| Mareel | 01595 745500 | www.shetlandarts.org
GUIDE
Welcome
p3
One Button Benny with Alan Windram
p4
Writers’ Night
P5
Big Bookbug with Alan Windram
p6
Jennifer Lucy Allan & Donald S Murray
p8-9
Jen Hadfield & Christine de Luca
p10-11
Workshops
p12-13, p16, p19, p22-23, p25
Schedule
p14-15
Films
p17, p24
Mary Paulson-Ellis: Emily Noble’s Disgrace
p20
Gavin Francis: Intensive Care
p21
Cal Flyn: Islands of Abandonment
p26
Damian Barr: You Will Be Safe Here
p27
Events for young people at this year’s Wordplay were curated by Chloe Tallack, Young People’s Librarian at Shetland Library.
FESTIVAL CARDS WORDCARD - priority booking and entry into all Wordplay events for only £44 (or £24 for students). SCREENCARD - priority booking and entry into all Screenplay screenings for only £55 (or £30 for students). Immerse yourself in the festival experience with a FESTIVAL CARD, all of Screenplay and Wordplay for only £90 (or £45 for students).
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For many people, young and old, reading has been one of the ways these months have been made more bearable, less fearful. Reading has offered entertainment, education, escape. It has been a way to feel engaged with what is happening in the world, and also to be distracted from it. Both, at different times, have felt essential to me. One of the many events that could not take place in 2020 was Wordplay. This was a big disappointment to me, having been involved in planning the festival, just as it was to those who were looking forward to attending. I am absolutely delighted therefore that, this year, we’ve been able to ensure that Wordplay can once again go ahead. Audiences in Shetland will have the opportunity to hear from, to speak to, and to learn from, some of the very best contemporary writers. Those writers include Gavin Francis, who, in Intensive Care, has written about his work as a GP during the pandemic, seeing first-hand the impact that Covid-19 has had on individuals and on communities. Cal Flyn, meanwhile, in her superb book Islands of Abandonment, has illuminated both the damage that human beings do to their places, and the extraordinary ways in which nature can heal and restore itself. For lovers of fiction, we have Mary Paulson-Ellis, whose ‘detective stories without a detective’ have made her a Times bestseller. She’ll be introducing her brand new novel, Emily Noble’s Disgrace. I’m also
thrilled to welcome Damian Barr, host of the BBC’s Big Scottish Book Club, whose most recent book, the acclaimed and award-winning You Will Be Safe Here, is set in South Africa, early in the twentieth and the twenty-first centuries. It’s a delight, this year, to be able bring together the poets Jen Hadfield and Christine de Luca, to share from and talk about their new collections, The Stone Age and Veeve. It’s also very exciting to feature Jennifer Lucy Allan (The Foghorn’s Lament), on the allure (and the music) of foghorns, and Donald S Murray (For the Safety of All), on the incredible history of Scottish lighthouses.
WELCOME
The past eighteen months have, for most of us, been among the strangest times through which we have ever lived. Things that were once taken for granted — the opportunity to travel, to see friends and family, to attend events — have been restricted or prohibited. More time than ever has been spent at home.
In addition to all of these, Wordplay will also include four workshops: one each on fiction, non-fiction, poetry and book illustration. These will be led by authors Mary Paulson-Ellis and Cal Flyn, by Alycia Pirmohamed, winner of the 2020 Edwin Morgan Poetry Award, and by Kathryn Briggs, illustrator of Val McDermid’s most recent book, Resistance. The pandemic is not yet over, of course, and this year’s festival has been simplified and somewhat slimmed-down in order to accommodate for the uncertainties we still are facing. Like many book festivals this autumn, we’re offering both in-person and online events, making Wordplay 2021 as widely accessible as possible. I’m so pleased to have had the chance to curate this programme, and I hope that readers from across Shetland will find something here to interest and excite them.
