Jan Carson: What Words Had Once Been

RadioMoLI’s Writer Presents series invites writers to produce a radio programme focussing on and exploring a chosen subject that is close to their heart. In this continuation of a three-part edition of Writer Presents, author Jan Carson speaks with theatre maker and playwright Caoileann Curry-Thompson, discussing their own familial experiences with dementia and the effect the illness has had on their creative works. Carson and Curry-Thompson explore the stigma that surrounds dementia as well as the nuances of literary possibility with the illness.

Jan Carson is a writer and community arts facilitator based in East Belfast. Her books include Malcolm Orange Disappears, Postcard Stories, The Fire Starters (EU Prize for Literature, 2019), The Raptures and Quickly, While They Still Have Horses. Carson has been shortlisted for the Sean O’Faolain Short Story Prize, the BBC National Short Story Prize and the An Post Irish Short Story of the Year Award, and in 2016 she won the Harper’s Bazaar Short Story Prize. Her work has appeared in journals such as Banshee, The Tangerine, Winter Papers and Harper’s Bazaar and on BBC Radio 3 and 4. Carson specialises in arts engagement with older and people living with dementia and was part of an AHRC-funded research project at Queen’s University Belfast exploring the representation of Dementia in literature. jancarson.co.uk

Writer Presents is produced with the support of the Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon. MoLI’s digital programme is supported by Ebow, the digital agency.

Written and presented by Jan Carson.
Produced by Benedict Schlepper-Connolly and Ian Dunphy
Recorded and mixed by Ian Dunphy
Series music composed by Benedict Schlepper-Connolly
Series music performed by Benedict Schlepper-Connolly & Nathan Sherman