The fabulous Sam Baker is talking to me about Maggie & Me and all things writing at this new festival of Scottish writing in London.

You can get tickets here.

This will be my first event since the play with National Theatre of Scotland so I’m looking forward to sitting down with an interviewer I really trust to talk about what it means, takes and costs to tell your own story on the page and on the stage.

You can get tickets here.

I hope you can join me and Sam and support this new festival of Scottish writing in London. I will also be interviewing Andrew O’Hagan so maybe see you there for that too!

Thank you.

PS A bit more about the fest… ‘The Scots in London mission is to co-ordinate our members’ events, promote Scottish heritage, culture and the arts in the London area, and to support relevant charities, as well as running events of our own'’

MINING HISTORY’S DEPTHS
Damian Barr and Bart van Es / chaired by Anton Enus

Damian Barr’s You Will Be Safe Here is a heartbreaking novel that links two dark periods of South African history to examine trauma and its terrible echoes through time. Bart van Es delves deep into his family’s history to explore the Dutch response to Germany’s murderous Third Reich in his Costa Award winning The Cut Out Girl. Their meticulously researched, beautifully told stories tread lightly across sensitive truths, powerfully demonstrating history’s resonance across fiction and  non-fiction.

Damian Barr is an award-winning writer and columnist and host of a famed literary salon at the Savoy in London. His first book, Maggie & Me, was an award-winning memoir about coming of age and coming out in Thatcher's Britain. You Will Be Safe Here is his debut novel.

Born in the Netherlands, Bart van Es now lives in England where he is a Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of St. Catherine’s College. An expert on Shakespeare, he has written authoritative texts on Shakespeare’s work and times, including Shakespeare in Company (2013) and Shakespeare’s Comedies (2016). His most recent book is The Cut Out Girl, which won the 2019 Costa Book of the Year.

Anton Enus, a broadcast journalist with more than 25 years' experience, has been presenting SBS World News bulletins since 1999. In his spare time he's run more than 40 marathons and also plays tennis and squash. His favourite authors are Vikram Seth, JM Coetzee and Sebastian Faulks.

CLICK HERE for the full programme

Pioneer Women's Memorial Garden, East Stage, Adelaide Writers' Week
Free

YOU WILL BE SAFE HERE
Damian Barr / chaired by Sharon Davis

“You will be safe here”: a promise twice made and twice broken in this harrowing, powerful debut novel from acclaimed author Damian Barr. Sarah is interned with her son in one of the world’s first concentration camps. A contemptuous stepfather dispatches young Willem to a brutal training camp to learn to “become a man”. Moving deftly between the Boer War and contemporary South Africa, You Will Be Safe Here illuminates hidden cruelties – past and present – to explore the heartbreaking legacy of trauma.
Sharon Davis is a four-time Walkley award winning documentary producer and journalist whose body of work in television, radio and print spans more than 25 years. Most recently she developed and produced a new podcast The Monthly Hour for Schwartz Media.

Pioneer Women's Memorial Garden, West Stage, Adelaide Writers' Week
Free
CLICK HERE for the full programme:

 https://www.adelaidefestival.com.au/writers-week/?view=lineup#lineupBreak

Where Does Fiction Come From? - Elizabeth Gilbert, Leïla Slimani, Avni Doshi, John Lanchester and Howard Jacobson in conversation with Damian Barr.

Where does fiction come from? What is the process of its creation? How do you make up characters and situations that are believable - and why should the reader care? Some of the world’s most acclaimed novelists —Elizabeth Gilbert, Leïla Slimani, Avni Doshi, John Lancaster and Howard Jacobson— share their insights on the art of the novel with Damian Barr.

The Front Lawn at Jaipur Literature Festival