Malachy Tallack Wordplay programme curator Malachy Tallack is the author of three books, most recently a novel, set in Shetland, The Valley at the Centre of the World. www.shetlandarts.org
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SCHOOLS / OUTREACH
One Button Benny with Alan Windram Benny is different, Benny is special, Benny is a Robot. Benny has a big red button in the middle of his tummy with the words ‘Only Press In An Emergency’ on it. Benny has never pressed his button but one day something happens and he has to press it. Alan Windram leads this highly interactive picture book event for lower primary pupils with singalong songs, song writing, storytelling, visuals describing how illustrator Chloe Holwill-Hunter created Benny and his world. There will definitely be some ‘robot dancing’ too.
Shetland Arts would like to thank the Shetland Islands Council, Scottish Book Trust & Shetland Library for their support of the Wordplay outreach programme.
One Button Benny won the Bookbug Picture Book Prize 2019.
Shetland Islands Council
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01595 745500
A celebration of words from the Northern Isles In this very special event, we’ll be announcing the results of the 2021 Shetland Library Young Writer Awards, and hearing work from the winners in each of the categories.
THURSDAY 16 SEPTEMBER
Writers’ Night:
The evening will feature poetry and stories from some of Shetland’s finest writers, as well as a tribute to George Mackay Brown, whose centenary year this is, and whose work has been an inspiration to writers and readers in the Northern Isles and beyond. This event is hosted by Malachy Tallack.
Thu 19.00 Mareel
£5
www.shetlandarts.org
5
FRIDAY 17 SEPTEMBER
Big Bookbug with Alan Windram Join award-winning author Alan Windram for some fantastic robot picture book fun in this highly interactive family event for under 5s. There will be stories, singing and some ‘robot dancing’ as Alan reads One Button Benny’s brand new adventure, One Button Benny and the Gigantic Catastrophe. Can Benny save the day? Will he have to press his ‘Emergency Button’ again? Join in the fun to find out.
Alan Windram Alan Windram is an award-winning author of the hugely popular Mac and Bob series of picture books. Over the last year Alan has toured his Bookbug Picture Book Prize winning robot picture book One Button Benny around schools, libraries and major book festivals. Alan is an accomplished singersongwriter with four independent albums of original Fri
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10.30 Mareel
01595 745500
Free
songs under his belt. He has toured extensively with some of Scotland’s top musical artists. Alan is also the co-founder of award-winning children’s publisher Little Door Books, he lives in Argyll and Bute with his wife and two cats, Sparkie and George.
www.shetlandarts.org
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FRIDAY 17 SEPTEMBER
Jennifer Lucy Allan & Donald S Murray Jennifer Lucy Allan’s recent book, The Foghorn’s Lament, explores her fascination with the sound and the stories of foghorns, while Donald S Murray details the incredible history of Scottish lighthouses in For the Safety of All. They’ll be discussing these entwined tales with Jen Stout.
The Foghorn’s Lament When Jennifer Lucy Allan hears the foghorn’s colossal bellow for the first time, it marks the beginning of an obsession and a journey deep into the history of a sound that has carved out the identity and the landscape of coastlines around the world, from Scotland to San Francisco.
Fri
8
19.00 Online
01595 745500
£7.50
For the Safety of All Donald S. Murray explores Scotland’s lighthouses through history, storytelling and the voices of the lightkeepers. From ancient beacons to the work of the Stevensons and the Northern Lighthouse Board, and from wartime strife to automation and preservation, the lighthouses stand as a testament to the nation’s innate connection to the sea.
FRIDAY 17 SEPTEMBER
Jennifer
Donald
Lucy Allan
S Murray
Jennifer Lucy Allan is a writer, journalist and broadcaster with a PhD in foghorns. She has been a journalist for over a decade, writing on underground and experimental music for publications including The Guardian, The Quietus, and The Wire, and was previously The Wire’s Online Editor. She is a presenter on BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction, and wrote and presented Life, Death and the Foghorn for BBC Radio 4. She also runs the record labels Arc Light Editions and Good Energy. Her first book, The Foghorn’s Lament, is published by White Rabbit Books.
