Posts tagged Ellah Wakatama
Barr moves to Canongate in a two-book deal

I better crack on with the writing then!

Thrilled to be joining Canongate and honoured to be edited by Ellah Wakatama. The whole team there is amazing and Anna Frame is already winning at All Things Publicity!

At my Edinburgh International Book Festival event today I said ‘I’m writing a big gay Scottish love story.’ And I am!

Thank you to my agent and friend Clare Conville for making it all happen. As always. And to all at Conville & Walsh.

You can read the full announcement at The Bookseller.

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Episode one of Whose Truth Is It Anyway?

In this new three part series, I grapple with the slippery idea of truth in literature - from memoir to fiction to writing that occupies all the areas in between. What does it mean for a story to be true - and is the idea of truth changing? Who gets to decide whose truths make it into onto the page and into our bookshelves?

With contributions from Sathnam Sanghera, Olivia Laing, Ellah Wakatama, Taymour Soomro, Alexandra Heminsley and Suede singer and co-creator of the new album Autofiction, Brett Anderson.

In this first episode, I explore one of the most popular and personal genres of writing - memoir. Revisiting my own complex experience of writing a memoir, and dealing with the aftermath, I unpick what it is that authors and readers expect from type of writing. What makes a memoir more or less true? And do readers understand something different by that truth from authors? Do modern audiences expect a different kind of truth?

I also reveal some of my own discoveries about the process of writing a true memoir - including discovering that even the most candid memoir is also be shaped by legal and personal considerations. Not all truths are published equally.

Listen on BBC Radio 4, Sunday 21st May at 4.30pm for episode one of Whose Truth Is It Anyway?.

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