-In Conversation with Claire Trévien– South African poet Robert Berold, born 1948, is the author of four books of poems. From 1989 to 1999 he edited the poetry journal New Coin, publishing much of the groundbreaking new poetry being written in that period, much of it collected in the anthology It All Begins. Berold has…
Claire Trévien: All right, what is KZN Literary Tourism exactly? is an archive of psychogeography? Rasvanth Chunylall: KZN Literary Tourism is a research project that was established in 2002 with the aim of researching, establishing and promoting literary tourism in the KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) province. In doing so, the project has created an online archive of authors linked to the…
-Interviewed by Claire Trévien– Modjaji Books was founded in 2007 by Colleen Higgs to make a space for southern African women’s writing. At the time, Higgs who was working for the Centre for the Book, ‘got a bee in my bonnet for all sorts of reasons.’ Modjaji is named after the Balobedu Rain Queens –…
-In Conversation with Claire Trévien– Nick Mulgrew, the brains behind new poetry publisher uHlanga, is determined to inject some vitality into the South African scene. ‘I was speaking to someone at a friend’s house yesterday’, he tells me, ‘who was telling me that South African poetry was getting tired, it’s the same writers, the same…
– interview by Will Barrett – I first knew about Jim (above, racing towards the future) when I heard him talk on a panel at the Digital Utopias conference in Hull earlier this year. Jim is the Digital Manager at Comma Press, and also the project lead on MacGuffin, a new website, currently in beta,…
-interviewed by Will Barrett- The following interview with S J Fowler was done over email. I’ve met Steven several times and found him to be wonderful, generous company, but I was still intimidated by the prospect of conducting this interview face-to-face. Therefore, I wrote the questions all in one block at some aphoniac hour one…
-With Charles Whalley– Dave Coates, writing on his blog (davepoems.wordpress.com) and elsewhere, is becoming known as one of the most consistently entertaining, wide-ranging and prolific reviewers writing online, giving detailed and good-natured appraisal of high profile new collections. Paul McMenemy, editor of Lunar Poetry magazine, recently described his work as “possibly the best poetry reviews…
-In Conversation with Tim Wells about his Ranting Project- I did a separate couple of interviews last year for creative writing students who kept asking me about the influence of hip hop on my poetry. One of them was non-plussed by answer that there isn’t any, and the other chose to ignore it. The fact that I…
– with James Webster – Nathan Jones is co-curator of Torque, a literature/performance/technology hybrid who are holding an event Friday 6 June (tonight!) at the Rich Mix (more info here). His previous project, Electric Voice Phenomena, was an experimental literature and new media project, exploring contemporary approaches to sound, voice, technology and writing that was…
-In conversation with Julie Zackova- Michael Farrell is the current BR Whiting studio resident in Rome. His recent publications are Open Sesame (Giramondo), same! same! same! same! (Sus) and the thorn with the boy in its side (oystercatcher). Michael is a guest of the 2014 Prague Microfestival, and also read here in 2009. JZ: What…