Bookable Space with Yvonne Battle-Felton

In this episode of Bookable Space, Valerie Nieman joins us to read from and talk to us about her book, To The Bones.

In conversation with Yvonne Battle-Felton, author of Remembered.

Bio: Valerie Nieman has toured extensively for her five novels (the latest being In the Lonely Backwater) and three collections of poetry. To the Bones, her genre-bending novel about the coal industry and its effects on Appalachia, was a finalist for the Manly Wade Wellman Award. She has published short fiction, nonfiction, and poetry from The Georgia Review to Poetry to New Writing Scotland and has had her work selected for numerous anthologies: most recently, You Are the River, Eyes Glowing at the Edge of the Woods, and Ghost Fishing: An Eco-Justice Poetry Anthology. She appears regularly in juried reading series, and teaches at John C. Campbell Folk School and other venues. She has held state and NEA creative writing fellowships. A graduate of West Virginia University and Queens University of Charlotte and a former journalist, she is professor emeritus of creative writing at NC A&T State University.

Synopsis: Darrick MacBrehon wakes in a pit of bones. Bloodied and disoriented, the man who staggers into Redbird, WV, draws the sympathy and help of Lourana Taylor, who’s been following any lead to find her missing daughter—even the wild tales of this zombie-like figure struggling with new and deadly powers. Along with a disgraced deputy and a journalist investigating a ruined river, Darrick and Lourana fight the multigenerational conspiracy that’s bled the land and people of Redbird, confronting the Kavanaugh coal barons who legend says can “strip a man to the bones.”

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In this episode of Bookable Space, host Yvonne Battle-Felton is joined by Emily Grandy. Emily reads to us from Michikusa House.

About the book

While spending a year on a small farm in rural Japan, a young woman struggling with mental illness finds meaning in learning to grow her own food and cook with the seasons. But transformation is often bittersweet, and she will be forced to choose between the familiarity of old ties and the desire for fulfillment.

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In this special holiday edition of Bookable Space, host Yvonne Battle-Felton turns the tables as she reads from Curdle Creek. This episode was recorded live at Autumn Book Launch 2024. Curdle Creek was published by Holt/Macmillian in the US and Dialogue Books/Hachette in the UK.

About the book Osira, a forty-five-year-old widow, is an obedient follower of the strict conventions of the remote all-Black town that’s stuck in the past and governed by ominous rituals including a one in, one out population policy. Osira has always been considered blessed, but her luck changes when her grown children run off to parts unknown, escaping Curdle Creek’s harsh traditions, she comes in second to last in the Running of the Widows, and her father flees after his name is called in the annual Moving On ceremony. They say there’s no place like home. Let’s hope they’re right.

About the author Yvonne Battle-Felton is an author, academic, editor, podcaster, host, creative producer, and writer. Her debut, Remembered, was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction (2019) and shortlisted for the Jhalak Prize (2020). Winner of a Northern Writers Award in fiction (2017), Yvonne has six titles in Penguin Random House’s Ladybird series; and writes creative nonfiction essays, short stories, and stories for children. She is Senior Commissioning Editor at John Murray Press (UK) and the academic director of creative writing at Cambridge University Institute of Continuing Education. Curdle Creek is her second novel.

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In this engaging episode of Bookable Space, host Yvonne Battle-Felton is joined by Inés G. Labarta. Inés reads from The Three Lives of Saint Ciarán and talks to us about writing, reading, life, and more.

The Three Lives of Saint Ciarán

A young girl, un-dead and un-alive, brought to the shores of Iberia and nurtured to become the saviour of Madrid. A crippled boy drowning in the waters of Loughmichnois, called to preserve the secrets of a civilisation. A nun who instigates the bombing of Neo Dublin to reset a futureless people and start afresh.

Times of darkness, worlds seemingly beyond salvation, people who have never known joy. What do they have in common?

Three entirely different versions of Saint Ciarán to restore hope, faith, and brightness for humankind.

Bio:

Inés G. Labarta is a queer and an immigrant writer living in the northwest of England. Her publications include the middle grade trilogy Los Pentasónicos (2008-2010) and the novellas McTavish Manor (Holland House, 2016) and Kabuki (Dairea, 2017). Her new novel, The Three Lives of Saint Ciarán, was shortlisted for the Northern Writers Awards and will be published by Blackwater Press in 2024. Her short fiction has appeared in places like Extra Teeth, Toasted Cheese Literary Journal and Oranges. Her writing has been commissioned by institutions such as the Lancashire City Council and Litro magazine. In 2019 she gained a PhD in Creative Writing from Lancaster University. After working as a lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Wolverhampton and the University of Plymouth she returned to Lancaster University in 2023 to lecture there. In 2023 she was also an Eccles Centre Visiting Fellow which allowed her to travel to the British Library to research for her current novel, a dark queer western set in the Pacific Northwest.

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In this engaging episode, poet W.C. Aldridge joins host Yvonne Battle-Felton. W.C. reads from My Soul's Journey, discusses her poetry journey and offers poets/writers advice on creating a poetry collection.

About the book:

My Soul’s Journey, collected poems, by Chicago poet W.C. Aldridge, was released in 2021 as part of Amador Publisher’s Worldwind Books Poetry Series. Ms. Aldridge was involved in all aspects of the project. Her choices for cover and interior art, and her thoughtful arrangement of the poems into chapters with evocative titles such as “Forgiveness is Not a Byword,” “My Relationship with God,” and “Everything is About Color,” add layers of meaning to her poetic journey. The collection is sprinkled with photographs by Michele Lee, also of Chicago, and includes an image by beloved African American painter Annie Lee, “5th Grade Substitute,” a detail of which graces the cover. My Soul’s Journey came together in 2020-21 in the midst of the Black Lives Matter movement and the worldwide pandemic. The dejected young teacher on the book cover may well represent how we were feeling then, and might still be feeling, but paired with Ms. Aldridge’s poetry, she is a symbol of perseverance and hope fortified by faith—an apt description of the poet herself.

Ms. Aldridge describes her work as cathartic. In free verse and narrative prose poems she allows herself release through celebration of her Christian faith. With her soul lighting the way, she embarks on a journey both unique and universal, reflecting on family, culture, hurt and healing. Her willingness to broach truths more often left unsaid, from deep cultural anguish to ecstatic spiritual grace, establish her as a significant voice in the story of Black life in America. In expressing the ubiquitous bond her soul has on her life experiences, the author revels in a journey that ultimately transcends time, and thus painful history, to arrive at a Now each one of us has the power to imbue with promise.

About the writer:

W. C. Aldridge began her writing career in education. Since branching out within other fields, she has written for magazines, created materials for book publishers, ghostwritten life stories, written a column, and published a poetry book called My Soul’s Journey. My Soul’s Journey received the 2022 Eric Hoffer Finalist Award.

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