Writers-in-Residence 2012

Naomi Alderman, the first ever writer-in-residence at Gladstone’s Library, will be joined by Stella Duffy, Nadene Ghouri and Ian Parks who will each take up tenure for one month at Britain’s only residential library. Each writer will blog about their stay, run a creative writing workshop and host an ‘Evening With’ event. Each writer is, in their own way, redefining the liberal tradition with fiction, non-fiction and poetry represented. Read more here

About the Authors

Naomi Alderman

Naomi Alderman’s first novel Disobedience was published in 2006 and won the Orange Prize for New Writers. In 2007, she was named Sunday Times’ Young Writer of the Year and one of Waterstone’s 25 Writers for the Future. Penguin published her second novel The Lessons in April 2010. Naomi also writes online computer games and was lead writer on the BAFTA-shortlisted alternate reality game Perplex City. She broadcasts for Radio 3 and Radio 4, teaches masterclasses in creative writing at many different institutions.

Stella Duffy

Stella Duffy has written twelve novels, over forty short stories and ten plays. The Room of Lost Things won Stonewall Writer of the Year in 2008 while her latest novel Theodora won the same award in 2010. Stella adapted her novel State of Happiness for film and HBO have recently optioned both Theodora and its sequel The Purple Shroud for a television series. Stella has worked in improvised/devised theatre and comedy for over 25 years and has taught writing, improvisation and theatre at a number of organisations. Image copyright Gino Sprio.

Nadene Ghouri

Nadene Ghouri is an award-wining journalist, writer and presenter. She has been shortlisted twice for journalist of the year at the One World Media Awards and twice nominated for an Amnesty International Human Rights Media award. Nadene has helped set up radio stations and newspapers all over the developing world and is co-author of Letters to my Daughters, the memoirs of female Afghan MP Fawzia Koofi which was published in the UK and USA in 2011 as The Favoured Daughter. The working title of her next book is Afghanshire.

Ian Parks

Ian Parks’ first collection of poems was published in 1986 and won him a Yorkshire Arts Award. He has held several residencies and teaches creative writing at university level. In 1994, he received a Travelling Fellowship to the United States and, in 1996, was recognised as one of the National Poetry Society’s New Poets. His poems have appeared regularly in The Liberal, Poetry Review, The Observer and The Sunday Times and have been broadcast on BBC Radio 3. Ian’s latest collection is entitled The Exile’s House.