Welcome to the UNTITLED UNDERREP'D WRITERS FESTIVAL 2021 taking place on Sunday 31 October from 11am. Join us for a series of workshops, panels and showcases as we celebrate the stories and work of underrepresented writers.
All events will take place online (via Zoom) and will include auto-captioning.
Check out the full schedule below:
SCHEDULE (all times GMT - a reminder that clocks go back on 31 Oct!)
11.00am - 12:00pm
Workshop with Ollie Charles
A relaxed workshop to start the day with some gentle meditation. For all writers using practical exercises to kickstart some idea generating. The workshop’s aim is to allow yourself time to solely focus on your writing without procrastination or outside influences. Led by Untitled co-founder, Ollie Charles.
12.30pm - 13.30pm
In conversation with Abi Fellows and Eva Verde
We're hugely excited to be hosting a special discussion with Abi Fellows, an agent at The Good Literary Agency and celebrated author, Eva Verde to chat about the journey from getting an agent, the editing process, publication and beyond.
Before joining TGLA, Abi worked as a literary scout at Rosalind Ramsay Ltd for seven years. She has incredibly broad experience in the industry having been a literary agent at Georgina Capel Associates prior to becoming a scout and having also worked as a bookseller at Blackwell’s and on the sales team at Faber and Faber.
Eva Verde is a writer from Forest Gate, East London. Identity and class are recurring themes throughout her work as she studies towards an MA in Prose Fiction. Her love song to libraries, I Am Not Your Tituba forms part of Kit De Waal’s Common People: An Anthology of Working-Class Writers with Unbound, and her work has featured in Marie Claire, Grazia and Elle. Eva’s debut novel Lives Like Mine, is published by Simon and Schuster.
14.00pm - 15.00pm
CELEBRATING C+NTO & OTHERED POEMS
With Joelle Taylor
Joelle Taylor is an award-winning poet, playwright, author and editor. She has performed across the UK as well as internationally, both for the British Council (Zimbabwe, Brazil, Botswana, Australia and Singapore) and on solo projects across Europe.
Her latest collection C+nto & Othered Poems is a critically acclaimed collection described as "absolutely incredible" (DIVA Magazine) and "an alter of a book" (Inua Ellams). Joelle joins us to present a reading of her work and for an extended Q&A about her amazing career.
The female body is a political space.
C+nto enters the private lives of women from the butch counterculture, telling the inside story of the protests they led in the ‘90s to reclaim their bodies as their own – their difficult balance between survival and self-expression. History, magic, rebellion, party and sermon vibrate through Joelle Taylor’s cantos to uncover these underground communities forged by women.
Part-memoir and part-conjecture, Taylor explores sexuality and gender in poetry that is lyrical, expansive, imagistic, epic and intimate. C+nto is a love poem, a riot, a late night and an honouring.
To purchase a copy of C+nto & Othered Poems, click here.
15.30 - 16.30
Welcome to the first Untitled Book Club - where we chat with a series of underrepresented writers about their recently released books, what their process was and what's coming up next for them (and if we're lucky, even get to listen to an extract!).
Today we'll be chatting with Nikki Dudley (Volta), Adam Zmith (Deep Sniff: A History of Poppers and Queer Futures), Nicola Garrard (29 Locks) and Awais Khan (No Honour).
Nikki Dudley is managing editor of streetcake magazine and also runs the streetcake writing prize and MumWrite. She has a chapbook and collection with KFS. Her pamphlet 'I'd better let you go' and collection 'Fanny B. Mine' are out with Beir Bua Press. She is the winner of the Virginia Prize 2020 and her second novel, Volta was published in May 2021. Her website is: nikkidudleywriter.com
Adam Zmith (he/him) is always writing a novel. He is co-producer on The Log Books podcast. His book Deep Sniff: A History of Poppers and Queer Futures is out in September. His website is: www.adamzmith.com.
Nicola Garrard’s debut novel, 29 Locks, was shortlisted in the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize and the Mslexia Children’s Novel Competition and is published by HopeRoad. She is represented by Abi Fellows at The Good Literary Agency. She lives in Sussex with her wife, three children and a Jack Russell terrier.
Awais Khan is a graduate of the University of Western Ontario and Durham University. He has studied Creative Writing with Faber Academy in London. He is the author of the critically acclaimed 'In the Company of Strangers' and 'No Honour' (a Woman and Home Best Book of 2021). He regularly appears on television and radio and runs The Writing Institute in Pakistan.
17.00 - 18.00
TEN YEARS OF THE SI LEEDS LITERARY PRIZE
A live salon
Join us to celebrate the SI Leeds Literary Prize, which reaches it's tenth year in 2022. The Prize is national, biennial prize for unpublished fiction by UK-based Black and Asian women, aged 18 and above with patrons including Bonnie Greer, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Margaret Busby and Bidisha. The prize aims to act as a loud speaker for fresh literary voices from under-represented groups.
Join past writers from the last ten years for a vibrant evening of readings.
18.30 - 19.30
Welcome to the Writers’ Salon, a culmination of everything we do at Untitled and no better way to finish the festival. Six fantastic underrepresented writers will be reading their work live.
The writers reading this evening include: Peter Scalpello, Thea Buen, Rick Dove, JP Seabright, Shazia Altaf and Elizabeth M Castillo.
Enquiries: contact.untitledwriting@gmail.com