HEAVEN IS A PHOTOGRAPH BY CHRISTINE SLOAN STODDARD – REVIEW

Posted on September 29, 2020 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged art, autofiction, book, christine sloan stoddard, collection, featured, photo, photography, poem, poet, poetry, read women, review, visual arts, women writing, writing.

by Ananya Wilson –Bhattacharya

‘I do not take photos/I give them/as I always give/in love’, the protagonist of Christine Sloan Stoddard’s poetry/photography collection Heaven is a Photograph declares, a characteristically bold admission of vulnerability. These lines, taken from the poem ‘Unrequited Pixels’, evoke an overarching theme of the collection: the emotional intensity of the protagonist’s relationship with photography. Charting the protagonist’s journey, from a childhood as the daughter of a photographer to becoming a photographer herself, Stoddard’s brief and beautiful collection explores the power of both photography and photographer – through a deft and deeply meta combination of verse and photography itself.

I HOPE WE CHOOSE LOVE REVIEW

Posted on October 20, 2019 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged arsenal pulp, art, book, care, consent, David Ng, essays, featured, gender, hope, indigenous, justice, Kai Cheng Thom, Khelsilem, massy books, Musqueam, poetry, qtpoc, queer, radical, review, Squamish, trans, Tsleil-Waututh, vancouver, writing.

by Alex Valente

Content warning: suicide

On the evening of Friday, 18^th October 2019, I attended Massy Books launch of Kai Cheng Thom’s latest book I Hope We Choose Love – A Trans Girl’s Notes from the End of the World, a collection of non-fiction and short poetic pieces that together form a net of radical hope-building for a time – and it has been a long time, as rightly noted in the introduction – when all hope seems lost. I follow Kai Cheng’s work online already, but I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from the event. I’m glad to say I’m still not entirely sure what happened.Continue Reading

THREE LATIN AMERICAN WRITERS

Posted on July 4, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged arts, berlin, book, Carmen Boullosa, carmen maria machado, Chloe Aridjis, cuba, featured, identity, latin american, Latinx, Law and Order, magical realism, Mexico, mexico heritage, novel, overview, personal, peter bush, queer, review, romance, self, short story, travel, women writers, writing.

by Carmina Masoliver

On a recent trip to Mexico, I decided to take with me three books by authors of Latin American heritage, including two of Mexican background, and one Cuban. All were women. Aside from eating the most delicious chimichangas, learning about the ancient Mayan ruins, and climbing up the Ixmoja part of the Nohoch Mul, I spent a lot of my time reading these authors by the sea with a strawberry daiquiri. Within just one week I had nearly consumed them all and discovered a new love of Latin American writing.Continue Reading

REVIEW: SCRATCH IT! AT THE NORWICH ARTS CENTRE

Posted on May 11, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Arts, Community and tagged Archers, arts, Carry on, charlotte carter, clive stubbs, comedy, drama, featured, hack theatre, Iona May, Jamie Callagher, NAC, natalie froome, norfolk, norwich, Norwich Arts Centre, performance, Puppet Theatre, review, scratch it, show, theatre, tony olly, tragedy, Vishaka Sriram, writing.

by Robyn Banks

On Sunday 6th May I attended Scratch It! hosted by Hack Theatre at the Norwich Arts Centre. Aimed at attracting new writers and ongoing projects, the evening looks to give a platform to work that is happening in the area so it can be developed and flourish. The arts varied across the evening, ranging from comedy to drama and using different styles and formats.Continue Reading

FROM PRISON TO PODIUM

Posted on February 17, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Arts, Community and tagged achievement, Community, conference, creative writing, criminology, david breakspear, education, event, experience, expression, featured, growth, HMP Norwich, norfolk, norwich, personal, prison, progress, reform, speaker, UEA, War of Words, writing.

by David Breakspear

Saturday the 10th Feb 2018, a day that I will always remember. I had been invited to speak in relation to prison education and the arts. I was speaking to an audience alongside Jacob Huntley, a lecturer in English literature and creative writing from the UEA. I met Jacob whilst I was a serving prisoner at HMP Norwich. One of my roles at HMP Norwich was as an education mentor and I was told that there would be a new creative writing course starting, which would be facilitated by Jacob. I have always found that penning emotions onto a piece of paper allowed me to free my mind.Continue Reading

DEEPGREY (9)

Posted on January 23, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged adblocker, bitcoin, blockchain, City, creative writing, cryptocurrency, cyberpunk, DeepGrey, drone, dystopia, featured, fiction, gaming, gender, internet, LRAD, meme wars, mining, police, prose, science fiction, scifi, serialised, sf, shop, singularity, social media, spam, specfic, speculative, street, suits, thug, virtual reality, virus, writing.

by Rob Harding

(Part 9 of a serialised prose fiction endeavour. Part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8)

I stay hidden while Adil opens up again, rates the police on their app, and sends them packing. Once that’s done, Adil’s daughter nods to me. ‘You’re welcome.’ She says. ‘Now, if you don’t mind?’

I stammer my thanks and head out the front again. Adil nods to me and lets me duck under a shutter, and back out onto the street.

There’s no sign of the police, or the hijacked DeepGrey workers, or anything particular. A Community Security bot has rolled into place at the far end of the street, but if I don’t go near it it won’t ID me and do the digital equivalent of the staring-eyed pod person screech. I’ve long since resigned to having to work around the damn things, and these days I only vaguely keep track of the forum posters who fight a constant arms race with their glassy-eyed developers out in San Francisco or Vientiane, or wherever the fuck has the most reliably gullible investors this week.Continue Reading

DEEPGREY (8)

Posted on January 10, 2018 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged adblocker, bitcoin, City, creative writing, cyberpunk, DeepGrey, drone, dystopia, featured, fiction, gaming, gender, internet, LRAD, meme wars, police, prose, science fiction, scifi, serialised, sf, shop, singularity, social media, spam, specfic, speculative, street, suits, thug, virtual reality, virus, writing.

by Zoe Harding

(Part 8 of a serialised prose fiction endeavour. Part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7) | CW: violence

The woman on the street is making those noises as the shouting starts again, the raw-throat all-out hate that only hysterical men can shriek. I barely recognise what they’re saying.

The woman coughs and sobs again, and I hear a fleshy impact, like the sound of a shoe hitting a stomach.

And then there’s the wail of a siren, right around the corner, and the burglar-alarm scream of an LRAD blots out all other sound. A huge armoured police car with tires as tall as I am comes grinding down the street, a pair of armed officers walking alongside it. The turret on top is swinging to bring a grenade launcher to bear against the fight. Hopefully they won’t fire it. I like this jacket, and the stink of chemical riot dispersant is designed with a half-life of about fifty years.Continue Reading

DEEPGREY (7)

Posted on December 26, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged adblocker, bitcoin, City, creative writing, cyberpunk, DeepGrey, drone, dystopia, featured, fiction, gaming, internet, meme wars, prose, science fiction, scifi, serialised, sf, shop, singularity, social media, spam, specfic, speculative, street, suits, thug, virtual reality, virus, writing.

by Zoe Harding

(Part 7 of a serialised prose fiction endeavour. Part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6) | CW: violence, language

1087

I push the shop door open, and nod to Adil. He smiles back, salt-and-pepper beard twitching, and goes back to watching an old taped football match on his TV. I like Adil, even though we rarely talk. He’s a paid-up inhabitant of the Real World, the proverbial Englishman whose home is his castle, running his shop and veg garden like the world around him isn’t going to hell. I imagine his sitting room’s a comfortable throwback to the last millennium, kettle boiling and football on the TV glaring off the brown wallpaper.

DEEPGREY (6)

Posted on December 12, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged adblocker, bitcoin, City, creative writing, cyberpunk, DeepGrey, dystopia, fiction, gaming, internet, meme wars, prose, science fiction, scifi, serialised, sf, singularity, social media, spam, specfic, speculative, suits, virtual reality, virus, writing.

by Zoe Harding

(Part 6 of a serialised prose fiction endeavour. Part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5)

955

Speaking of, I decide it’s time to go for a walk. Staying active is good for your mental health, which is why every single public park and footpath is perpetually rammed with DeepGrey drones trying to keep their brains stable enough to run the god-spreadsheet – in my case it also helps immensely with the dysphoria, which is useful because nothing else is going to any more.

I pull on a bomber jacket and a baseball cap, opting for relatively shallow heels in case I need to out-sidle a DeepGrey recruiter. For once I’ve got enough money for a solid grocery shop, and near me there’s still a place that takes cash, earned scandalously but (in my opinion, anyway) honestly. I feel a solid meal coming on tonight.Continue Reading

DEEPGREY (5)

Posted on November 28, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Arts and tagged adblocker, bitcoin, creative writing, cyberpunk, DDoS, DeepGrey, fiction, gaming, internet, LinkedIn, meme wars, Nazi, prose, ransomware, Russia, science fiction, scifi, serialised, sf, singularity, social media, spam, specfic, speculative, suits, Ukraine, virtual reality, virus, writing.

by Zoe Harding

(Part 5 of a serialised prose fiction endeavour. Part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4.)

Once you write off the shambling hordes of DeepGrey-infected marketing consultants who make up most of the population, what’s left? The Nazis, of course. That persistent yet cannibalistic and insular sub-species, still reeling from the swift and brutal Consequences that followed their atrocities during the Meme War. When the War began, the tech industry was on the verge of realising what human society took several world wars to realise: fascists are poisonous to any system they’re allowed to root in, and should be rapidly expunged with fire and extreme prejudice. Continue Reading

writing

HEAVEN IS A PHOTOGRAPH BY CHRISTINE SLOAN STODDARD – REVIEW

by Ananya Wilson –Bhattacharya

THREE LATIN AMERICAN WRITERS

REVIEW: SCRATCH IT! AT THE NORWICH ARTS CENTRE

FROM PRISON TO PODIUM

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