Writers are taking over The Exchange this October
Nine professional writers are taking over the University of Birmingham’s city centre location this autumn, with opportunities for the public to get involved.
Nine professional writers are taking over the University of Birmingham’s city centre location this autumn, with opportunities for members of the public to get involved and develop their own literary skills.
Free writing surgeries and panel talks with authors, poets, playwrights and graphic novelists are taking place at The Exchange across October, as part of a project which will see writers of all levels (first-time or experienced) contribute to a new anthology on the theme ‘True Voyage Is Return.’ The theme is inspired by Ursula K. Le Guin’s iconic sci-fi novel The Dispossessed, which celebrates the 50th anniversary of its publication this year.
The project gives the public unique opportunities to draw peer support and inspiration from the team of writers, the feeling of belonging to a regional writing community, and the route to seeing their own work featured and celebrated in an online anthology. My message is simple: however much or little you’ve written before, join us this October to find out how much fun writing can be.
Birmingham-based writer, Philip Holyman, is leading the project. In 2022 he wrote his first full-length novel in The Exchange café and now, for True Voyage Is Return, he will produce his second — more than 90,000 words in just a month.
Philip said: “I’m a firm believer in the motto, ‘Write the book you want to read’ — or the poem you want to hear, the play you want to see, or whatever else excites you. True Voyage Is Return has been designed to encourage and empower people across Birmingham and the Black Country to do exactly that. The project gives the public unique opportunities to draw peer support and inspiration from the team of writers, the feeling of belonging to a regional writing community, and the route to seeing their own work featured and celebrated in an online anthology. My message is simple: however much or little you’ve written before, join us this October to find out how much fun writing can be.”
Alongside Philip, eight other local writers from essayists to fantasy novelists, will all be creating new work at The Exchange during October.
Each Saturday, Philip will be joined in conversation by the two writers who have just completed their week in the on-site writing room. Visitors will have the opportunity to hear about all three writers’ different responses to the True Voyage Is Return brief and how they have tackled the unique creative challenges of producing new work within such a short amount of time. There will be opportunities for the audience to ask questions about their work and careers and hear exclusive extracts of what has just been written.
The True Voyage Is Return writers are:
- Catherine O'Flynn is a novelist whose writing has received various awards including a British Book Award & the Costa First Novel Award. Fay Weldon described O’Flynn as “the JG Ballard of Birmingham…finding poetry and meaning where others see merely boredom and dereliction.”
- Thomas Glave is the author of four books (fiction and creative nonfiction) and has edited an anthology of Caribbean queer writing. He lives in Birmingham most of the year and teaches at SUNY Binghamton in the USA every autumn.
- Charlotte Bailey is a visual storyteller, writer, facilitator, and host exploring how we can reimagine our relationships to home, heritage and collective futures through comics, film, essays, and workshops. She has published, edited, and contributed to a number of graphic essays, anthologies, and journals.
- Stephen Aryan is an award-winning fantasy author. His first novel Battlemage was published in 2015 by Orbit. Since then, he has published nine additional fantasy novels. The most recent, The Blood Dimmed Tide, is the second instalment in a Persian-inspired historical fantasy trilogy, The Nightingale and the Falcon.
- Shaun Hill is a poet and movement artist mapping post-capitalist ways of being. He is the author of warm blooded things (Nine Arches Press, 2021) and recently completed an Arts Council Developing Your Creative Practice project exploring what improvised movement with living systems can teach us about the ongoing climate crisis.
- Romalyn Ante is a multi-award-winning Filipino-British poet. She was 16 years old when her mother – a nurse in the NHS – brought the family from Lipa to the UK. Her debut collection Antiemetic for Homesickness was shortlisted for the Jhalak Prize and longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize. Her second collection AGIMAT is forthcoming in September.
- Lorna French is a two-time Alfred Fagon winner and has written for theatre and radio. Her theatre has been produced by Pentabus, Theatre by the Lake, Jermyn Street Theatre, Octagon Bolton, Eclipse Theatre Company, and the Birmingham REP. She has written radio plays for BBC Radio 4 including Rise (Naked Productions) and she co-authored The Last Flag (with Eclipse Theatre).
- Wren James is the Carnegie-longlisted British author of many Young Adult novels as ‘Lauren James,’ including Last Seen Online, Green Rising, The Reckless Afterlife of Harriet Stoker, and The Loneliest Girl in the Universe. They are a RLF Royal Fellow and the story consultant on Netflix’s Heartstopper (Seasons 2 and 3).
In response to the True Voyage Is Return theme, Stephen Aryan said: “As I’ve gone around the world and explored, I think about my journey there, my time there, how I feel when I come back and how that experience has changed me and how I feel about the place I have returned to. That different lens is definitely going to be on my mind as I’m thinking about what sort of story I want to create, and what parts of my experience I can fold into that, and what I can create whole cloth and create something a bit different to what I’ve done before.”
On the task of writing a new piece in one month, Lorna French said: “I think it’s a challenge but a challenge I am excited by. It means really focusing my energy for one month and at the end of it you have something, in my case a play and a cast of characters, that has come to life in a really short space of time. Usually writing a play is a much longer period. It will be a great experiment!”
As well as the panel discussions the writers will also host free 1-2-1 writer’s surgeries for those wanting to get more specific advice on their writing.
The panels take place at 13.30-14.30 on Saturday 12th, 19th and 26th of October and 2nd of November.
You can find more and book your spot for the panels and writer’s surgeries on the University of Birmingham website.
Notes for editors
Notes for editors
- For media inquiries please contact Ellie Hail, Communications Officer, University of Birmingham on +44 (0)7966 311 409. Out-of-hours, please call +44 (0) 121 414 2772.
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