Jan Carson: Writing Dementia

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 the first episode of a three-part edition of Writer Presents, author Jan Carson speaks with Dr Jane Lugea of Queen’s University Belfast, exploring the complexities of writing from the perspective of a person with dementia, and how the use of language is key in depicting an accurate portrait of the illness. Carson and Lugea unpack the ethics of writing about and from the position of dementia patients, discussing the importance of representing lived experience in text.

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