> PETE KALU LLB, FRSA, PhD Creative Writing & Academic CV TV Scripts Scriptwriter BBC Children Jamie Johnson Series 7 Episode 3 (airing 2022) Script consultant BBC Children Jamie Johnson Series 6 (airing 2021) Short Stories ‘Richard Watt the First, Merchantt’ forthcoming Peepal Tree press 2022 ‘Fall of the House of Penrhyn’ ed. Leone Ross, forthcoming, Peepal Tree press 2022 ‘Hermione’ ed. Ra Page, forthcoming, Comma Press 2022 ‘The Keeper of Books’ in Seaside Special, ed. Jenn Ashworth, bluemoose 2017 ‘Sana the Referee’ in A Country to call home, ed. Lucy Popescu unbound 2017 ‘Getting Home’ in Closure anthology ed Jacob Ross, Peepal Tree 2015 ‘The Making of a Revolutionary’ in Moss Side Stories, Crocus 2012 ‘High Roller’, in Playing Sidney Poitier and other stories, SAKS Publications 1999 Novels One Drop (Young adult novel) Andersen Press 2022 Zombie XI (Young Adult novel) HopeRoad 2016 Being Me (Young Adult novel) HopeRoad 2016 Silent Striker (Young Adult novel) HopeRoad 2015 Little Jack Horner (crime fiction) Suitcase 2009 Yard Dogs (crime fiction) The X Press 2002 Diary of a househusband (comedy) The X Press 1998 Black Star Rising (sci-fi) The X Press June 1998 Professor X (crime fiction) The X Press, October 1995. Lick Shot (crime fiction) The X Press, December 1993 Poetry ‘The Negro Speaks of Blood Transfusions’ in Filigree Peepal Tree 2018 ‘How You Wear Your Hat’ in The Hat You Wear, Comma Press 2012 ‘The Poet’s Song’ in Out of Bounds Bloodaxe, 2012 ‘Manchester’, published as wall poster, by Urbis Museum, Manchester 2010 ‘Old Radicals’, in Red, Peepal Tree 2010 ‘No Trace’ monologues for Lychee Lounge, Green Room Manchester October 2003 ‘Rekindled’ monologues for Manchester Museum June 2003 Mongrel Moon by Mongrel Press, November 1996 ‘The Poet’s Song’ in KISS, Crocus 1994 Film Scripts No Trace (Virtual Migrants) October 2007 Revenge Is Ras Malai filmed 2003 Winner, Kodak/ Liverpool Black Film Festival Award 2002 Radio plays Xango’s Challenge broadcast by BBC Radio 3, August 12th 1995 Afrogoth, launched BBC Radio 4’s Young Playwrights Festival 1991 Theatre Plays The Bay, Contact Theatre 2006 Hills,Trees, Green Stuff, Cumbria 2004 Pants, Contact Theatre, Manchester 2003 Gabrielle People’s History Museum, Manchester 2002 Downfall, Manchester University Theatre, Manchester 1995. Taxi, Manchester Town Hall 1994. Children’s Stories Anansi The Spider and Tiger’s Stew, folk tale retold, Satchel 2006 The Singer and the Snorer, folk tale retold, Satchel 2006 Research Interests: Postcolonial revisions of British imperial history Black British crime fiction Post dramatic theatre One-person shows of diaspora peoples YA fiction UK Caribbean Carnival Expressions Alienation in UK Black literature Gender & diversity in storytelling The black presence in English history from 1510 to 1860 Awards and Funding PhD Creative Writing Lancaster University, 2020 Top 50 Black British Writers 2019: Speaking Volumes Full Circle Arts short film commission 2016 http://www.fullcirclearts.co.uk/feature/peter-kalu-filmmaker-and-suandi-obe-poet-the-silent-striker-working-title/ Leicester University Radio Play Commission 2014 Elected Fellow, Royal Society for the Arts 2013 Winner, BBC-Contact Theatre Dangerous Comedy Competition 2003 Winner, Bradford International Short Play 2002 Winner, Liverpool Black Film Festival ‘Best Pitch’ Award 2002 New Horizons Scholarship Award 1995 Winner, BBC Young Playwrights Festival Award 1991 Runner-Up, Leeds University Faculty of Law Moot Court Competition 1989 Hepworth & Chadwick Commercial Law Prize 1988 Cultureword Short Story Prize 1987 The Voice / Marcus Garvey Scholarship Prize 1987 Research Experience: Commissioned writer: Colonial Countryside research project University of Leicester 2018 Commissioned writer: Affective Digital Histories, University of Leicester 2015 Researcher & Convenor: Black Writers’ Conference, Manchester, UK 2013, 2012, 2007, 2004 Consultative Panellist, Researcher and Copywriter: Revealing Histories, Manchester Museums Consortium Project on bicentenary of the parliamentary abolition of the trade in slaves 2007 Advisory Group: AHRC funded, Moving Manchester/Mediating Marginalities project (How the experience of migration has informed the work of writers from 1960 to the present) 2006-2010 http://www.transculturalwriting.com/movingmanchester/team.htm Panelist: Writing British Asian Cities, Leeds University 2006 Editorships: Shots in The Dark II: anthology of UK crime flash fiction, Crocus 2021 Shots in The Dark: anthology of UK crime flash fiction, Crocus 2018 Sweet Tongues: poetry anthology, Crocus 2013 The City of Lists: novel by Brigid Rose, Crocus 2009 The Curry Mile: novel by Zahid Hussain, Suitcase 2006 Peace Poems: poetry anthology, Crocus 2003 Listening Post: poetry and fiction CD’s 1 and 2, Mongrel Press 2002, 2000 Low Life: novel by Mike Duff, Crocus 2000 Healing Strategies for Women at War: black women’s poetry anthology, Crocus 1999 Heart Voice Soul: poetry CD, Mongrel Press 1998 Seven Sisters: poetry CD, Mongrel Press 1998 Dim Sum: British