As part of 16 Days of Activism we are challenging you to take part in 16 Days of Stories – Read and/or write 16min or 16 pages every day for 16 days! More about our challenge here.
As part of our 16 Days challenge, we are hosting a webinar featuring inspiring female authors talking about their work.
We want to explore how women use their voices in writing to empower themselves and others and understand what we can all do to ensure all voices are heard. The webinar will explore creative inspiration and well as the political environment within the creative industry. This is fundamentally tied to the notion of activism, through the works of Mary Wollstonecraft to Margaret Busby. Being female and being vocal have proven to be a political statement.
We want to look at whether we have moved away from female or BAME authors being a rarity or political, and whether we have or even should reach a point beyond representation and see authors purely as creatives.
Our Host:
HARRIET TYCE was born and grew up in Edinburgh. She graduated in 1994 with a degree in English Literature before working as a criminal barrister for nearly a decade. Having escaped law and early motherhood, she started writing, and completed the MA in Creative Writing – Crime Fiction at the University of East Anglia in 2017. She has written three novels to date, the Sunday Times bestsellers Blood Orange, The Lies You Told and It Ends At Midnight. She lives in north London with her husband, children and two dogs.
https://www.harriettyceauthor.com/
Our Panellists:
WINNIE M LI is an author and activist. COMPLICIT is her second novel, which The New York Times calls ‘harrowing, timely, and thoroughly book club-worthy.’ Her debut novel Dark Chapter is a fictional retelling of her real-life stranger rape in Belfast, from victim and perpetrator perspectives. Translated into ten languages, it won The Guardian’s Not The Booker Prize, and was nominated for an Edgar Award and the Best First Novel Award. She is currently adapting it for the screen. Winnie also founded Clear Lines, the UK’s first-ever festival addressing sexual assault and consent through the arts and discussion, and she continues to facilitate creative writing workshops for survivors of sexual violence and abuse. Her PhD research at the London School of Economics explores media engagement by rape survivors as a form of activism. She holds an honorary doctorate from the National University of Ireland in recognition of her writing and activism.
ROSE WILDING is a queer, working class crime writer from Newcastle Upon Tyne. She has an MA in creative writing from The University of Manchester, where she was mentored by Jeanette Winterson. When not murdering fictional men, she can usually be found drinking coffee, reading feminist sci-fi, or posting more pictures than anyone needs of her naughty chihuahuas on Instagram. Speak of the Devil is her debut novel.
https://linktr.ee/wewillspeakofthedevil
LOUISE HARE has an MA in Creative Writing from Birkbeck, University of London. Her debut novel, This Lovely City, was published in 2020 and is set in post-war south London. It featured on the inaugural BBC TWO TV book club show, Between the Covers, and was shortlisted for the RSL Ondaatje Prize. Louise was selected for the Observer Top 10 Best Debut Novelists list in 2020. Miss Aldridge Regrets is her second novel, a Golden Age murder mystery published in 2022.