Dr Durre Shahwar

Anyway, I'm teaching a 6-week online course on autofiction this winter with Meena Kandasamy. You'll learn about the nuances of autofiction and receive feedback on a piece of writing in a warm and welcoming space. We'll also have a guest reader. Spaces are filling up! tynewydd.wales/course/autof...

If there's one thing you read today, read Camilla Grudova's essay on the precariousness of making a living from writing when you're from an underprivileged background and the ways that writers shift and adapt snd often have to make do. I felt so incredibly seen by it.

Thank you, Gita 💚

What Nature Taught Me About Migration Thoughts on Refugee Week

Last week, for Refugee Week, I reflected on what nature taught me about migration and how you see your place in the world when you have been a former refugee. You can read it here on my Substack: open.substack.com/pub/durre/p/...

Cardiff primary school teachers and similar folks, you should go to this. Darren is brilliant.

It was a delight to be a judge for this anthology that celebrates South Asian poetry, and to get to read such a range of excellent submissions on so many different themes.

Spotted at @queeremporium.bsky.social Cardiff @suchmayer.bsky.social

Saw this on another platform today and it resonated deeply.

Congratulations, Okka! I look forward to reading it.

PRE-ORDERS NOW OPEN, w 10% discount!

Please buy & spread the word—this is the book of my life, & pre-orders are v impt for its flight.

First blurbs have come in, from Bhanu Kapil & Jeremy Tiang, am so honoured &constantly verklempt 🤍 #CripLit

tiltedaxispress.us11.list-manage.com/track/click?...

My creative non-fiction piece, Making/Unmaking, written for @nvpoco.bsky.social is now available to read online for free! Bringing together themes of sustainability, ancestral connection across continents, regional practices, making and unmaking of cultural identity.
www.yumpu.com/en/document/...

Such a huge loss. I was writing and researching the hierarchies of language when I came across his work and felt a huge shift in my own due to it. Rest in power. What a legacy you leave behind.

a woman in a red dress is holding a microphone and says you get a car and you get a car Alt: Oprah Winfrey, a Black woman in a fitted red suit, is holding a microphone and saying to her studio audience: you get a car and you get a car and you get a car.

Once again had poems rejected by a Serious Grown-up Magazine.

So if you want a poem (unserious? too serious? too many raging puns?) in ur inbox, lmk & I'll send you one.

The theme was so brilliant. I missed a few talks, but even from the rest that I attended, the range of ways that it was addressed was impressive!

Me too. I am already looking forward to next year.

Had the most wonderful time at #awwe25. Have come away inspired, fulfilled, moved by good people and incredible papers, with new knowledge and lots of photos of beautiful Wales. Have been trying to go to #awwe conference for a few years now. Third time lucky. Diolch o galon.

Thank you so much. This means a lot.

Image promoting Masterclass on Environmental Writing. It features a photo of foliage, green text on a pink background and photos of the three participants: Durre Shahwar, Owen Sheers and Taylor Edmonds

Eisiau ysgrifennu am natur a'r argyfwng hinsawdd? Dyma'r dosbarth meistr i chi.

Book Inclusive Journalism Cymru's free Zoom masterclass on environmental writing! 🌱

Gwesteion/Guests: @durreshahwar.bsky.social, Owen Sheers, Taylor Edmonds

21/5 19:00

amam.cymru/inclusivejou...

Very happy to have written a piece drawing on the themes of sustainability, regional practices, and making/unmaking, building upon research from my Future Wales Fellowship for @nvpoco.bsky.social. The magazine is brilliantly curated and is launching tomorrow with an online event.

📍The launch will take place 7th May 19:00-20:30 GMT Online
🎟️ Register here for a free ticket: www.eventbrite.com/e/nvpoco-mag...

Join us in celebrating the work of our authors, learning more about NVPoco, and discussing the future of postcolonial studies. The launch will include readings of creative/critical works by Alan Palacios, Sonakshi Srivastava, @durreshahwar.bsky.social, James Lapping, George Harris, and Owen Buchan

We're delighted to announce the launch of the latest issue of of New Voices in Postcolonial Studies Magazine edited by Soph Harris-Nijmeijer and Juni Kvarving (@juni-kvarving.bsky.social) on the theme of "Imagining Postcolonial Futures"!

Durre and Hanan, seated

Durre and Hanan, standing next to Hub banner

Copies of 'Gathering' on small book stands.

A belated thank you to @durreshahwar.bsky.social and @hananelizabethissa.bsky.social for an enjoyable and enlightening chat about Gathering: Women of Colour on Nature at Central Library Hub. Available to reserve now!

Embarrassing.

Poems by Dalia Taha — The Dial “Enter Sun”, “Enter Wrist Pain”, and “Enter Poem”

In her poetry published in The Dial, Palestinian playwright Dalia Taha considers how simple pleasures and pains—like the warmth of the sun and wrist pain—take on new meaning during wartime: www.thedial.world/articles/lit...

Happy Birthday, Okka! May you continue shining!

Booking is now open for University of Bristol’s annual Writers Day. A full line-up of workshops, talks and Q&As, featuring headliners Vanessa Kisuule and CJ Skuse. £25 full rate and £15 concessions. bristol.ac.uk/english/stud...

I've said it before and I'll say it again: weaponising the language of activism to shame people, or believing there's a singular correct way to be an activist is often inherently privileged and never intersectional. It also just doesn't serve any community you claim to be doing the work for.

I'll be delivering a PGR seminar online tomorrow with Queen Mary University, about my research and writing of autofiction and how it may or may not lend itself to decolonising how we write. It's free to attend by anyone.

durreshahwarpgrs.eventbrite.co.uk

Are you an LAHP-funded student? Gain hands-on experience at a renowned literary magazine and learn how to run a literary prize through our new placement opportunity.

⏰ Deadline: 11.59pm BST, Sunday, 20 April

Apply: