Our activities during this Corona period:

Our Mentoring and Translation scheme continues virtually. We are proud that these established writers and translators are involved in the scheme as mentors and translators:
Alireza Abiz, Atef Alshaer, Aviva Dautch, Catherine Davidson, Isobel del Rio, Jane Duran, Graham Fawcett, Hamid Kabir, Ariel Kahn and Nick Makoha.

Exiled Writers Ink Poetry Co-operative
This is a weekly Zoom and e-mail co-operative for intermediate level poets to develop their work.

Exiled Writers Ink beginners/elementary class
Regular class by Zoom and e-mail. The tutor is published poet and Poetry School tutor, Denise Saul.
We have a few vacancies. To register: exiledwritersink@gmail.com

Thursday 12 March at 7pm

This event will take place at Senate House, NOT the Poetry Cafe.

Part of: Bejan Matur Tour 2020

Many Places to Call Home

Cost: £5

Many Places to Call Home

Join us for an evening of poetry, music and discussion inspired by ideas of nomadic existence, having many places that you call home and how different landscapes shape the art that you create.

Kurdish poet Bejan Matur is one of the leading writers among a bold new women’s poetry emerging from the Middle East. The author of six widely translated poetry collections, Bejan has lived across the continent, most recently in London, Athens and Istanbul. Shetland-based poet Jen Hadfield is a winner of the TS Eliot Prize and has collaborated with Bejan and Turkish translator Canan Marasligil to create electrifying English interpretations that make up the new publication Akin to Stone from the Poetry Translation Centre.

Leo Boix is a Latin bilingual poet, translator and journalist born in Argentina who lives and works in the UK. He has published two collections in Spanish, Un lugar propio and Mar de noche, and his debut English collection will be out in 2021. Amir Darwish is a Syrian poet born in Aleppo who came to Britain in 2003. He has two collections published by Smokestack Books and his poetry has been widely published around the world.

Ethiopian musician Haymanot Tesfa who sings in Ahmaric and plays the traditional krar completes the line up.

This event is presented in Partnership by the Exiled Writers Ink and the Institute of English Studies, University of London.

Leo Boix is a Latin bilingual poet, translator and journalist born in Argentina who lives and works in the UK. Boix has published two poetry collections in Spanish, Un lugar propio (2015) and Mar de noche (2017), and has been included in many anthologies, such as Ten: Poets of the New Generation (Bloodaxe), Islands Are But Mountains: Contemporary Poetry from Great Britain (Platypus Press) and Un Nuevo Sol: New Latinx Writers (Flipped Eye). His poems have appeared in POETRY, PN Review, The Poetry Review, Modern Poetry in Translation, The Manchester Review, The White Review, Letras Libres and elsewhere. Boix is the recipient of the Keats-Shelley Prize 2019. His debut English collection will be out in 2021 with Chatto & Windus.

Amir Darwish is a British Syrian poet and writer of Kurdish origin who lives in London. Born in Aleppo he came to Britain as an asylum seeker in 2003. Amir has an MA in International Relations of the Middle East from Durham University, UK and a BA in history from Teesside University, UK. He recently finished an MA in creative and life writing at Goldsmiths University, London. Amir has published two collections, Dear Refugee (2019) and Don’t Forget the Couscous (2015), with Smokestack Books in the UK, as well as having work appear in the USA, Pakistan, India, Finland, Turkey, Canada, Singapore and Mexico. Currently, he is a PhD candidate at Northampton University.

Jen Hadfield was born in Cheshire and lives in Shetland, whose landscape and natural life persistently informs her work. Her first poetry collection Almanacs received an Eric Gregory Award, and the second, Nigh-No-Place (Bloodaxe Books, 2008), won the T. S. Eliot Prize. Byssus, her third collection was published by Picador in 2014. She is has been Writer in Residence at Glasgow University and Glasgow School of Art, a Scottish Poetry Library Poet Partner, and Reader in Residence of Shetland Library.

Bejan Matur was born in 1968 to a Kurdish Alevi family in Marash, South-east Turkey. She studied law at Ankara University. Her first collection of poetry, Rüzgar Dolu Konaklar (Winds Howl Through the Mansions, 1996), won several literary prizes. She is the author of eight further collections including: Tanrı Görmesin Harflerimi (God Must Not See the Letter of My Script, 1999); Ayın Büyüttüğü Oğullar (The Sons Reared by the Moon, 2002) and İbrahim’in Beni Terketmesi (How Abraham Abandoned Me, 2008). She has also written prose books and works for the stage.