Donald S Murray is a Gaelic speaking poet, author and occasional dramatist who was raised in Ness, Lewis, and now lives in Shetland. His novel As the Women Lay Dreaming (Saraband) about the Iolaire disaster of 1st January 1919 won the Paul Torday Memorial Prize for 2020 and was shortlisted for many others. His novel, In a Veil of Mist (Saraband) was published in March 2021 and chosen as the Times Historical Book of the Month. His non-fiction book, For the Safety of All – the Story of Scotland’s Lighthouses (HES) appeared in July 2021.
www.shetlandarts.org
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FRIDAY 17 SEPTEMBER
Jen Hadfield & Christine de Luca Two of Shetland’s best-known and best-loved poets will be in conversation with Jim Mainland at this event, introducing their new collections. Christine de Luca’s Veeve features a rich mix of poems in English and Shetlandic; Jen Hadfield’s The Stone Age focuses on landscape and language, and the diverse ways in which we see and experience the world.
The Stone Age Jen Hadfield’s new collection is an astonished beholding of the wild landscape of her Shetland home, a tale of hard-won speech, and the balm of the silence it rides upon.
Fri
10
20.30 Online
01595 745500
£7.50
Veeve This is Christine de Luca’s first full collection for some years, and has been hailed by Tom Pow as “alive with outward-looking, generous poems”.
FRIDAY 17 SEPTEMBER
Jen
Christine
Hadfield
De Luca
Jen Hadfield’s fourth poetry collection The Stone Age explores neurodiversity and was published by Picador in March 2021. She is also working on a collection of essays about Shetland, where she lives. Passionately involved with the wild world, she uses poetry, lyrical essay and occasionally sculpture in cast porcelain, to try and share her intense experience of the here-and-now. Her work has garnered numerous awards, including the 2008 T.S.Eliot Prize for her second collection, Nigh-No-Place, (Bloodaxe). She has performed her work internationally, attending festivals and residencies in – amongst other countries - Iraq, New Zealand and Canada. She is a Creative Writing Teaching Fellow at Glasgow University and is building a house in Shetland, very slowly.
Christine De Luca (nee Pearson) was born and brought up in Shetland, spending her formative years in Waas (Walls) on the west side of the mainland. She now lives in Edinburgh. She writes in English and in Shetland dialect which is a blend of Old Scots with much Norse influence. Shetland dialect - or “Shetlandic” - is a lively mother tongue, still vibrant and enjoyed both for its onomatopoeic quality and its classlessness. Her main interest is poetry, but she is also active in promoting work with Shetland children and has written dialect stories for a range of age-groups. In addition to this, her first novel, And then forever was published in 2011. She was appointed Edinburgh’s poet laureate (Makar) for a three year period, between 2014 and 2017.
www.shetlandarts.org
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SATURDAY 18 SEPTEMBER
Cal Flyn: Non-Fiction Workshop In this workshop, Cal Flyn will show what’s involved in writing informative and gripping long-form journalism, helping you develop the skills you need to tell non-fiction stories with flair.
Cal Flyn Cal Flyn is an award-winning writer from the Highlands of Scotland. She writes literary nonfiction and long-form journalism. Her first book, Thicker Than Water, which explored questions of colonialism and intergenerational guilt, was a Times book of the year. Her second book, Islands of Abandonment—about the ecology and psychology of abandoned places—is out now. Cal’s journalistic writing has been published in Granta, The Sunday Times Magazine, Telegraph Magazine, The Economist and others. She is a columnist for Prospect, deputy editor of literary recommendations site Five Books, and a regular contributor to The Guardian. Sat
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11.00 Mareel
01595 745500
£10
Workshop: ages 8-12 Alan Windram demystifies how a book is published - taking children on the journey from a blank page to winning the biggest picture book award in Scotland, based on his award-winning picture book, One Button Benny. During this event Alan shows lots of images on his writing process, how he started out as an author, the process of how the book characters were created by the illustrator, printing processes, publishing, foreign versions of the book, and writing original songs for book events. There will be plenty of question and answer opportunities during the session.
Sat
11.00 Mareel
Alan
SATURDAY 18 SEPTEMBER
Alan Windram: From Inspiration to Publication
Windram Alan Windram is an award-winning author of the hugely popular Mac and Bob series of picture books. Over the last year Alan has toured his Bookbug Picture Book Prize winning robot picture book One Button Benny around schools, libraries and major book festivals. Alan is an accomplished singersongwriter with four independent albums of original songs under his belt. He has toured extensively with some of Scotland’s top musical artists. Alan is also the co-founder of award-winning children’s publisher Little Door Books, he lives in Argyll and Bute with his wife and two cats, Sparkie and George.
£9
www.shetlandarts.org
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SCHEDULE
Monday 13 - Thursday 16 September One Button Benny with Alan Windram Schools Workshops Page 4
Thursday 16 September Writers’ Night: a celebration of words from the Northern Isles 7pm - 8.30pm Mareel £5 Page 5
Friday 17 September Big Bookbug with Alan Windram 10.30am - 11.15am Mareel Free Page 6 Jennifer Lucy Allan & Donald S Murray 7pm - 8pm Online £7.50 Page 8-9 Jen Hadfield & Christine de Luca 8.30pm - 9.30pm Online £7.50 Page 10-11
Shetland Islands Council Shetland Arts would like to thank Creative Scotland, Shetland Charitable Trust, Shetland Islands Council, Scottish Book Trust & Shetland Library for their support of Wordplay 2021.
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Workshop: Cal Flyn: Non-Fiction 11am - 12.30pm Mareel £10 Page 12 Workshop: Alan Windram: From Inspiration to Publication - ages 8-12 11am - 12.30pm Mareel £9 Page 13 Workshop: Creating Graphic Novels - Young Adult (14+) 12pm - 1.30pm Mareel £9 Page 16 FILM: Lady Boss: The Jackie Collins Story 2pm - 3.57pm Mareel £10/£7.50/£5.50(-16) Page 17 Workshop: Kathryn Briggs: Illustration 4pm - 5.30pm Online £10 Page 19 Mary Paulson-Ellis: Emily Noble’s Disgrace 6.30pm - 7.30pm Mareel £10/£8 Page 20 Gavin Francis: Intensive Care 8.30pm - 9.30pm Mareel £10/£8 Page 21
SCHEDULE
Saturday 18 September
Sunday 19 September Workshop: Creating Graphic Novels - ages 12-14 10.30am - 12pm Mareel £9 Page 22 Workshop: Mary Paulson-Ellis: Fiction 12pm - 1.30pm Mareel £10 Page 23 FILM: IORRAM: Boat Song 2pm - 4.26pm Mareel £10/£7.50/£5.50(-16) Page 24 Workshop: Alycia Pirmohamed: Poetry 4pm - 5.30pm Online £10 Page 25 Cal Flyn: Islands of Abandonment 6.30pm - 7.30pm Mareel £10/£8 Page 26 Damian Barr: You Will Be Safe Here 8.30pm - 9.30pm Mareel £10/£8 Page 27
Tickets can be booked online at shetlandarts.org, or by calling the Box Office on 01595 745500 (Wednesday to Sunday, 10am – 10pm). All Shetland Arts events are held in accordance with current COVID guidance.
www.shetlandarts.org
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SATURDAY 18 SEPTEMBER
Creating Graphic Novels Workshop Young Adult (14+) Join award-winning duo Metaphrog (Sandra Marrs and John Chalmers) in an exciting comic workshop. Learn how John and Sandra created their fairy tale graphic novels, learn how to create characters, how graphic novels work, and ask them questions about making comics! There will be drawing and lots of fun! Metaphrog are Franco-Scottish duo Sandra Marrs and John Chalmers. They make graphic novels inspired by fairy tales and are winners of the Sunday Herald Scottish Culture Awards Best Visual Artist 2016 and the Excelsior Award Junior 2018. They have received multiple Eisner Award nominations, critical acclaim and have appeared at many international festivals. Their latest graphic novels are The Red Shoes and Other Tales, The Little Mermaid, and Bluebeard, all published by Papercutz with support from Creative Scotland. They live in Glasgow. Sat
16
12.00 Mareel
01595 745500
£9
1h57 A fabulous, hilarious and deeply moving journey through the extraordinary life and work of Jackie Collins.
