Join acclaimed writers Johnny Payne and Monique Roffey in conversation in the latest international event in this series curated by the Manchester Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University: What We Talk About When We Talk About Writing. You are invited to listen in as Johnny and Monique read from their work, compare notes on their creative process, and talk about the highs and lows of the writing life. The event will take place online on Microsoft Teams and will close with audience Q&A.

Professor Johnny Payne is the Director of the MFA in Creative Writing at Mount St Mary’s University, Los Angeles and teaches Novel Writing, Playwriting, and Poetics. His novels include Confessions of a Gentleman Killer and The Hard Side of the River. His collection of essays The Reluctant Assassin, under his nom de plume Étienne D’Abattoir, was published in 2021. He directs theater and is the author the recent plays Los Feliz, Touchstone, and Cannibals. Johnny has published two books of poetry, and his most recentis Funeral Playlist. He is working on a book of short stories, titled Fish Head. Also in the works is an ethnographic study of dance, ritual, and oral tradition in contemporary Peru.

Professor Monique Roffey was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, and has life-long and ongoing links to Trinidad and the Caribbean region. Four of her six novels, The White Woman on the Green Bicycle, Archipelago, House of Ashes and The Mermaid of Black Conch, are set in the region and draw on family biography, history, academic research, witness testimony and contemporary life. Most contain an element of what Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier called lo real maravilloso: the marvellous real. Her memoir With the Kisses of his Mouth and novel The Tryst form a body of work which examines female sexuality. The Mermaid of Black Conch was named the 2021 Costa Book of the Year, winning one of the most prestigious awards in British literature. Monique is Professor of Contemporary Fiction at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Thursday 16th March 2023

UK GMT: 20:00-21:00
US Pacific: 13:00-14:00
US Central: 15:00-16:00
US Eastern: 16:00-17:00