Amharic singer and traditional krar player Haymanot Tesfa was born and raised in Ethiopia and is emerging as a rising star on the world music scene. Her music is inspired by deep reflection on the dramatic ancient landscapes and meditative, social and religious music of her Ethiopian roots, the sound of Haymanot’s voice is the true song of a free spirit, fearless and intensely experimental. Haymanot performed many places, such as WOMAD, House of Common, National Theatre and Sage Gateshead part of BBC Radio 3 Free Thinking Festival. She recently released her solo album Loosening the Strings.

National Mentoring and Translation Scheme

Writers can apply for one scheme

Exiled Writers Ink Mentoring Scheme

Are you a writer forced to live in exile?
Are you finding it hard to get recognition and published in the UK?

Exiled Writers Ink is running a mentoring scheme to match writers in exile with well known writers in the UK. You will work together intensively for 8 monthly sessions, leading to publications/readings and new opportunities. You do not have to have been previously published or have a perfect level of English but you do need to be writing at a high level and be ready to accept guidance and constructive criticism from your mentor. If you are interested, please send 10 poems or 2 short stories and a CV to:
davidyclark@live.co.uk

Deadline is 4th October 2019

Exiled Writers Ink Translation Scheme

Are you a writer forced to live in exile?
Are you finding it hard to get translated and published in the UK?
Exiled Writers Ink is running a scheme to match writers in exile with expert translators in the UK. You will work together intensively over a year, leading to publications, readings and new opportunities. If you are interested please send a CV in English and 5 to 10 poems or 2 short stories in your language to:
davidyclark@live.co.uk

Deadline is 4th October 2019

Towards an Open Land

In response to rising Islamophobia and anti-Semitism across the UK, Exiled Writers Ink will be bringing together a diverse range of Muslim and Jewish writers currently living in Britain. Through workshops, they will explore their personal narratives and literary traditions to create poetic responses.

After these London workshops, we will take our project on the road to expand the conversation. These events with local communities will include poetry, discussion and workshops on the nuances of writing poetry as an enquiry into transnational cultural identities.

Literary Activism

Towards an Open Land: On the Frontline Together

Workshops

Mondays 24th June, 1st, 22nd, 29th July from 6 to 8 pm

SOAS, 10 Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square
London WC1H 0XG (nearest tube: Russell Square)

Facilitated by experienced Muslim and Jewish tutors working together, this short course aims to help you articulate your experiences, drawing on your cultural backgrounds to create work that resists stereotypes and celebrates difference and diversity.
In the face of increasing hostility, the two communities can draw strength and solidarity from one another.
Four workshops build from an exploration of the creative process, to completing work you are proud of.
Come listen, learn and be inspired.

About the tutors:
Shamim Azad is a bilingual poet, storyteller and writer of Bangladeshi origin.
Ariel Kahn is a published novelist and lecturer in creative writing.

After these London workshops we will take the project on the road in England to draw in local communities to interactively expand the conversation about imposed identities.

Register now: exiledwritersink@gmail.com

Free for Exiled Writers Ink 2019 members. Otherwise join EWI (£15) for 4 free workshops. FREE if there is a payment problem.
www.exiledwriters.co.uk

The first event was
On the Frontline: Jewish and Muslim Poets Speak Out
Changing Wor(l)ds Literature Festival
Saturday 25th May from 12.30 to 2.30 pm
Nottingham Writers’ Studio, 25 Hockley, Nottingham NG1 1FH
with poets Amir Darwish, Dr Jennifer Langer, Mohamed Mohamed and Jill Abram.
Come and hear their poems and join them in discussion.

Exiled Writers Ink presents Free Monthly Poetry Workshops

for EWI Members

Learn a new skill each month

• Wednesday 15th January 2020
• Thursday 20th February 2020
• Wednesday 18th March 2020
• Wednesday 22nd April 2020
• Wednesday 20th May 2020
• Wednesday 17th June 2020

First Floor Studio, Poetry Society, 22 Betterton Street, London WC2H 9BX
(Nearest tube: Covent Garden or Leicester Square)
Register now: exiledwritersink@gmail.com

Offered by Catherine Temma Davidson, poet and experienced tutor.

