Northern Soul Roadshow #2
Showcasing Nandi Jola & Neil Hegarty, online 25 Feb 2023
This weekend I will be chatting to Nandi Jola and Neil Hegarty, two North of Ireland guest authors who will showcase on the Northern Soul Roadshow events in 2023. I curated this online writing community for the Irish Writers Centre and facilitate the series online. The events are funded by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland lottery funding, and the selected participant writers are a diverse writing community mostly based in the North, with a few keyboard comrades dotted around the rest of Ireland. I also look forward to hearing the participants’ work during our workshop sessions after the guest section, a highlight of this writing life.
In week 2, Nandi will be reading poetry, new work from her recent Masters’ dissertation Diversity will (NOT) Erase History. Neil will be reading an excerpt from his essay Klondike, available in Impermanence, a collection of essays he co-edited with Nora Hickey M'Sichili. Nandi also has an essay published in Impermanence and details of where you can find this collection are below the reading list, scroll on down.
Northern Soul Roadshow aims to spotlight writers who are working towards a more inclusive and sustainable society by focusing on writers from diverse and underrepresented backgrounds. It is anticipated that the new writing arising from NSR will promote inclusion and create a cross-border writing community.
Suggested reading for week 2
Nandi Jola’s poems Journey Of The Magi and I Am A Xhosa are linked in https://www.doirepress.com/writers/nandi-jola
This is the main link to Nandi’s highly acclaimed debut collection Home Is Neither Here Nor There which can be purhased via Doire Press.
There are other links to Nandi’s work on the Doire Press webpage, please read more if you have time.
Neil Hegarty’s essays are linked here:
RTE Sunday Miscellany January 2023 In Red Granite, Neil Hegarty considers Sweden, Ireland, and the allure of the western horizon.
rte.ie/radio/radio1/clips/22190592/
Kaleidoscope presents Burned, a new essay by Neil Hegarty, October 2022. The EFACIS Kaleidoscope project explores the relationship between Irish writers and Europe.
Also, check out Neil’s novels Inch Levels and The Jewel on his webpage here, books I highly recommend.
Where to find Impermanence
Thanks to David Torrans at No Alibis in Belfast, who generously gifted a copy of Impermanence for the Irish Writers Centre library. He and Claudia and the other workforce are a vital resource for book lovers and the writing community in the North. When in Belfast you should call in for a browse and a chat. You will be uplifted. No Alibis is a two minute dander from Botanic train station.
Impermanence may also be found in these independent book stores
Books Upstairs in Dublin
Little Acorns in Derry (when it reopens in March)
and at Dublin Library catalogue
If you find it elsewhere, please let me know and I will update this post.