{"id":1515,"date":"2023-02-08T08:43:40","date_gmt":"2023-02-08T08:43:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/centre-for-book-cultures-and-publishing\/?p=1515"},"modified":"2023-03-01T09:26:53","modified_gmt":"2023-03-01T09:26:53","slug":"kit-de-waal-in-conversation-and-in-person","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/centre-for-book-cultures-and-publishing\/kit-de-waal-in-conversation-and-in-person\/","title":{"rendered":"Kit de Waal: in conversation and in person"},"content":{"rendered":"

We are delighted to announce that we will be welcoming the author Kit de Waal to our Whiteknights Campus at the University of Reading for a very special author event. In conversation with Shelley Harris, Creative Writing programme director, Kit will be discussing her writings \u2013 both fiction and memoir \u2013 and the impact she\u2019s had in making publishing a better place for working-class writers.<\/p>\n

Kit de Waal is a multi-award-winning author of short stories, novels, and an autobiography.\u00a0My Name is Leon\u00a0<\/em>(2016), her first novel, was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award, longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize and won the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award. It was recently televised by the BBC, with a cast including Christopher Eccleston and Sir Lenny Henry, who also voiced the audiobook.<\/p>\n

Kit has a passion for getting diverse voices heard. She used some of her author advance to set up the Kit de Waal Creative Writing Scholarship at Birkbeck to help improve working-class representation in the arts. It is dedicated to supporting a budding writer from a low-income household or other marginalized backgrounds. In its first year it attracted 138 applicants: this in turn, attracted other donations which has enabled the funding of additional scholarships.<\/p>\n

She is the editor of\u00a0Common People: An Anthology of Working-Class Writers<\/em>\u00a0(2019),<\/em>\u00a0the result of a project with\u00a0Unbound\u00a0<\/em>and regional writing development organisations to feature working-class writers: this also involved mentoring and supporting new writers.<\/p>\n

Her autobiography\u00a0Without Warning & Only Sometimes \u2013 Scenes from an Unpredictable Childhood<\/em>\u00a0published in 2022 and was a Book of the Week on BBC Radio 4.\u00a0The Guardian\u00a0<\/em>described it as \u2018A richly observed portrait of a working-class childhood and adolescence that finds magic in the mundane\u2019.<\/p>\n

Kit was born in Birmingham to an Irish mother, who was a childminder and foster carer, and a Caribbean father. She left school at 16 and, after a variety of jobs, worked for fifteen years in criminal and family law, was a magistrate for several years and sits on adoption panels. She used to advise Social Services on the care of foster children, and has written training manuals on adoption, foster care and judgecraft for members of the judiciary.<\/p>\n

She started writing at the age of 45 and undertook an MA in Creative Writing. Her work has received numerous awards including the Bridport Flash Fiction Prize 2014 and 2015 and the SI Leeds Literary Reader\u2019s Choice Prize 2014 and the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year.\"\"<\/p>\n

This is a free in person\/hybrid event but everyone (whether attending in person or online) will need a ticket booked in advance via Eventbrite. Please click here<\/a> for more details.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We are delighted to announce that we will be welcoming the author Kit de Waal to our Whiteknights Campus at the University of Reading for a very special author event….Read More ><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":732,"featured_media":1508,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"__cvm_playback_settings":[],"__cvm_video_id":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"coauthors":[44],"class_list":["post-1515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nKit de Waal: in conversation and in person - Centre for Book Cultures and Publishing<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"We are delighted to announce that we will be welcoming the author Kit de Waal to our Whiteknights Campus at the University of Reading for a very special author event. 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