We are very pleased to announce the launch of a new online series premiering on YouTube: ‘Within the Four Walls’: Queer Lockdown Stories, curated by Lesley Wood (New Writing South), Dr Vedrana Velickovic (University of Brighton) and Dr Sam Solomon (University of Sussex); each conversation is between four LGBTQ+ writers and students spanning different generations to discuss their experiences of writing both before and during the first lockdown.
Session 3 premieres on YouTube on Friday 20 November 6pm, and features Tanaka Mhishi, Daniel Spelman, Jane Traies and Subira Wahogo. (Embedded below.)
About ‘Within the Four Walls’: Queer Lockdown Stories
‘Within the Four Walls’: Queer Lockdown Stories, is a collaborative project between New Writing South, the Centre for the Study of Sexual Dissidence at the University of Sussex, and English Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Brighton.
Within the Four Walls is a series of four recorded video conversations curated by Lesley Wood (New Writing South), Dr Vedrana Velickovic (University of Brighton) and Dr Sam Solomon (University of Sussex); each conversation is between four LGBTQ+ writers and students spanning different generations to discuss their experiences of writing both before and during the first lockdown. Writers often work in isolation under normal circumstances, while many LGBTQ+ people in cities like Brighton rely for their survival on kinship networks beyond the “household.” The lockdown, then, throws into relief a range of questions about what it means to be part of writing communities and queer and trans communities. In this series, writers and students discuss the experience of lockdown for themselves as writers as well as its impact on LGBTQ+ communities, the challenges and opportunities for generating creative spaces for queer and trans people of colour, different experiences of online and virtual media, and how experiences of “fear” and “safety” relate to their practices as writers.
The project was funded by University of Brighton’s Radical Futures and The School of Media, Arts and Humanities at the University of Sussex
Within the Four Walls’: Queer Lockdown Stories – YouTube premiere times and details
- Session 1 premieres on YouTube on Thursday 19 November, and features Juno Roche, Nehaal Bajwa, Mikey Birtwistle and Zia X. [LINK]
- Session 2 premieres on 20th November, with Annie Whilby – AFLO. the poet, Nat Raha, Razan Ghazzawi and Savannah Sevenzo. [LINK]
- Session 3 premieres on 3 December, and features Tanaka Mhishi, Daniel Spelman, Jane Traies and Subira Wahogo. [LINK]
- Session 4 premieres on 4 December, and features Sea Sharp, John McCullough, Ray Filar and Roxana Xamán. [LINK]
