Category Archives: Public reading

Upcoming readings for the SI Leeds Literary Prize

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So, I’ve made it onto the shortlist for the 2016 SI Leeds Literary Prize!  The prize will be awarded on Wed, Oct 12th at the Ilkley Literature Festival, at a reading and event with Malika Booker.  On Sunday, Oct 9th, we’ll also be reading as part of the London Literature Festival at the SouthBank Centre, where award-winning writer Bernardine Evaristo will chair an important discussion on diversity in publishing and writing. Come join us at either event!

I already had a fantastic time at the first SI Leeds Literary Prize event at the Rich Mix on September 19th, which was hosted by Sunny Singh. It was a pleasure meeting the other shortlisted authors, each of whom has a unique and valuable perspective in her writing — and I look forward to seeing them again at the upcoming events!  Here’s all of us on stage at the Rich Mix event:

On stage looking a bit awkward at the Rich Mix!

On stage looking a bit awkward at the Rich Mix…

I’m shortlisted for the unpublished manuscript of my upcoming novel Dark Chapter, which my agents will be representing at the Frankfurt Book Fair.  Here’s their pre-Frankfurt newsletter.  They’ve been wonderfully supportive of me for the past year, and we’re all looking forward to the novel’s publication in 2017 in multiple countries!

In other news, I’m continuing to meet with other activists and artists on the issue of sexual assault and consent, both in the UK and elsewhere.  On September 16th, I attended the first-ever Being the Story event, which focused on storytelling to advance social justice and humanitarian causes.  I was asked by the organizers sounddelivery to write a guest-blog on my own uses of storytelling to address sexual assault, and you can read it here.

Reclaim the Night, Women of the World & more

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I’ve been invited to speak at the first-ever Reclaim the Night March at the University of East Anglia, so I’m headed to Norwich on Saturday, Feb 20th.  Many thanks to the UEA Students’ Union for inviting me — I’m looking forward to hearing from other activists as we speak out about against rape, sexual assault, and gender-based violence.  Never spoken at a rally before, but there’s always a first.  And check out the DJ-style billing!

Reclaim UEA

In the meantime, remember to book your Saturday day passes for the Women of the World Festival at the South Bank Centre.  On Saturday, March 12th, I’ll be on the Rape: Giving Testimony panel AND I’ll be co-leading the discussion group afterward, on behalf of the Clear Lines Festival.  Hope to see you there!

Speaking of festivals, I had a fantastic time at the One Billion Rising Festival, where I chaired the opening and closing panels on Violence Against Women: How can we achieve revolutionary change?  Lots of lively and inspiring discussion, along with amazing women who approach the topic from various legal, health, and artistic angles in their work.

L-R: Thea Tadiar, Tessa Hart, me, Pavan Amara in One Billion Rising colors

L-R: Thea Tadiar, Tessa Hart, me, Pavan Amara in One Billion Rising colors

And on Thursday, Feb 25th, I’m running part of an ‘impact’ seminar at the London School of Economics, for PhD students funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.  It’s on how academic researchers can have an impact outside the academy… the event’s closed to the public, but let’s hope there will be a trickle-down (or trickle-out?) effect!

 

Clear Lines was a success!

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So the festival I decided to launch in April ended up happening July 30 – Aug 2 — and I’d say it was a success!  The Clear Lines Festival had an estimated 500 people involved over the four days, including 60+ speakers and artists who wanted to help us start a new conversation about sexual assault and consent.  People cried at our Theatre Night and laughed at our comedians, including the brilliant Tiff Stevenson, Josie Long and Bridget Christie — and there were heated discussions at many of our panels.  A number of events were filled to capacity, and Channel 4 News even aired this nifty segment on us:

Overall, there was a lot of press generated about the festival.  We were covered by The Telegraph, the Daily Mail, Time Out London, The Huffington Post, among others.  And I had a live television interview on London Live and some live radio interviews on various local BBC stations.  Check out our press here and you can read our wrap-up blog post on Clear Lines here.

A special shout-out to my festival Co-Founder Dr. Nina Burrowes, to our sponsors On Road Media and McAllister Olivarius, a dedicated Planning Committee, a great team of volunteers, and our 138 Crowdfunders… without whom the festival could not have happened!

Just launched the Clear Lines Festival

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After two months of hard work and a lot of enthusiasm, I’m very pleased to announce the launch of the Clear Lines Festival, the UK’s first-ever festival dedicated to talking about sexual assault through the arts and discussion. It’s something I co-founded in April (coincidentally, on the anniversary of my own rape) —  over coffee with Dr. Nina Burrowes and a group of other amazing women, all of whom are passionate about wanting to change the public conversation about sexual abuse and assault.  I personally believe the arts are one of the best ways to approach the issue, by bringing to light the human stories that underpin these experiences.  So we’re putting together an exciting programme of artists, writers, comedians, performers, and filmmakers, who will be exploring the topic through their art — along with panel discussions and workshops featuring psychologists, experts, social workers, journalists, and survivors, among others.  Nearly all events will be free to the public. The festival will run July 30 – Aug 2 in Central London.

At the moment, we’re busy crowd-funding so we can have enough funds to make the festival possible.  We’ll need £3,500 for that — and if we reach our stretch target of £9,000, we’ll be able to film the events and post them online so others around the world can access them.  So please do consider pledging if you can!  You can watch a video of me talking about the festival here.  Join us and together, let’s see if we can replace the silence and stigma that cloud this issue with insight, understanding, and community.

 

A few theatre projects

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I’m pleased to say the London performance of my short play “Everything’s Normal” was sold-out!  Thanks to everyone to came, and especially to a great cast and to Tessa Hart at Goblin Baby Theatre Company for making the whole thing possible.  Here’s a few photos from the night at the Bread and Roses Theatre:

Photographer: Kenneth Jay

My play was part of the UNHEARD 2015 Festival, exploring themes of sexual abuse and violence through performance.  Proceeds from ticket sales went to nia, a non-profit dedicated to ending violence against women and children.  More importantly, it was great to meet other artists committed to exploring the many angles and human aspects of this issue through storytelling.  The various plays were

Photographer: Kenneth Jay

diverse, funny, often heart-wrenching, and powerful — and I hope to see more theatre like it.  For my HuffPost article on the creative process behind the festival, click here.

Another short play of mine will be performed on Saturday, March 21 at The Space Arts Centre in London. This one’s just a silly exercise I knocked off during the 28 Plays Later Challenge, which kept me occupied in February.  Yes, me and a bunch of other ambitious/insane writers decided to a write new play every day in February (hence the 28 plays). A creative prompt was emailed out every night, and 36 hours later, we had to send in a new play responding to that.  Needless to say, my play on March 21 is a response to: ‘Write a play that rhymes.’ Actually, that one was pretty fun to write!

Anyway, enough with theatre for now (though I hope to do more with writing drama in the future).  I’m back to re-drafting my novel at the moment…

Details for My Spoken Word Performance at L A Noble Gallery

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On Wed, July 2, I’ll be doing a spoken word performance of my new short story “Felsenbaum” at L A Noble Gallery in Dalston.  The work was inspired by Johanna Ward’s photography in the gallery’s current exhibition, Capturing the Narrative: A Visual Exploration of Fact & Fiction. Starts 6:30pm, and to book a place, please email hello@lauraannnoble.com – More details are below:

At the start of the evening, there’ll be an Artist Talk from Johanna Ward herself, and you’ll also get to hear from my fellow Goldsmiths writers, Charlotte Barrow and Nick Burbidge. 5 pound entry and I believe there will be wine…. Hope to see you there!