SJ Bradley – författare

A beautiful anthology featuring new writing responding to the life and death of David Oluwale, a Nigerian immigrant to Leeds found drowned in the River Aire in 1969. The anthology also includes selections from previously published works by writers including Kester Aspden, Linton Kwesi Johnson and Zodwa Nyoni, and competition judges Ian Duhig and Caryl Phillips.

'In Claudia Rankine's Citizen the speaker is asked in England if she will write about Mark Duggan. She replies, "Why don't you?"Our competition entrants rose to that challenge over David Oluwale's story and its continuing echoes for oursociety in new and moving ways. Their work stands confidently beside that of better-known writers in ananthology all can be proud of, a document of their refusal to be silent in the face of abusive power.'

Produced by members of the Northern Short Story Festival Academy, this new anthology showcasing the range of talent in the North of England features work by Litro fiction editor Barney Walsh, author & critic Richard Smyth, and poet and academic Haleemah Alaydi. Twelve of the authors featured in this new work are graduates of the Northern Short Story Festival Academy programme, which developed the voices of twelve brand new short story writers based in the region. Features a foreword by Anna Chilvers.

Permanent Emotion is a captivating anthology which highlights the exceptional writing talent currently emerging from the North of England. Edited by SJ Bradley and supported by the Walter Swan Trust, it features graduates of the Northern Short Story Festival Academy programme, which has played a crucial role in nurturing the unique voices of writers based in the North since 2017.

No two of these stories are the same: they range from playful, experimental narratives to folk horror, fantasy and reimagined fairy tales. Writers who received remote mentoring during the pandemic have captured the surreal, transformative nature of those times; others have contemplated the body-altering horrors of motherhood, or the freedom and wildness of nature. Together, their stories offer a map of the rich and varied literary landscape of the North.