On September 6, join us at the Circus Hotel for a conversation with past winner Sarah K. Perry and two of the Berlin Writing Prize 2019 shortlisted writers, Avrina Prabala-Joslin and Sarah Van Bonn.
With the Berlin Writing Prize 2022 Judging underway, and with Sarah K. Perry coming for a visit, we thought it would be a great time for a reunion and a good catch-up session with these three writers to see what they’ve been up to since then and talk about what it really means to be a writer today. There will be a reading, or two, and we’ll be talking about entering competitions (and sometimes actually winning them!), what effect -if any- a city can have on their work, self motivation, where they get their inspiration, and more.
The conversation will be followed by a Q&A and discussion. So bring all your burning questions and comments and let’s catch up over drinks!
You can read excerpts of their winning and short-listed stories in The Berlin Writing Prize Archives
This is a FREE event and it will take place at the Circus Hotel (Rosenthaler Str. 1, 10119 Berlin)
on Tuesday, September 6th at 19:00
Sarah K. Perry will also be running a workshop designed to push creative buttons and access inner creativity (including an one on one clinic to work through specific creative blocks) on Sept. 3 & 4. You can register here.
S.K. Perry’s debut novel Let Me Be Like Water (Melville House) was longlisted for the Ondaatje Prize and was Brighton Festival’s City Reads’ big read for 2019. She is the most recent winner of the Berlin Writing Prize, and another of her short stories was featured as part of the BBC Radio 4’s Short Works series. Sarah is a member of Leeds No Borders and has always been involved in social justice work, campaigning, and community organising, as embedded parts of her writing life. As well as writing and teaching fiction, her creative practices include writing and translating poetry, sewing, knitting, and cooking. She is working towards a PhD in creative writing, which explores surveillance, climate crisis and Crip Time.
அவ்ரீனா பிரபலா-ஜாஸ்லின் / avrina prabala-joslin (1992, Tamil Nadu) writes fiction and poetry on places, beings and times. Obsessed with memories that pervade and evade, often of childhood, avrina’s writing is an ebb and flow characteristic of her desire for the sea. avrina’s tamil being, frustrated with the english of avrina’s mouth, now writes on his own as Chella Thambi. His words though are still in avrina’s, as he is too. In addition to winning the Short Fiction / University of Essex International Short Story Prize 2021 judged by writer Irenosen Okojie, avrina’s works have been shortlisted for the Indiana Review Fiction Prize 2021, Radical Art Review Contest 2021, the Berlin Writing Prize 2019 and longlisted for the Desperate Literature Short Fiction Prize 2021.
Sarah Van Bonn is a British-American writer and editor based in Berlin. Her creative work has been widely published in literary magazines, including PANK, The Common, The Southampton Review, Columbia Journal, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, and many more. Her essay ‘On Bears’ was shortlisted for the 2019 Berlin Writing Prize and features alongside the other nine 2019 winners in the gorgeous Circus Anthology published by KLAK Verlag.
