Norwich is a City of Literature

What is it like to visit and write about a city that is hundreds (or thousands!) of miles away during a pandemic? How can this distance shape your writing? Join us online as we hear about how two of our UNESCO writers have been viewing Norwich from afar during their month-long virtual residency with the National Centre for Writing.

In a time when most of us can mostly only travel beyond our known boundaries by means of the internet, we will explore the truths in these virtual views. Modern life is watching us – through webcams and traffic cameras – so Liz Breslin spent a month watching it back, writing what she saw, and sharing her views from the other side of the world.

Marcin Wilk also used his virtual residency to enter the unknown space of a foreign city and see how his imagination worked. He has been exploring The Book Hive and other independent bookshops in Norwich, their history and the people who run them, and looking through the prism of bookshops at the local community, the book market, and the city.

Liz and Marcin will be in conversation with Megan Bradbury, whose novel, Everyone is Watching, about New York City, was researched mostly in Edinburgh. She also has over ten years’ experience as a bookseller.

This event will take place on YouTube. Please book your place in advance to receive a streaming link directly to your inbox.

With thanks to the ACE Ambition for Excellence Fund for supporting the UNESCO virtual residencies, and to our partners in Dunedin and Krakow UNESCO cities of literature.

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About the writers

Megan Bradbury is a novelist and creative writing tutor. Her first novel, Everyone is Watching, was published by Picador in 2016. Described as a ‘beating heart of a novel’ by Ali Smith, and ‘one of the best debuts I’ve read in years’ by Eimear McBride, the book was longlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize and Not the Booker Prize, and was chosen as one of the Guardian’s Best Books of 2016. Bradbury’s short fiction has been published in Ambit, The Mechanics’ Institute Review and Pen & Inc Press. She is an experienced artistic collaborator and has worked on commissioned projects with acclaimed artists from across the world.

Liz Breslin writes poems, plays and stories. In 2020 she co-created Dunedin UNESCO City of Literature’s Possibilities Project and was the winner of the Kathleen Grattan Award for a Sequence of Poems. She’s also been part of a spoke’n’word tour of the Otago Central Rail Trail, which will be screened as rail:lines, a documentary film. Her second poem collection, In bed with the feminists, will be published by Dead Bird Books in 2021.

Marcin Wilk is a writer, journalist, and blogger. For many years he was the curator of the Przemysły Książki [Book Industries] at the International Literary Festival – Conrad Festival in Kraków (Poland), as well as the moderator of the Reading Discussion Clubs on classical literature in the same city. Author of the biographies of two famous Polish women: singer Anna Jantar (Tyle Słońca, 2015), and actress Irena Kwiatkowska (Żarty się skończyły, 2019), and a historical reportage Pokój z widokiem. Lato 1939 [A Room with a View. Summer 1939] (2019). He is an editor of Wyliczanka.eu – a portal about books and literature.

Meet the World

Our Meet the World series aims to celebrate our ongoing connections with international writers and translators by sharing their writing and ideas with new readers.