel in a Year, based on her popular newspaper column. She is a critic and cultural commentator for UK and international newspapers and broadcasts regularly for the BBC.

You can follow Louise on Twitter: @doughtylouise

Salon Three: Genuine Change 

  • Thursday May 12 th, 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

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.

Sarah LeFanu to Speak at Second Something Rhymed Salon

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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

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.

  • 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.

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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.

 

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.