18 September 2004
Saturday 18 September 2004 21:30-22:15 (Radio 3)
Ian McMillan's guests are Booker Prize winning novelist Yann Martel, writer and broadcaster Simon Armitage and writer and performer Sophie Woolley.
Programme Details
Booker Prize winning novelist Yann MartelÌýtalks toÌýIan McMillanÌýabout developing his writing style,Ìýas a young man edging towards becoming a writer. His 2002 Booker winning 'The Life of Pi' is published by Canongate, as is his latest collection of short stories 'The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios'.
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Novelist Jake Arnott, judge of our Summer Writing Competition, announces the winner and talks us through his favourite entries.
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Verb regular Sophie Woolley is a writer and performer from London who's appeared in venues from Edinburgh to Amsterdam, with Bath somewhere in between, and is soon to be travelling as far afield as Slovenia , on tour with the British Council. She performs satirical monolgues, and Irvine Welsh said of one of her characters, DJ Bird, that she 'vividly and incisively illustrates the striking underbelly of dance culture'. 'China Devon' is her new piece, specially written and performed forÌýThe Verb.
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And writer and broadcaster Simon Armitage joins Ian McMillan to pay tribute to the poet Michael Donaghy, who died on 17th September 2004 . Donaghy was poetry editor of the Chicago Review in the early nineteen eighties. His collection 'Shibboleth' (Oxford Paperbacks) won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize and the Whitbread Poetry Award; 'Errata' (Oxford Paperbacks) was selected in 1993 for the 'New Generation Poets' promotion; and his collection 'Conjure' (Picador, 2000) won the Forward Poetry Prize for Best Collection of the Year and was shortlisted for both the Whitbread Poetry Award and the T.S. Eliot Prize.
And apologies to those of you whoÌýwere hoping to hear Nick Cave, he will be onÌýThe Verb very soon.ÌýÌý