Catherine Temma Davidson is a published poet, novelist and essayist who has won numerous awards for her work. She teaches at Regents University and has run writing workshops throughout the UK. She is on the board of Exiled Writers Ink.

Poetry Discussion, Writing Exercises, Feedback and Development.

Read the poems of writers from around the world, and respond to a poetry point and writing exercise inspired by the reading. Every month there will be a chance to create new work as well as an opportunity to share feedback and development insights on revised/drafted work.

Free for members of Exiled Writers Ink http://www.exiledwriters.co.uk/membership/

If membership payment is a problem, please contact Jennifer in confidence exiledwritersink@gmail.com

Exiled Writers Ink is pleased to be a new partner on the Free Read Bursary scheme for 2018 to 2021.

• The scheme involves The Literary Consultancy providing a detailed assessment of writers’ literary work to help develop your work.
• The Free Read scheme is for low-income, high-quality writers.

On Job Seeker’s Allowance, Income Support, Disability Benefit, Working Tax Credit and for students, Over 60s and Other. ‘Other’ is for anyone on a low income (i.e. under the minimum wage over the year). Proof is required by the TLC.

• Exiled Writers Ink will select writers who we think would benefit from the scheme.
• The scheme is open to writers of poetry and prose, including short stories, scripts, screenplays and radio plays.
• Writers can submit an extract of their work or the full manuscript across fiction, non-fiction, short stories, poetry, scripts and screenplays.

The Literary Consultancy Free Reads Scheme offers talented, low-income writers the opportunity to apply for bursaried (non-fee paying) access to their valuable commercial services for writers. Established in 1996 as the first service of its kind in the UK, The Literary Consultancy (TLC) offers writers the opportunity to receive an honest, market-aware appraisal of their work through its long-running manuscript assessment service, available for extracts or full manuscripts across fiction, non-fiction, short stories, poetry, scripts and screenplays. TLC has helped a number of writers on to publication, but its main aim is to support writers in developing their work. TLC hand-matches each incoming manuscript to a suitable reader from its list of 80+ professional editors, and writers can expect to receive feedback in the form of a written critique, sent within 4-6 weeks of the application being processed.

If a TLC reader finds that a manuscript is at a very high standard and he or she thinks there may be a potential market for it as well, then we ask the writer to do the necessary revisions and send it to our office where the TLC office will then reassess the manuscript. If TLC finds that they can support a quality manuscript, then they try to place it with an agent. TLC scouts for literary talent, but we never recommend that a writer seek an assessment if their only interest is in being published.

Bart Wolffe Legacy Fund

To assist struggling refugee and migrant writers and to remember talented poet and writer Bart Wolffe from Zimbabwe. Bart was involved in Exiled Writers Ink for many years and was also a committee member.

Funds raised for the Bart Wolffe Legacy Fund will be used for the Exiled Writers Ink literature competition which we hope will take place every two years. We are pleased that Bart’s legacy will live on through his poetry and books and through the competition.

Listen to his poetry

Bart Wolffe was born in Harare, Zimbabwe in 1952 and left in 2002 for exile in Germany via London. He was then in exile in London. He was a Zimbabwean leading playwright with work performed in nine countries. His fourteen plays include The Sisyphus Road (2002), The Art of Accidental Stains (2002) and Killing Rats (2001). He worked extensively, not only in Zimbabwe, but throughout the countries of Southern Africa as well as in Edinburgh running theatre and play writing workshops and touring shows as well as performing. He has several published books, mostly poetry, including of coffee cups and cigarettes (1991) and Changing Skins. His work has been included in numerous anthologies such as New Accents, a joint anthology of five African poets and his collection of short stories is entitled A Twist of Tales (1989). His novel Eye of the Witness (1995) is unpublished for fear of political repercussions. His novel Worm Head was published in 2006. Persona Non Grata, is a collection of stories based on exile and alienation and his biography is Bastard of the Colony. He was a freelance journalist and was involved in the media in film, television, print and radio. Sitcoms and features included observations on society and its issues in Zimbabwe. Waiters, Dr Juju and many more, and his theatre columns commented on the use of stage as a social platform where government control had not altogether taken over the artists’ voices. However, the banning of all independent newspapers and the jamming of radio stations curtailed his freedom to continue to make a living as a writer and free thinker. The lack of freedom of expression meant that continuing as an artist in Zimbabwe became impossible.