SATURDAY 18 SEPTEMBER
FILM Lady Boss: The Jackie Collins Story
Spinning together fact and fiction, this compelling film tells the untold story of the trailblazing author and her mission to build a one-woman literary empire. Narrated by a cast of Jackie’s closest friends and family, the film reveals the private struggles of a woman who became an icon of 1980s feminism whilst hiding her personal vulnerability behind a carefully crafted, powerful, public persona.
Sat
14.00
Mareel
£10/£7.50/£5.50(-16)
www.shetlandarts.org
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18
01595 745500
SATURDAY 18 SEPTEMBER
Kathryn Briggs: Illustration Online Workshop Kathryn Briggs is a graphic artist and educator, whose most recent project was a comic adaptation of Val McDermid’s Resistance. In this practical workshop, she’ll explain the process of illustrating books for publication. Learn about Kathryn’s process for translating written words into powerful visuals; from comics to tarot, how does an artist pack all that information into a single piece of art? Participants are invited to draw along, or just listen and watch. All you need is a pencil, and eraser, and a few sheets of paper to join in; no previous art experience required!
Kathryn Briggs Kathryn Briggs is an internationally recognized, award-winning graphic novelist and arts educator. Her recent publications include Resistance, the first comic adaptation of Val McDermid’s work, and The New Chapter Tarot, a wholly original tarot deck. She is currently a teaching artist for Fleisher Art Memorial and Spiral Q in Philadelphia. Sat
16.00 Online
£10
www.shetlandarts.org
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SATURDAY 18 SEPTEMBER
Mary Paulson-Ellis: Emily Noble’s Disgrace Emily Noble’s Disgrace is the third novel by Mary Paulson-Ellis, each of which has delved into the mysterious world of those who die without a next-of-kin. She’ll discuss the book, and her fascination with this subject, with Marsali Taylor.
Mary Paulson-Ellis Mary Paulson-Ellis lives in Edinburgh. Her critically acclaimed debut novel, The Other Mrs Walker was a Times bestseller and Waterstones Scottish Book of the Year. Her second, The Inheritance of Solomon Farthing was long-listed for the McIlvanney Prize for best Scottish crime novel and a Historical Writers Association Gold Crown. Mary has an MLitt in Creative Writing from Glasgow University and her work has featured in the Guardian and on BBC Radio 4. In 2019 Val McDermid named her one of the most compelling LGBTQ+ writers working today. Sat
20
18.30
Mareel
01595 745500
£10/£8
‘Mary Paulson-Ellis is a genius at peeling away the layers and slowly, skilfully putting flesh on the bones of an extraordinary, sinuous story’ - Sarah Hilary, author of Fragile ‘A beautifully written, compelling contemporary gothic novel. Mary Paulson-Ellis strips back the secret and lies hiding within one house with a deft touch.’ - Andrew Wilson, author of I Saw Him Die ‘Totally absorbing, this is a story that will keep you gripped through all its unexpected twists and turns’ - Janice Hadlow, author of The Other Bennet Sister
In Intensive Care, Gavin Francis describes his experience of working as a GP during the Covid-19 pandemic, in Edinburgh and in Orkney. It’s an astonishing story, told with insight and compassion.
