Meet the Writer: John O’Donoghue – Brighton

The ‘Meet the Artist/Writer’ series showcases writers and artists from marginalised backgrounds and how they got their work ‘out there’.John O'Donoghue

Poetry has played a central part in John O’Donoghue’s life since his father died when John was
14. John’s talk revolves around how his dabbling in verses not only became his life but saved it as he bumped along the bottom of Thatcher’s Britain. John will read from his poetry, his memoir, and his short fiction. He will illustrate how writing helped him to develop qualities of resilience and resistance. John will discuss how writing can help us come to terms with the knocks all of us can experience.

This event is open to the public but disabled and marginalised people will have priority booking.

Fee: FREE
Date: Wednesday 26th October 2016
Time: 2:30 – 3:30 pm
Venue: Conference Room, Community Base, 113 Queens Rd. Brighton BN1 3XG

About The Writer: John O’Donoghue spent his teenage years in foster care. He was first sectioned aged 16 and spent over a decade on the psychiatric merry-go-round, in and out of the old Victorian asylums Claybury, Friern, and Banstead. John spent time in a therapeutic community, a large hostel for homeless men. He was on the streets, in squats, and remanded to Pentonville Prison when unwell.

He was encouraged to go to university when he was in his late 20s, and was given a place by the University of East Anglia. He gradually worked his way through higher education until he was awarded a PhD in Creative Writing by Bath Spa University. He is the author of Sectioned: A Life Interrupted (John Murray, 2009). He was awarded Mind Book of the Year 2010 by Fay Weldon, Michele Roberts, and Blake Morrison; and Brunch Poems (Waterloo Press, 2009) and Fools & Mad (Waterloo Press, 2014).

His short stories have been published in Aesthetica, The London Magazine, The Stinging Fly (Ireland), and The Frogmore Papers, amongst other publications. In 2016 he won The Irish Post Short Story Competition and was given a Brookleaze Grant by the Royal Society of Literature. His lives in Brighton, and is currently working on a novel about the poets John Clare and Robert Lowell.

For more information visit http://creativefuture.org.uk/events/john-odonoghue/