Stuff I’m Up To

Monday October 5th, 2009

(Visiting one of the many islands off the coast of Oslo, Norway)

What have I been up to? I went on a British Council Nordic-Baltic tour in September for 11 days visiting 5 countries. I’ve posted about it on this blog (scroll down on home page). I loved the tour and spent a lot of time observing people as I whizzed through so many countries at such speed. The similarities and differences between the countries themselves, and with the UK are so distinctive. This is one of the things I love about travel – how when I return to London I see it afresh. When I got back I looked keenly at the hordes on the concourse at Victoria Station and was stunned at the difference, especially the diversity – not just in terms of race/nationality but the huge variety of shapes and sizes and styles and body languages and postures and attitudes and energies of the people in this city.  I have travelled so much in my life but each time, whether it’s a day away or several months or even, once, a couple of years, when I return to London I am always struck by how I see the city anew – almost as if for the first time.

What else? I’ve recently reviewed Margaret Atwood’s new novel ‘The Flood’ for the Financial Times. (Google it and me and it will appear!). And I recently wrote an essay on the amazing 1959 book ‘Black Like Me’ for the Times (also in a blog post). I get very little time to read books of my choosing and I miss that.

All the stuff I mentioned below is still ongoing: the new ‘Lara’, the novella ‘Hello Mum’, the two editing projects etc. I’m a guest tutor at Goldsmith’s College, London Uni, on the Creative Writing MA and I’m giving readings hither and thither. I really could spend all day keeping up with my emails – seriously – and not get any writing done at all. Every activity generates so much correspondence. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the business of being a writer – the administration. But it has to be. I have to stay on top of everything:  every detail, every file, every email responded to, every eventuality factored in, commitments honored, schedules adhered to, deadlines kept.

Also working on a new novel – more of that when it’s finished!

I have a few readings and events coming up over the next couple of months, including hosting the Wasafiri magazine 25th birthday event at the South Bank Centre on October 30th  - the evening slot with poets. Check out the event on http://www.wasafiri.org.

I’ve also just become a patron of Westminster Befriend A Family, an organisation that works with 750 disadvantaged young people and their families in Westminster. It’s an amazing organisation, now celebrating it’s 20th year. I can’t quite believe I am now a
Patron – mmmnn, very grown up, very grand!

Monday August 10th 2009

I can’t believe I left that old post below on my blog until the eight month of the new year! I completely forgot it to update it.

The best news is that I was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List, June 2009, for ‘being a major voice in the multicultural panorama of British literature’. Blonde Roots was also the winner of the inaugural Orange Prize Youth Panel in July.

What else is happening? Well, my verse novel Lara is published by Bloodaxe Books this October;  I’m working on a new novel (as always!); just finished a novella – more on that in due course; I’m editing a black British issue of Wasafiri international contemporary literature magazine for 2010. My co-editor is poet and editor Karen McCarthy; I’m also co-editing (with poet Daljit Nagra) a poetry anthology of 10 poets – more on that later too.

My autobiographical essay with lots of photos appeared in Contemporary Authors (USA) this Spring. It’s 10,000 words long so quite meaty. If you’re in America it might be worth rooting out through an academic library. I was a visiting tutor at Goldsmith’s College, University of London, last academic year, and will do the same this coming academic year. A couple of international tours are lined up for the Autumn, but mainly I spend a lot of time sitting at my desk immersed in some imaginary world of my own making and forgetting what day it is, what I did last week, what I have planned for next week and barely able to string a coherent sentence together when my husband comes home in the evening.

Bye for now!

Autumn, 2009

The first half of this year was spent writing the additional material for the new LARA (my first verse novel about my family history: England, Nigeria, Brazil), now called LARA: the family is like water. I’ve added my Irish and German ancestry to the book and changed its poetic shape but not its poetic heart. Bloodaxe Books is publishing it next year and I will blog about it then – guaranteeeeed.

Some literary criticism for British newspapers which will appear as and when, as well as an essay for the international literature journal Wasafiri: an essay that mixes memoir/black European history & literature – out this Autumn; and another very long (10,000 words), very autobiographical essay about me, my writing, my childhood for the American literature reference tome Contemporary Authors, out in 2009. I also write a creative writing column for Mslexia writing magazine. (See Mslexia posting.)

I’m currently giving readings from BLONDE ROOTS at various UK venues. Black History Month (October in the UK) is THE month one is most in demand. Hey ho.

Also mulling over ideas for my next book. Endless possibilities, but I’ll probably go back to the original idea…….which is? Wait and see.

(If I could see myself while working I’d look like this most days – a mixture of the pensive and the dazed. Must sit straight or will get dowagers hump.)

I rarely talk about my work-in-progress in public or even in private until it is well underway or even completed. I learnt this the hard way and then I read somewhere that the simple act of talking about what you’re working on either almost convinces you that you’ve already written it, or it takes the energy out of your creativity. It make sense. How many times have I heard people tell me sooo enthusiastically about their as yet unwritten works, sometimes in great detail? Wind. Air. Never materialized. Blah, blah.

And anyway, ideas have to be protected…

I sit on committees too. It’s important to represent. Current: sit on the Society of Authors Management Committe; Wasafiri, as an Associate Editor; City University, MA Novel Writing, Advisory Board; and for Spread the Word’s ‘The Complete Works’ project (See my 99.9% Best of Blog.)

There are also a couple of collaborative creative projects percolating….

Also doing a little bit of tutoring on the MA in Creative Writing at Goldsmith’s College, University of London. And I’ve just become a newly-minted Creative Writing Fellow at Oxford Brookes University; and I’m

…mentoring one aspiring writer.

…and being a virgin blogger takes up TIME.

August to September was spent promoting Blonde Roots. October is so busy with hardly an evening spent at home.

November should be a quiet month. December too. My writing needs the quiet times. Me, ideas, delivering them.

In January BLONDE ROOTS is published in the USA by Riverhead/Penguin. Deep breath…

Love it!