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Fathers, absences, and ghosts in the margins of dictionaries with Joyce Carol Oates, Eley Williams, Yomi Sode and Lucy Burke

Joyce Carol Oates is one of America's best loved living authors. A prolific writer in a long career spanning novels, short stories, play, poetry and non-fiction, she has just published the story of a family haunted by the wounding of their father, at the hands of the police, called 'Night. Sleep. Death. The Stars'. As Joyce explains, her writing can often be a way of confronting the memories that haunt her.

Yomi Sode is a poet, playwright and a mentor. He was awarded the Jerwood Compton Poetry Fellowship in 2019. Yomi explains how he had to look back to his own relationship with his father in order to write about his relationship to his own children. His essay on forgiveness 'The F Word', appears in 'Safe: 20 Ways to be a Black Man in Britain Today' edited by Derek Owusu (Trapeze). Yomi also performs a poem called ‘Not with You’.

Eley Williams' short story collection 'Attrib' (Influx) won the James Tait Black award and the Republic of Consciousnesses Prize in 2018. In her debut novel 'The Liar's Dictionary' (Heinemann), a young woman working for the fictional 'Swansby New Encyclopaedic Dictionary' finds herself haunted by the life of a Victorian lexicographer who has left 'mountweazels', or made up words scattered through the pages.

'Ghosts' by Lucy Burke is the last in our series of short dramas on the theme of 'renewal' produced in conjunction with the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Writer's Room. Lucy explains how she was interested in exploring how we use everyday conversation and small talk to help us to confront difficult emotional truths. Ghosts is produced by Lorna Newman and stars Richard Fleeshman and Verity Henry. It was a collaboration with the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Writer’s Room.

Producer: Faith Lawrence
Presenter: Ian McMillan