On Monday 2nd March, and we heard from… West Camel, Mark Hill, Rosanna Amaka, Annabel Banks, Leo Unadike, Desmond Coy, Yara Rodrigues Fowler and Simon Rumley.

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Mark Hill has been a journalist and a BBC music and entertainment radio producer. He now sits in his attic office writing novels, including a series of crime novels featuring troubled North London detectives Ray Drake and Flick Crowley. His First Lie and It Was Her are published by Sphere Books. He’ll be reading the third in the series, The Bad Place.

@markhillwriter |markhillauthor.com

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Yara Rodrigues Fowler is a writer from South London. Her first novel, Stubborn Archivist, was published in 2019. It was recently long listed for Dylan Thomas Prize 2020 and last year Yara was nominated for various other prizes including the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year 2019.  She’s writing her second novel now.

Yara is also a trustee of Latin American Women’s Aid, an organisation that runs the only two refuges in Europe for and by Latin American women.

@yazzarf | yararodriguesfowler.com

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“Rumley is one of the most important and intelligent British film-makers working today.” Empire Magazine

Simon Rumley is one of the most successful and prolific UK directors of his generation, and has directed 9 feature films and 2 anthology films, including Red White & Blue, Fashionista and a segment from the ABCs of Death,  His films have played at festivals around the world including Toronto, Rotterdam, SXSW, Sarajevo, Tallin, Transilvania, Buenos Aires, Sydney, London, Rio and Stockholm, and won almost 50 awards collectively including best films or director at Sitges, Fantastic Fest, Fantasia, Frightfest, Lund, Fantaspoa, Ravenna and Boston Underground amongst others.  His latest film Once Upon A Time In London peaked at No3 on Netflix. He’ll be reading from his first novel.

simonrumley.com

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Lenny Hayden has worked as an actor and director in Dublin for over 25 years And has only recently made the move to London.
Most recently he played Lear in King Lear for Mill Productions Dublin and Directed a devised play Savage Love by Sam Shepard for Imagine Arts Festival in Waterford. He has also written some short stories, short film scripts and a one man stage Show which he performed for an Exquisite Corpse night in Waterford.
Having not written poetry or songs for many years, Lenny wrote
There’s No one at the Wheel to fulfill an artistic pledge made 6 months ago, and will be performing it at BookJam!

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Annabel Banks is an award-winning writer of poetry and prose. Her work can be found in such places as The Manchester Review, Litro, The Stockholm Review, Under the Radar and 3:AM, with recent commissions by the BBC and the University of Cambridge. Her writing has received multiple nominations for the Pushcart Prize, with further nominations for the Queen’s Ferry Press Best Short Fictions, Blazevox’s Bettering American Poetry, Best News Poets [US] and the Derringer Awards and was longlisted for the Royal Academy/Pindrop Short Story Award. Exercises in Control (best crossbow) is her first short story collection.

@Annabelwrites | www.annabelbanks.com

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Rosanna Amaka was born to African and Caribbean parents. She began writing The Book of Echoes twenty years ago to give voice to the Brixton community in which she grew up. Her community was fast disappearing – as a result of gentrification, emigration back to the Caribbean and Africa, or simply with the passing away of the older generation. Its depiction of the unimaginable pain redeemed by love and hope was also inspired by a wish to understand the impact of history on present-day lives. 

@RosannaAmaka | https://rosannaamaka.com

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West Camel was born and bred in South London, and has worked as a book and arts journalist, and as editor at Dalkey Archive Press, where he edited the Best European Fiction 2015 anthology.  He currently combines his work as editor at Orenda Books with writing and editing for arts organisations, including editing The Riveter magazine for the European Literature Network. He has written several short scripts and was longlisted for the Old Vic’s 12 playwrights project. 

Attend is his first novel and was shortlisted for the Polari First Book Prize. 

@west_camel | westcamel.net

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Brixton BookJam is at Hootananny Brixton (95 Effra Road, London SW2 1DF) – a large pub with a performance space that can hold 600 people. It also provides cooked food. The closest tube station is Brixton (Victoria line) and buses 2, 3, 415, 432 and 196 will transport you very near to the venue.