SATURDAY 18 SEPTEMBER
Gavin Francis: Intensive Care
Gavin Francis Gavin Francis qualified in medicine from Edinburgh in 1999, then spent ten years travelling, visiting all seven continents. He is the author of six books of non-fiction. True North, Travels in Arctic Europe (2008); Empire Antarctica: Ice, Silence & Emperor Penguins (2012) which was SMIT Scottish Book of the Year 2013 and shortlisted for the Costa, Ondaatje, Banff, & Saltire Prizes; Adventures in Human Being (2015), which won Saltire Non-Fiction Book of the Year 2015, was the Observer’s Science Book of the Year, and was a winner in the BMA Book Awards; and Shapeshifters: Sat
20.30 Mareel
On Medicine & Human Change (2018), which was a book of the year in the Sunday Times and The Scotsman. Island Dreams - Mapping an Obsession (2020) was shortlisted for Waterstones Book of the Year; Intensive Care: a GP, a Community, & Covid-19 was published in January 2021. His books have been translated into 18 languages. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, and a Fellow of the Royal College of General Practitioners. He lives in Edinburgh, where he also works as a GP.
£10/£8
www.shetlandarts.org
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SUNDAY 19 SEPTEMBER
Creating Graphic Novels Workshop ages 12-14 Join award-winning duo Metaphrog (Sandra Marrs and John Chalmers) in an exciting comic workshop! Learn how John and Sandra created their fairy tale graphic novels, learn how to create characters, how graphic novels work, and ask them questions about making comics! There will be drawing and lots of fun! Metaphrog are Franco-Scottish duo Sandra Marrs and John Chalmers. They make graphic novels inspired by fairy tales and are winners of the Sunday Herald Scottish Culture Awards Best Visual Artist 2016 and the Excelsior Award Junior 2018. They have received multiple Eisner Award nominations, critical acclaim and have appeared at many international festivals. Their latest graphic novels are The Red Shoes and Other Tales, The Little Mermaid, and Bluebeard, all published by Papercutz with support from Creative Scotland. They live in Glasgow.
Sun 10.30 Mareel
22
01595 745500
£9
SUNDAY 19 SEPTEMBER
Mary Paulson-Ellis: Fiction Workshop Objects have immense power to help us tell stories. Be it a family photograph or a piece of jewellery lost long ago but never forgotten, they provide an antidote to the blank page. In this fun and interactive writing workshop, led by Mary Paulson-Ellis, participants will use objects to explore questions of plot, character, setting, time and form.
Mary Paulson-Ellis Mary Paulson-Ellis lives in Edinburgh. Her critically acclaimed debut novel, The Other Mrs Walker was a Times bestseller and Waterstones Scottish Book of the Year. Her second, The Inheritance of Solomon Farthing was long-listed for the McIlvanney Prize for best Scottish crime novel and a Historical Writers Association Gold Crown. Mary has an MLitt in Creative Writing from Glasgow University and her work has featured in the Guardian and on BBC Radio 4. In 2019 Val McDermid named her one of the most compelling LGBTQ+ writers working today. Emily Noble’s Disgrace is her third novel.
Sun
12.00
Mareel
£10
www.shetlandarts.org
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SUNDAY 19 SEPTEMBER
FILM IORRAM (Boat Song) 2h26 The first cinema documentary entirely in Scots Gaelic, IORRAM (Boat Song) is a lyrical portrait of the fishing community in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides, past and present. Director Alastair Cole takes the audience on an immersive journey into the heart of a thousandyear-old community, blending observational footage shot over the past three years with archive sound recordings of stories and songs from the mid-20thcentury, set to an original score by acclaimed folk musician Aidan O’Rourke.
Sun
24
14.00
Mareel
01595 745500
£10/£7.50/£5.50(-16)
SUNDAY 19 SEPTEMBER
Alycia Pirmohamed: Poetry Online Workshop
hinge
Alycia Pirmohamed, winner of the 2020 Edwin Morgan Poetry Award, often uses metaphors of landscape and This imaginative pamphlet carefully guides the reader the natural world to distinctive reflectjourney ontowider themes. In this on their own those other-lands created by migration. Alycia Pirmohamed’s poetry, often situated the surreal, uses the workshop, she’ll help inyou explore themetaphor possibilities of of landscape and the natural world to reflect on wider themes of belonging, cultural dissonance, and homeland. ecological and nature poetry. There is a quiet urgency in these poems, engaging with the experience of both the loss, and the discovery of, language and place.
