Articles

Tell us about how you got into writing? I’ve been writing poetry ever since I can remember. My grandmother was a secondary school English teacher, and I grew up in a house filled with lovely old books of poetry. Reading and writing poetry was a big part of my childhood.

An interview with Niamh MacCabe - Winner of the Wasafiri New Writing Prize for Fiction … Born in Dublin, Niamh MacCabe grew up in Paris, in north-west Ireland, and in Washington DC, graduating there from the Corcoran School of Art.

Asylum and Refuge Part One … Militarising Against Refugees … Bidisha … I began doing outreach work with refugees and asylum seekers three and a half years ago, before what we now refer to as the refugee crisis, the greatest humanitarian emergency of the current era.

Clifton Gachagua is the winner of the inaugural Sillerman Prize for African Poetry, 2013, awarded by the African Poetry Book Fund.

An interview with Shiva Rahbaran - Winner of the Wasafiri New Writing Prize for Life Writing … Shiva Rahbaran was born in Tehran. She was eight years old when the last Persian monarch, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, left Iran giving way to the foundation of the Islamic Republic.

Maaza Mengiste is a Fulbright Scholar and the award-winning author of Beneath the Lion’s Gaze, selected by the Guardian as one of the ten best contemporary African books.

Crystal Mahey-Morgan Keynote: London Bookfair and Publishers Association Inclusivity Conference … Everyone who thinks they we’re here for a day to talk about diversity in publishing is wrong. We’re here to talk about humanity.

Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor was born in Nairobi, Kenya and educated at the Kenyatta University, the University of Reading and the University of Queensland.

Publishing African Writers Series: An interview with Keith Sambrook by Nourdin Bejjit … NB: You worked for Nelson Publishers before coming to Heinemann Educational Books. What made you decide to move? KS: When I joined Nelson publishers in 1954, I worked first of all for Van Milne.

CNN calls Shailja Patel ‘the people-centered face of globalisation’. Her publishing debut, Migritude , based on her acclaimed one-woman show, was an Amazon poetry bestseller, a Seattle Times bestseller and was shortlisted for Italy’s Camaiore Prize.

Mama Can’t Raise No Man was recently reported to be the only fiction debut by a black male novelist to have been published in Britain this year.

Today I visited Wasafiri's offices in Camden and got to experience the atmosphere and an average day in their work lives.

Louise Kennedy grew up in Holywood, Co. Down. In 2015 she won both first place and runner up in the Ambit Fiction Prize, first place in the Wasafiri New Writing Prize (Life Writing) was a prize winner in Inktears Flash Fiction contest.

Born in Dublin, Niamh MacCabe grew up in Paris, in north-west Ireland, and in Washington DC, graduating there from the Corcoran School of Art. She worked overseas in the Animated Film industry, eventually returning full-time to Ireland to raise her children.

Uschi Gatward was born in East London and lives there now. Her stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Best British Short Stories 2015 (Salt), Flamingo Land & Other Stories (ed.

We asked our readers on social media to let us know what they'll be reading during the festive break. This is their list: @Ovid42 will be reading:

 "I’m a Danish-born Somali girl who calls London a home. I chose poetry, or poetry chose me. I’m so interested in the ways we can heal ourselves from trauma and also in how we can make new lives for ourselves after tragedy.

Sergio Téllez-Pon (Mexico City, 1981) is a poet, essayist, literary critic and editor. His work has been published in various publications and newspapers in Mexico and abroad and translated into English, French and Portuguese.

On 17 April, Colombian author and Nobel Prize winner, Gabriel García Márquez passed away at his home in Mexico City, aged eighty-seven. He has been described as one of literature’s all-time greats — what of the legacy he leaves behind?

Rotimi Babatunde is the author of the short story ‘Bombay’s Republic’, winner of the 2012 Caine Prize for African Writing.

Young Vic Theatre, London, 6 July - 24 August 2013 … ‘You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once’. Science fiction writer, Robert A Heinlein, once wrote. And the Young Vic’s production of A Season in the  Congo, brings this sage expression sharply to mind.

Rocío Cerón (Mexico City, 1972) is one of the major Mexican poets and multimedia artists of her generation.

Pedro Serrano has published five collections of poems.

This is an edited extract from the text ‘The Heart of the Moment: An Interview with Alberto Blanco’ which was carried out by Kimberly A. Eherenman. It has been published in parts in The Bitter Oleander and in the magazine Fractal.