Chris Longden Writer and Performer

Cover - Cuckoo in the Chocolate by Chris L Longden

Cover of 'Mind Games & Ministers' by Chris L Longden

Christina is Kirklees Writer in Residence 2020-21.

Christina from a working-class background in East Manchester. Her career began in social housing, working on Manchester’s toughest housing estates. Shen then moved on to become a policy consultant for Whitehall, focusing on social policy.

In 2001, she relocated to early post-apartheid Namibia where she lived and worked with the Kalahari bushmen where she wrote two oral history books with them.

After having her first child in Namibia, Christina returned to the UK and to life in West Yorkshire. Christina won the Huddersfield Literature Festival ‘One Voice Monologue’ several years ago and has written two ‘dark comedy’ books set in the north ('Mind Games and Ministers' and 'Cuckoo in the Chocolate'). She writes a column for The Yorkshire Times and TITO magazine, is a long-standing member of Holmfirth Writers Group and blogs at her website.

Christina has appeared at various literature festivals, talking about her books, her ‘unusual path to writing' and the issue of class and cross-cultural friendships. She works with public libraries and runs workshops in order to reach 'Reluctant Readers' and their families.

Chris' latest project involves telling the story of how her Gx3 Grandad was one of the UK's first earliest (recorded) white converts to Islam in 1898. The family kept this secret for over 100 years, despite the fact that through a strange twist of fate, her own brother had become a Muslim, without knowing anything of this...
(see VIDEO for more details.)

'His Own Man' is a historical biography of her Great x 3 Grandad - available from 7th July 2019. Following this, a fictional version of his life; 'Imagining Robert' was published - written specially for adaptation for performance by theatres, schools, community groups etc.

From 2020-21, Christina is Writer in Residence for Kirklees and the dates for her talks, workshops and masterclasses can be seen at http://www.kirkleeslibraries.co.uk/writer-in-residence/

View my website http://www.kirkleeslibraries.co.uk/writer_in_residence