Sunday 2 May 2021
An artist s rendition of actress Lorraine Toussaint and writer Ingrid Persaud for the Alexander app. PHOTOS COURTESY GIA KUAN
During his lifetime, John “Boysie” Singh was a womaniser, gambling king, arsonist, preacher, pirate, thief, human trafficker, gangster, smuggler and mass murderer.
In a feature titled The Vagabond Rajah, which is exclusive to the Alexander app, award-winning Trinidadian author Ingrid Persaud has chosen to tell some of Singh’s story.
“I have been doing research for a fictional work on Boysie Singh on and off for quite a long time. He’s just somebody I’m intrigued by. So, I thought this was an opportunity to consolidate some of that. Also, because I’m hoping to get this book (the fictional work) together by the end of the year.”
BBC Sounds - Open Book - Available Episodes
Open Book
Programme looking at new fiction and non-fiction books, talking to authors and publishers and unearthing lost classics
Episodes (577Available)
James Runcie and Katie Thistleton to chair BBC Short Story Award judging panel
Katie Thistleton is co-chairing the BBC Short Story Award judging panel (edpr)
Novelist James Runcie and broadcaster Katie Thistleton are to chair the judging panel for the BBC Short Story Award.
Submissions for the prize open at 9am on Thursday.
Four shortlisted authors for the award will each receive £600, while the winner will take home £15,000.
Novelist James Runcie is co-chairing the judging panel (Chris Close/PA)
Runcie, chairman of the 2021 BBC National Short Story Award judging panel, said: “We need imaginative alternatives in these dark times: stories that question and surprise and open up new worlds.
Industry Notes: Short Story Awards in Spain and the United Kingdom
The Madrid-based Desperate Literature program and the BBC National Short Story Award open submissions and name their 2021 jurors.
At Madrid’s Desperate Literature bookshop on the Calle Campomanes. Image: Desperate Literature
Short Fiction Week
Amid the churn of early-year publishing awards programs and their many announcements, certain swirls and eddies always turn up as various programs’ focal formats cluster together. This, it turns out, is Short Fiction Week.
Today (January 14) in Madrid, the Desperate Literature Short Fiction Prize is opening its fourth year’s submissions and announcing its jurors.
, by Melissa Harrison
If you haven’t heard Harrison’s soul-soothing podcast then this eponymous nature diary, following her move from south London to the Suffolk countryside, should be a joyful reason to do so. It’s the perfect companion piece to this chronicle of her journey to uncover the nature on our doorsteps wherever we live and celebrate its way of signalling the seasons.
Faber & Faber, £14.99. Wanderland, by Jini Reddy
Follow the author on a journey to connect with the magic in the British landscape in this shortlisted entry for the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing. Her travels which range from a coast-to-coast pilgrimage to a trip encountering a goddess worshipping group of women seek to develop a more spiritual, intimate relationship with nature. Born to Indian parents in the UK and raised in Canada, Jini offers a wry, unique perspective on the beauty of our landscape.