Alycia Pirmohamed Alycia Pirmohamed is the author of the pamphlets Hinge (ignitionpress) and Faces that Fled the Wind (BOAAT Press), and the co-author of Second Memory (Guillemot Press and Baseline Press). Her debut collection, Another Way to Split Water, is forthcoming with YesYes Books and Polygon Books in 2022. She is the co-founder of the Scottish BAME Writers Network and a postdoctoral Creative Writing Fellow at the University of Liverpool, where she is working with the Ledbury Poetry Critics programme. In 2020 Alycia received a Pushcart Prize and won the Edwin Morgan Poetry Award. The poems in Hinge offer a new map for a land where both heartbreak and delight reside, even if, as the speaker notes ‘planting my palms together has never felt like blossoming up the side of a mountain...’ In the elegant build and stretch of Pirmohamed’s poetry, we are given exquisite possibilities for language and a green longing, all while she manages to stack lyricism and light in sonically surprising ways.
alycia pirmohamed
Alycia Pirmohamed is a Canadian poet living and studying in Scotland. Her chapbook Faces that Fled the Wind was selected for the BOAAT Press Chapbook Prize. Other awards include the 92/Y Discovery Poetry Contest, the Ploughshares’ Emerging Writer’s Contest in Poetry, the CBC Poetry Prize and the Gulf Coast Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared in publications internationally, and she has received support from The Royal Society of Literature and Calgary Arts Development via The City of Calgary.
Aimee Nezhukumatathil
£5
Oxford Brookes Poetry Centre www.brookes.ac.uk/ignitionpress
Sun
16.00 Online
hinge alycia pirmohamed
£10
www.shetlandarts.org
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SUNDAY 19 SEPTEMBER
Cal Flyn: Islands of Abandonment What happens to those places that human beings pollute, destroy or just leave behind? In Islands of Abandonment, Cal Flyn visits such places around the world, and discovers stories not only of damage, but of repair and hope. Chaired by Gavin Francis.
Cal Flyn Cal Flyn is an award-winning writer from the Highlands of Scotland. She writes literary nonfiction and long-form journalism. Her first book, Thicker Than Water, explored questions of colonialism and intergenerational guilt, and was a Times book of the year. Her second book, Islands of Abandonment — about the ecology and psychology of abandoned places — is out now.
Sun
26
18.30
Mareel
01595 745500
£10/£8
Cal’s journalistic writing has been published in Granta, The Sunday Times Magazine, The Wall Street Journal and others. She is a columnist for Prospect, deputy editor of literary recommendations site Five Books, and a regular contributor to The Guardian. Cal has been writer-in-residence at Gladstone’s Library and the Jan Michalski Foundation in Switzerland. She was made a MacDowell fellow in 2019.
Damian Barr: You Will Be Safe Here
SUNDAY 19 SEPTEMBER
(c)HoneybunnPhotography
Set in South Africa, in 1901 and 2010, You Will Be Safe Here is a novel about masculinity and violence, both individual and cultural. It is wise, gripping and heartbreaking. Damian Barr will discuss the book in conversation with Malachy Tallack.
Damian Barr Damian Barr is an award-winning writer, broadcaster and journalist. His memoir, Maggie & Me, won Stonewall Writer of the Year and was named Sunday Times Memoir of the Year. His debut novel, You Will Be Safe Here, was shortlisted for six major awards and a named a Book of the Year in the Observer, Irish Times and The Times. He has written columns for The
Sun
20.30 Mareel
Times, Sunday Times and Big Issue and hosted Front Row on BBC Radio 4. Damian brought books back to television with ‘The Big Scottish Book Club’, he also hosts ‘Shelf Isolation’ on the BBC. In 2020 he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and gained his PhD in Creative Writing. He created the Literary Salon in 2008.
£10/£8
www.shetlandarts.org
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| Mareel | 01595 745500 | www.shetlandarts.org
