I was thrilled to ind this in a bookshop in Norwich a few weeks ago. I was taken immediately by the name – not of the subject – but of the author: Lovat Dickson. Lovat ‘Rache’ Dickson, himself a Canadian, was an incredible force in the London publishing world, running a series of literary magazines and reviews before landing at Macmillan in 1938. A larger … Continue reading Absent Friends…
Yes I am still talking about the desk. The more I live with it, the more things I have to say about Storm Jameson’s desk. This thing is less about me and more about the reactions of my friends and colleagues who come to see the desk. They are very telling about certain assumptions that we make about writers from the past, cultural capital and, … Continue reading What’s in a desk?
In March I recorded my Essay for BBC Radio 3 at the Free Thinking Festival at the Sage Gateshead. It was a fantastic weekend and there were so many great Essays and shows to listen to and take part in. It was a great weekend and a great opportunity to catch up with some other New Generation Thinkers. Also a lot of my family and … Continue reading The Essay: The British Writer and the Refugee
‘We Refugees’ by Benjamin Zephaniah I come from a musical place Where they shoot me for my song And my brother has been tortured By my brother in my land. I come from a beautiful place Where they hate my shade of skin They don’t like the way I pray And they ban free poetry. I come from a beautiful place Where girls cannot go … Continue reading Wise Words on National Poetry Day
Yesterday was the anniversary of France, the UK, Australia and New Zealand declaring war on Germany and the beginning of World War Two. I’ve been looking back at what British people were getting up to during this period, and in particular what and how much they were reading. Seeing what people were reading and how people thought about reading and books at different points in … Continue reading 3rd September 1939
I did a wee interview with the AHRC about how I got into research, my time as a news reporter and, most importantly, about my latest project on British writers and refugees. Continue reading AHRC Interview
You can now listen to all of the NGTs on stage at Hay. Obviously I’m talking about Storm Jameson’s desk and my new project but there are a range of topics discussed by my fellow NGTs, from Strindberg to sausages, barbers to Biafra. Continue reading Hay Festival 2016
I recently recorded a short piece for Radio Three about Storm Jameson as part of my New Generation Thinkers duties. You can listen to it on the BBC website. Continue reading Storm Jameson on Radio Three
I’m currently working on an article on gender and hospitality as part of my larger project on how British writers helped refugee writers from Europe during World War Two. In the course of this work, I am starting to explore the relationships between writers such as Rebecca West, H.G. Wells, J.B. Priestley and Margaret Storm Jameson and writers and translators living in exile in the … Continue reading Hosting the Refugee
As I am now installed in my new house – with Jameson’s desk in pride of place in my office – I’ve finally been able to start to think about why I made this purchase and how it’s influenced my own work. It’s rather lovely to sit here typing at it, looking out the window as she must have – albeit at a more salubrious … Continue reading Objects and Memory
