The Pool, Where are all the working class writers?, How much hot chocolate is a smuggleable amount?

I’m at the airport about to fly off to Latvia where I’ll be on residency at the International Writers and Translators’ House in Ventspils, a port town of Latvia. I feel very lucky to have three weeks to hunker down, work on Lowborn and maybe take a few snowy coastal walks. That means for the last few days I’ve been running around assessing thermal tights, moisturisers made for fisherman and how much hot chocolate powder can be taken through customs in ziplocks before I set off some sort of alarm (it turned out to be a lot - I didn’t even need to duct tape it to my body). It feels good to have rucksack on my back again knowing I’ll be wandering unfamiliar streets, finding new stories.

Before I go, I wanted to point out a few things to those of you who float about the internet reading this little whatever this is.

First, is that I’ve begun my regular monthly pieces for The Pool on the writing of Lowborn and, more broadly, what it is like to reflect on growing up as I did. The first is HERE. The second is HERE. I will say quietly (because I haven’t yet learned to think that pride isn’t something that will blow up and singe your eyebrows) that I’m proud of these pieces. They are very personal, I worked hard on them and the responses have made all the hard work and ‘naked’ feelings completely worth it. Kudos to The Pool for taking a chance on me and content to support a conversation about something they felt needed to be talked about.

Secondly, Kit de Waal (who also set up an amazing Birkbeck scholarship for writers from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds because she walks the walk) and BBC4 producer Mair Bosworth asked the important question ‘Where are all the working-class writers?’. I contribute a little, largely talking about the two page list I made about barriers to publishing for working-class writers and how without libraries I don’t know if I’d be a writer (I’d actually go as far as to say I don’t know if I’d be alive but that’s a story for another time and something I explore LOWBORN).

There is so much to say about this subject (and again, in many ways, LOWBORN answers some of this questionas well as where are all the WC: judges, artists, film makers, editors etc) so for now I will just leave you with the provocation I did for the Writers’ Centre Norwich on barriers to publishing for marginalised writers back in 2015: Lost Stories, Unheard Voices. Some of the stats might have changed but, sadly, not much else.  

Finally, I’m pretty honoured (when I use ‘honoured’ please read also ‘fairly intimidated’) to be contributing on a few panels and with a workshop to the British Council’s Literature Seminar on the theme Sexuality, Feminism and Masculinity. It’s being chaired by the brilliant Bernadine Evaristo and also coming to chat will be Juno Dawson, Sabrina Mahfouz, Nick Makoha, Paul McVeigh and Monique Roffey. This year it’s being held in one of my favourite cities, Berlin.

Now I’ve typed all that I can’t quite believe I’m so jammy.

Righto, time to have another adventure. Next dispatch: Latvia.