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RLF Fellows’ News: April 2025

Publishing

Dr Sue Roe’s book; Hidden Portraits: The Untold Stories of Six Women Who Loved Picasso, has been published by Faber.

A reappraising history of the women artist Pablo Picasso shared his life with, Hidden Portraits reveals the remarkable lives of Fernande Olivier, Olga Khokhlova, Marie-Therese Walter, Dora Maar, Francoise Gilot and Jacqueline Roque.

The book is set to launch with an event at The London Library on 3 April. Sue will join Sue Prideaux, biographer of Paul Gauguin, in conversation with art historian and educator Dr Ben Street. More here.

Kapka Kassabova’s Anima: A Wild Pastoral has been published in paperback by Penguin.

A gripping portrayal of human-animal interdependence, Anima follows Kassabova’s time with the last moving pastoralists in Europe, as this small community of herders move sheep across the Balkan region during the course of one intense summer.

The Guardian described it as “creative non-fiction at its best.”

Wren James‘ duology of novellas, The Starlight Watchmaker and The Deep-Sea Duke, are set to be published in the USA by Hachette/Union Square & Co this April.

In The Starlight Watchmaker, android Hugo works as a watchmaker in the dusty attic room of an elite academy for the galaxy’s wealthiest students. Many androids like him are without jobs or homes, which is the kind of struggle a privileged student like Dorian could never understand. But when Hugo and Dorian uncover a potential terrorist threat, they must work together to track down the culprit.

The Deep-Sea Duke follows Hugo as he and his friend Ada visit Dorian’s planet, only to discover it has become a temporary home for refugee butterflies. Displaced by climate change, the butterflies have been offered sanctuary by Dorian’s parents, but they’re running out of space. Meanwhile, beneath the seas, a strange creature is wreaking havoc…

Originally published in the UK by Barrington Stoke, these dyslexia-friendly sci-fi novellas are formatted to meet reluctant young readers where they are, and to encourage reading success.

Broadcasts

Nicola Baldwin‘s radio play, We The Young Strong, is broadcast on Radio 4 on Thursday 10 April and available afterwards on BBC Sounds.

Directed by Celia De Wolff, We The Young Strong follows Flora, Eva, Violet, Charlie and George, who are unemployed, troubled, and have been kicked out of school. Years of austerity following a banking crash they can barely remember has crushed their hopes and damaged their trust in government. A new political movement, the British Union of Fascists, offers an outlet for their anger and – unlike the old political parties – will train them, pay them, empower them. Loyalty to the Blackshirts must be absolute: the future belongs to those willing to fight for it. But what if this means fighting each other?

Productions

John Donnelly’s play Apex Predator is at Hampstead Theatre until 26 April:

“Mia is going out of her mind in a flat with a baby that won’t feed. Her son Alfie’s getting bullied at school; her husband Joe is working all hours for the police on a job he can’t talk about; the neighbour keeps blasting music at 2am; and another body has been found in the Thames. As Mia desperately looks for something in her life she can control, Alfie’s teacher Ana proposes an unconventional route to empowerment – and suddenly the hunted becomes the hunter.”

Directed by Blanche McIntyre, Apex Predator is both a sophisticated critique of the way we live now and a supernatural thriller.

Cherry Smyth will join Ed Bennett’s Decibel Ensemble for a new commission, All Earth Once Drowned.

Inspired by Rachel Carson’s The Sea Around Us and the closing of Cherry’s own childhood beach in the summer of 2023 due to toxic algae, All Earth Once Drowned explores and laments the warming oceans and dying sea life. It features texts by Cherry based on her poem The Cure for Everything.

Ed Bennett’s Decibel Ensemble is a 10-piece ensemble of Irish and UK musicians standing in a collective call for action. Cherry will perform with the ensemble, interweaving her texts throughout this expansive composition ranging from music of huge energy and rage to quiet and delicate introspection.

All Earth Once Drowned will have its World Premiere at the New Music Dublin Festival on 4 April, following performances in London and Belfast. More information here.

Awards

Edson Burton has won the Tinniswood Award for the best original audio drama script broadcast in 2024 for his BBC Radio 4 play Man Friday, a re-imagining of Daniel Defoe’s classic, Robinson Crusoe. Presented by actor and writer Paterson Joseph (pictured here with Edson), Edson’s win was announced at the BBC Audio Awards on Sunday 30 March.

The Tinniswood Award was established by the Writers Guild of Great Britain and The Society of Authors to celebrate high standards in radio drama and perpetuate the memory of writer Peter Tinniswood (1936-2003) and comes with a £3,000 prize donated by the Society of Authors.

Man Friday is available on BBC Sounds. Listen here.

Roy Williams has been awarded one of this year’s Windham-Campbell Prizes.

He is one of eight authors of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama to receive this year’s international award in recognition of literary achievements or promise. Roy, along with fellow British playwright Matilda Feyiṣayọ Ibini, will each receive $175,000 to support their work.

The other 2025 recipients of Windham-Campbell Prizes are Anthony V. Capildeo, Rana Dasgupta, Tongo Eisen-Martin, Anne Enright, Sigrid Nunez and Patricia J. Williams.

Events and appearances

Charlie Hill is co-organising …With radiant hearts to a new adventure, an evening of storytelling in support of the Birmingham Hospice on 10 April.

The event will feature readings from six short story experts: Alan Beard, Kavita Bhanot, Helen Cross, Meave Haughey, Charlie Hill and Malachi McIntosh.

Buy tickets here.

Claudine Toutoungi will be at Cuirt International Festival of Literature, Galway, Ireland on 11 April reading from her latest collection, Emotional Support Horse.

For more information and to buy tickets, visit the Cuirt Festival website.

Horatio Clare will be at Sherborne Travel Writing Festival on 13 April, talking about ways of travelling through trauma and his new book, Your Journey Your Way – How to Make the Mental Health System Work for You.

Building on his earlier book, Adventures in a Strange Country, Horatio will map the troubled mind, looking at the causes of mental health crises and how they can be turned to healing, recovery and post-traumatic growth.

Tickets here.

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