Event recordings and podcasts
Podcasts from the Centre for New Writing, Literature Live and 'In Conversation' events.
Many of our public readings and conversations take place at the Martin Harris Centre for Music and Drama, where we are able to audio record the events for future broadcast. Please explore The Podcast for New Writing and The Rylands Brief for our most up-to-date discussions on writing and publishing today.
The Rylands Brief: Poetry Manchester and the Present
Exploring the unopened John Rylands exhibition Carcanet at 50, and featuring editors, poets, archivists and friends of Carcanet Press.
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The podcast for new writing
‘Emerging’ writers on The University of Manchester’s Centre for New Writing MA programme meet to talk about all things writerly.
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Podcast archive
2016
2016 public lectures:
Howard Jacobson: Shakespeare400
Recorded at The John Rylands Library, Manchester on Monday, 11 April 2016.
In association with the Hogarth Shakespeare project, the Centre for New Writing welcomed Man Booker prize-winner Howard Jacobson, who read from and discussed his latest novel Shylock Is My Name, a retelling of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice.
Literature Live: Jeanette Winterson in conversation with Helen MacDonald
Recorded at the Martin Harris Centre's Cosmo Rodewald Concert Hall on Monday, 29 February 2016.
Centre for New Writing Professor Jeanette Winterson was joined by writer, poet, illustrator and naturalist Helen MacDonald, author of H is for Hawk, to discuss writing, Englishness, grief and success.
Literature Live: Ian McGuire and Rupert Thomson
Recorded at the Martin Harris Centre on Monday, 8 February 2016. The first Literature Live event of 2016 marked the official launch of CNW co-director Ian McGuire's new novel The North Water (published in the UK by Scribner February 2016).
Ian was joined in this event by Rupert Thomson who is the author of ten critically acclaimed novels, including The Insult, which was shortlisted for the Guardian Fiction Prize and chosen by David Bowie as one of his Top 100 Must-Read books of all time, and Death of a Murderer, which was shortlisted for the Costa Prize.
His memoir, This Party’s Got to Stop, won the Writers’ Guild Non Fiction Book of the Year.
His most recent novel, Katherine Carlyle, was published in November 2015.
Guardian Live: Jeanette Winterson In Conversation with John Irving
Recorded at the Whitworth Art Gallery on Monday, 1 February 2016.
In association with Guardian Live, this event welcomed John Irving in conversation with Jeanette Winterson, Professor of Creative Writing at the Centre for New Writing, who recently published The Gap of Time. John read from and discussed his fourteenth novel Avenue of Mysteries.
2015
2015 public lectures:
Manchester Literature Festival 2015: Joanne Harris: Why I Write – A Writer’s Manifesto
Recorded at the Martin Harris Centre’s Cosmo Rodewald Concert Hall on Monday, 19 October 2015.
Joanne Harris, award-winning author of 14 novels including Chocolat, joined new University of Manchester Chancellor Lemn Sissay and Nebula Award-winning author Geoff Ryman to discuss the relationships between reader and writer, censorship, and the internet in this National Conversation event.
Manchester Literature Festival 2015: Kevin Barry and John McAuliffe
Recorded at the Martin Harris Centre’s Cosmo Rodewald Concert Hall on Monday, 12 October 2015.
An evening celebrating new books from two established talents of Irish writing. Kevin Barry described the hours of research into John Lennon’s speech and mannerisms that went into his new novel Beatlebone and John McAuliffe, Co-Director of the Centre for New Writing, read selected poems from his new collection The Way In.