We were delighted to present two Ealing sessions in the William Barry Theatre at the University of West London, after two years at Gunnersbury Park Museum, and our 2020 celebration of Hogarth’s A Rake’s Progress at Pitzhanger Manor & Gallery. In addition to the sessions below, UWL also sponsored our session in Chiswick on Still Breathing: 100 Black Voices on Racism.
See news coverage:
Chiswick Book Festival welcomed at UWL: Chiswick Herald
BBC tech expert to address literary festival in Ealing: Ealing Times
UWL to host Ealing sessions of Chiswick Book Festival: Hounslow Herald
Book festival focus turns to Ealing authors: Ealing Times
tuesday september 14th
7pm: Rory Cellan-Jones: Always On – Hope and Fear in the Social Smartphone Era See the UWL recording on YouTube.
From the launch of the iPhone to the unstoppable rise of social media; the liberation, disruption and oppression of the smartphone era is enthrallingly recounted in Always On by the BBC’s technology correspondent and Ealing resident, Rory Cellan-Jones. Chaired by technology journalist Kate Bevan. Read more – and an extract.
‘Delightfully insightful and intensely readable […] There is an energy and drama to Rory’s writing which nonetheless leaves space for us, the reader, to make up our minds’ – Stephen Fry.
William Barry Theatre, University of West London, £10
Wednesday september 15th
7pm: The Ealing Fiction Panel See the UWL recording on YouTube.
After last year’s sparkling evening with four Ealing novelists, we presented a new line-up for 2021: Nicola Rayner (You and Me), Robin Duval (Going to America) and Saz Vora (Made in Heaven). Chaired again by award-winning playwright Lisa Evans (right).
William Barry Theatre, University of West London, £8
Robin Duval was born in Liverpool. The greater part of his career has been spent in the film and television business as a writer, producer and executive. From 1999 to 2004 he was Director of the British Board of Film Classification. He received a CBE in 2005. He lives in Ealing with his wife and now combines writing with music, travel and watching Brentford FC. His first three books were all fast-moving political thrillers set against an international backdrop. Bear in the Woods was published in 2010, followed by Below the Thunder in 2013 and Not Single Spies in 2015.
His latest novel, Going to America, published earlier this year, explores a quite different theme. At first glance, it’s a touching and comic story about a 75-year old actor taking his young grand-daughter on the trip of a lifetime to New Orleans and the southern states. The old actor, however, is distracted by troublesome memories – of his late wife, an old love, and the fame he once took for granted. It does not help also that he is a stubborn refusenik of the new digital age and in denial of any decline in his former intellectual and physical powers. Part comedy, part romance, part great adventure. A meditation on age, loss, and love. About time remembered and time regained.
Saz Vora is a wife, mother and writer. She was born in East Africa and migrated with her family in the ‘60s to Coventry, Midlands, where she grew up straddling British and Gujarati Indian culture. Her debut novels, My Heart Sings Your Song and Where Have We Come, is a story in two parts of love, life, family, conflict, and two young people striving to remain together throughout. Where Have We Come (Finalist, The Wishing Shelf Book Awards 2020), is based on true events that have shaped her outlook on life’s trials and tribulations. Her short story, Broad Street Library, was longlisted in Spread the Word, Life Writing Prize 2020. Before writing South Asian melodrama, she had a successful career in Television Production and Teaching… But her need to write stories has led to what she is doing now – writing stories about people like her in multi-cultural Britain.
Jane Eyre inspires her latest novel, Made in Heaven, a story of family secrets and forbidden love set in the South of France and England. Escaping her unhappy home by taking a job as an au pair orphan, Hema Pattni’s new post in southern France seems like a dream come true. The family welcomes her with open arms, and her bright, inquisitive pupil, Amelie, is a delight. But a series of strange happenings threatens the summer’s perfection as the mysterious sightings of a lady in black increases.
Nicola Rayner is the author of The Girl Before You, which was described as “the new Girl on the Train” by the Observer, picked by the same newspaper as a debut to look out for in 2019 and translated into multiple languages. Her second novel, You and Me, another psychological thriller, was published by Avon, HarperCollins in October 2020. In her day job as a journalist, Nicola writes about dance and travel and her articles have appeared in a number of publications including the Guardian, the Independent, Time Out and Dancing Times. The Girl Before You and You and Me are out now in paperback, ebook and audiobook.
Lisa Evans is an award-winning playwright, whose work for the theatre includes Up The Duff; The Day The Waters Came [Writers Guild Award: Best Play for Young Audiences]; Glory Glory; Run!!; Keep Smiling Through; The Angel Tide; Stamping, Shouting and Singing Home; Cold Calling; Rise Up [Writers Guild Award: Best Play for Young Audiences]; The Red Chair [British Theatre Association Award]; Getting to the Foot of the Mountain, Under Exposure [British Theatre Association Award] and Once We Were Mothers (finalist for the John Whiting Award).
Her stage adaptations include The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Villette, East Lynne, Frankenstein, Cat’s Eye, Jamaica Inn and The Maid of Buttermere. Her plays are published by Oberon/Bloomsbury Publishing. Besides her work for radio, Lisa also writes for television, where her credits include The Bill, Holby City, Peak Practice, Casualty and EastEnders.