Antony Thomas was making documentary films at a time in film and TV when leading producers and executives were backed by their organizations, could stand by their principles and get films made. Three very different commissioners – Charles Denton, Sheila Nevins and Tony Essex – gave him a free rein to make defining, bold films. They were not dominated by the obsession with ratings and chasing “subscriber loyalty”, or hampered by lawyers making risk-averse decisions to protect the brand, as is the case for factual entertainment today.
Tag: International Women’s Day
Review | Chauvo-Feminism: On Sex, Power and #MeToo, Sam Mills | Indigo Press
Chauvo-Feminism: On Sex, Power and #MeToo is an erudite, pithy assessment of the chauvo-feminist man based on personal lived experience and testimonies from women and men.
Journalist, writer and indie co-publisher at Dodo Ink, Sam Mills builds up a disturbing portrait of the charming, self-obsessed covert misogynist who espouses the feminist cause in public, yet undermines women emotionally and psychologically behind the scenes; and indulges in gaslighting.
Throughout history, women have fought to assert themselves as individuals, whereas most men have had the luxury of taking their independence and authority for granted. Today, those men who feel challenged or inadequate because of the feminisation of society have simply found a new way to objectify women and play a new game based on an age-old sadistic theme. Continue reading Review | Chauvo-Feminism: On Sex, Power and #MeToo, Sam Mills | Indigo Press
Interview | Lucy Popescu | Author of the Week
Lucy Popescu is a author, editor and arts critic with a background in human rights. She worked with the English PEN for over twenty years and was Director of its Writers in Prison Committee from 1991 to 2006. Her most recent anthology is A Country to Call Home which focuses on the experiences of young refugees (Unbound, 2018). Lucy is the chair of the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award; teaches creative writing at the Working Men’s College in Camden; curates literary evenings at Waterstones; is a Trustee of the JMK Award for Theatre Directors; and mentors refugee writers at Write to Life, Freedom from Torture’s creative writing group.
Tell us about your childhood and where you grew up
I grew up in Oxfordshire. My late mother was the children’s author, Christine Pullein-Thompson so I was put on a pony before I could walk. It’s a beautiful part of England and I 
loved hurtling round the woods and hills on a pony – following in my mother’s hoof steps – she grew up in Peppard. Years later, I found out that I had lived in a world that many horse mad girls envied.
Were your parents great readers? What were the books that made you fall in love with reading?
I come from a family of writers and grew up surrounded by books. I read hand me downs of Charles Kingsley’s The Water Babies and E. Nesbit’s The Phoenix and the Carpet and loved C.S. Lewis’s Narnia books as a young child. I also read all my mother’s books and then the books written by her sisters . . . That took some time. I was a precocious reader. I wanted to know why, aged nine, I was banned from reading Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita. I also read Wuthering Heights too young and thought Heathcliff was a romantic hero. I devoured JD Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye as a teenager. Continue reading Interview | Lucy Popescu | Author of the Week
Interview | Nafeesa Hamid, poet | @NafeesaHamid
Meet Nafeesa Hamid in person at the BookBlast 10×10 Tour event, Waterstones, Birmingham, 24-26 High Street, B4 7SL @Bhamwaterstones 6.30 p.m. Thursday 25 October. Theme: The Things I Would Tell You: British Muslim Women Write with reference to the anthology edited by Sabrina Mahfouz. In conversation with Elizabeth Briggs SAQI BOOKS chair, and poet, Aliyah Holder. Book Tickets
Where were you born, and where did you grow up?
I was born in Pakistan and came to the UK at aged four. I grew up in Alum Rock, inner city Birmingham where I lived until nineteen. There was (and still is) a massive sense of community in Alum Rock, which is lovely for the most part, but also means everyone knows everything about everyone. I attended school in Alum Rock – Shaw Hill Primary and Park View Secondary (involved heavily in the Trojan Horse Scandal). Continue reading Interview | Nafeesa Hamid, poet | @NafeesaHamid
Media Release | International Women’s Day | Waterstone’s, Oxford, March 2015
As the highlight of this special event for International Women’s Day, Elisa Segrave examines stories from her mother’s hitherto hidden wartime experiences at Bletchley Park, Bomber Command and post-war Germany. Georgia de Chamberet takes a look at the life and many worlds of Lesley Blanch, a woman whose aura of seductive glamour and erudition inspired the generation that followed her. Chaired by Claudia Fitzherbert, books editor of The Oldie.
During the day there will be numerous author signings by women who write about women, including Dame Professor Hermione Lee and Amy Mason. So come along for a bit of book browsing and then stay on for the talk and a glass of wine afterwards.
Lesley’s memoir ON THE WILDER SHORES OF LOVE: A Bohemian Life is published by Virago. Elisa’s memoir THE GIRL FROM STATION X: My Mother’s Unknown Life is published by Aurum Press.
Tickets £5 / £3 For Waterstones Cardholders
At: Waterstones, Broad Street, Oxford, OX1 3AF
Call: 01865 790212
Continue reading Media Release | International Women’s Day | Waterstone’s, Oxford, March 2015