Chinese short stories, Crocus 1997 The Devils Lunchbox: poetry by john siddique, Mongrel Press 1996 Sky Mountain: poetry by Tang Lin, Mongrel Press 1996 KISS: poetry anthology, Crocus1994 Presentations, panels, papers and articles: ‘Strangers at the gate’: The short story and borders. Forthcoming in Essays on the short story and borders, Palgrave McMillan 2019 ‘Mind The Gap: Celebrating Authentic Inclusion’. London Book Fair 2018 ‘Decolonising Children’s Literature’, Manchester University 2018 ‘Accuracy, History and Literary Devices in the creation of Slave Narratives: A comparative study’, Goldsmiths College, London, 2018 Speaking Volumes Black British Writers panel in Lisbon, Portugal and Seville, Spain 2017 Article on Seville’s connections with slave trade published (in Spanish) Afribuku 2017 http://www.africafundacion.org/spip.php?article29203 Judge: Saif Ghobash / Banipal Arabic creative writing in translation prize 2018 https://www.societyofauthors.org/tp2018 Innominate science fiction Festival Panelist, Eastercon Birmingham 2017 ‘The Audacity of Humanity’, Writing for Liberty, Cape Town University 2017...
Welcome to the Bloods
Joseph Johnson bare bones Twine Game (1)
The Right Side of History By Obinna Udenwe Every evening, Tolani Boroface took a walk down her street all by herself, ignoring greetings from neighbours and street folk who looked at her with disdain. She had killed her daughter, they believed, and nothing anyone said could change their minds. Tolani walked to clear her head. This had started four days after Grace was buried – the rumours filtered to her ears that it was because she took her daughter to the End SARS protest that she got shot. Who encourages their children to go to protests in Nigeria? the women who had come to condole with her asked themselves. They’d gathered in front of her apartment, offering tidbits to the story, clasping their arms on their breasts, tying and retying their wrappers while at it. The women had come the morning after Grace died at the protest in Ikeja. At first, they came in groups of threes and fours, chatting on about the protests across the country all the way, then throwing themselves on the floor once they got to Tolani’s door, weeping uncontrollably. When they stepped out, they cleaned their eyes and talked loudly, not caring if Tolani heard. So, when Tolani finally heard, she began to take the walks. She would walk to the end of the street – to the junction where she used to go with Grace to buy fruits and vegetables, then walk back home and lock herself in. The fact that her neighbours and friends, people who’d known her for years and knew how much she’d adored Grace could say such unheard-of things tore her heart apart. On the sixth day after Grace died, Tolani locked herself in. She took some of Grace’s photos and her clothes, especially the ones she remembered seeing Grace in few days before her death and believed still had her smell. She took them into Grace’s room, sniffing and sobbing. Not even the laughter coming from her neighbour’s children distracted her. She cut herself with the kitchen knife and felt the blood from her stomach spilling through her fingers as she lay numb on the floor. Then she noticed a photo pinned to Grace’s wall. It was of three young women carrying a placard. The photo was taken at a Black Lives Matter protest somewhere and Grace had printed it from the internet. The white girl in the centre of the photograph was dressed in a sleeveless gown and wore sunglasses. The placard with her had the inscription ‘I stand on the right side of history’. Tolani thought the girl was Grace. The photo held her gaze and the inscription played in her mind. Suddenly, her cell phone rang. The phone was on the bed, and if Tolani could reach it, she could somehow live, for she now knew that Grace died standing on the right side of history, protesting injustice and hate, doing what many young people like her did across the world. Breathing poem-song by Pete Kalu Please don’t come sliding onto my bench whispering nirvana is a construct and you’re here for us to do the construction play by play to reach high, because That don’t fly for me, I need somebody grounded There are journeys we have to go on and it won’t be easy, – the way you talk – it will require us to walk through storms There are journeys we have to go on and it won’t be easy – the way you talk – it will require us to walk through storms Truth is I’m looking for a friendship, a comrade-in-arms and together we’ll be the voice for those who can’t breathe any more Then maybe at days’ end, I won’t have any qualms If we sit back-to-back on evening steps, and doodle 🖤s on my door. There are journeys we have to go on and it won’t be easy, – the way you talk – it will require us to walk through storms There are journeys we have to go on and it won’t be easy – the way you talk – it will require us to walk through storms Both texts produced as part of a British Council International Digital Collaboration Project @LitBritish #wahalaconvo Photo credit: Naomi...