What’s new?

It was wonderful, in 2014, sharing the post of  2014 Eccles British Library Writer in Residence with Olivia Laing; and terrific that Sarah Churchwell and Benjamin Markovits hold the Eccles posts in 2015. Sarah, of course, was one of my fellow judges on the 2014 Man Booker Prize, which we gave to Richard Flanagan’s bold and moving novel, The Narrow Road to the Deep North. I’m writing for The New Statesman, The Financial Times, The Economist, The New York Times… follow me @EricaWgnr where I’ll post links to my pieces! Meantime,  the show I’ve made, A Concert of Stories, with storyteller Abbi Patrix and percussionist Linda Edsjo is now part of the touring repertoire of Compagnie de Cercle — here are details about the show, and where to see it (mostly in France, and in French…). If you want to read about how it came about you can do that here. My novel, Seizure, is published in French now as La Coupure. If you’re heading that way… “Seizure is terrific.” Philip Pullman

Upcoming events

Please come along to my spring series of Skylight Soirées! Beginning on Thursday, March 12, in association with The Wapping Project and The New Statesman, I’ll be hosting a series of evenings with some fabulous writers: Ali Smith, Henry Marsh, Andrew Marr, Kate Mosse, Ian Kelly and Tracey Thorn. Tickets are only a tenner — and you’ll get to see one of London’s most beautiful buildings, Ely House, built for the Bishop of Ely in 1772. Tickets available on Eventbrite here!

My Radio 3 Essay, A History of My Family in One Object, was broadcast on Christmas Eve — you can still listen to it here. 

Quote of the day

• Work without dignity — “Here was wealth greater than ever known before — wealth gained not by men as producers but as masters of capital, middle men, investors and speculators; wealth that held the living of the many in its hands, but which had largely lost the sense of stewardship. And here was work that lacked dignity; wages fixed without bargaining; regulation and control in place of the old freedom.” The United States in the 1840s and 1850s; from Avery O. Craven’s Civil War in the Making, 1815-1860