Royal Literary Fund

06/10/2026

It’s a busy month ahead for RLF writers. From new publications and theatre productions to broadcasts, events and awards, there’s plenty to celebrate. Here are just some of the highlights:

📖 New publications from Michelle Lovric (The Puffin), Sharon Duggal (Light Across the Plains), Nathalie Abi-Ezzi (All The Lives She Lived), Lucy Strange (Cut Him Out in Little Stars) and more.

📻 On the radio: RLF Chief Executive Edward Kemp’s Save The Hundred Acre Wood will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4, following a week of Winnie-the-Pooh programming.

🎭 On stage: Julia Pascal’s new play The Banality of Evil: Hannah Arendt, France, 1940 premieres at London’s Arcola Theatre, running until 7 November.

📚 Collected: Live: Join RLF writers for two October panel events – The Best Advice I Received as a Writer at Exeter Library on 8 October, and The Writers Who Inspire Me at Lincoln County Assembly Rooms on 23 October.

📅 Events: Writers Mosaic director Colin Grant discusses his new book, What We Leave We Carry: Voices of Migration to Britain, at literary festivals including Wimbledon BookFest, Cheltenham Literature Festival and Off the Shelf Festival of Words.

🏆 Awards: Congratulations to Cherise Saywell, winner of the 21st BBC National Short Story Award for her story Ditto. And congratulations to RLF beneficiary Damian Barr and RLF Fellow Catherine Simpson, both longlisted for The Saltires, Scotland’s National Book Awards.

And that’s just the beginning… Read the full October roundup here: https://bit.ly/4zmNfDT

01/10/2026

"Navigating the poetry sector with a working-class background brings two strong likelihoods. Firstly, you’ll never fully shake off the imposter syndrome. Secondly, you’ll always cringe a little when people in ‘real life’ interactions ask what you do."

For , we asked RLF beneficiary Matt Abbott to reflect on what it’s like to navigate a world in conflict with your background. Here, he shares his experience of finding his place as a working-class poet.

Read the full article: https://bit.ly/4hqlGDC

30/09/2026

🎧 RLF's Collected: The Podcast 🎙

For , Belarusian poet and translator Hanna Komar discusses the joys and sensitivities of bringing poetry into English, and the challenges of writing in the face of authoritarianism. Hanna shares how her time in prison following the 2020 Belarusian uprising laid the foundations for her latest book.

Featured writers also include Rahul Bery and Vitali Vitaliev.

Listen to the full episode: https://podcast.rlf.org.uk/

29/09/2026

“It’s hard for women to trust their voices. Believe in the stories that call out to you and write them even when you think nobody else will be interested.”

Taran N. Khan is a journalist and writer who has published widely in India and internationally, including in Guernica and Al Jazeera. She has spent long periods living and working in Kabul, and her first book, Shadow City: A Woman Walks Kabul, won the Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year Award and the Tata Literature Live First Book Award for Non-Fiction.

Here, Taran shares her book recommendations, the figures who’ve influenced her writing, and the best writing advice she’s ever received: https://bit.ly/4rDADFx

25/09/2026

“Adaptation is not a matter of transferring a work intact from one medium to another. It is a process of redistributing meaning.”

For the 1993 adaptation of Anita Desai’s Booker Prize-shortlisted novel In Custody, Shahrukh Husain worked with Desai and director Ismail Merchant to translate and reshape the screenplay for an Urdu-language film. When Desai read Husain's Urdu translation, she felt it was “very much better than the English version”.

Here, Husain reflects on the challenges and joys of the process: https://bit.ly/4yUHTzj

24/09/2026

Financial difficulties can affect professional writers at any stage of their career.

Our hardship grants provide financial support, from short-term to long-term, to writers facing a range of circumstances. You might be facing reduced income or a change in circumstances that make it harder to work, such as ill health. Or perhaps you’re approaching retirement age and unable to cover basic living costs through pensions.

Find out what support you may be eligible for here: https://bit.ly/3UDOcFL

18/09/2026

The one-woman play Man to Man, starring Tilda Swinton, opened this month at the Royal Court Theatre to widespread acclaim (“clearly the play of the year”, Arts Desk).

During rehearsals, we asked director Stephen Unwin to reflect on returning to the show 40 years after he first directed it, and on revisiting the remarkable translation from Karge’s original German by former RLF beneficiary Anthony Vivis.

“Anthony managed to combine scrupulous attention to the original text, with a brilliant ear for the spoken word. In today’s world of Artificial Intelligence, scrupulous, sensitive translators like Anthony are needed more than ever.”

Read the full piece here: https://bit.ly/46AMieK

16/09/2026

"Writers are artists, and artists do not need to be tortured."

Damian Barr is an award-winning writer, broadcaster and former RLF beneficiary. His works include Maggie & Me, a memoir about coming of age and coming out in Thatcher’s Britain (Sunday Times Memoir of the Year), and latest book The Two Roberts, which reimagines the relationship between artists Robert Colquhoun and Robert MacBryde.

In this edition of My Writing Life, Damian shares his biggest writing influences, what he's proudest of, and what he wishes he'd been told before he became a writer.

Read here: https://bit.ly/4xXsnT7

14/09/2026

🎧 RLF's Collected: The Podcast 🎙

Celebrated memoirist and novelist Cathy Rentzenbrink talks to Caroline Sanderson about how she exorcised the ghost of her brother from her novels by writing The Last Act of Love, why writing can be a struggle, the healing power of reading projects, and why she loves talking to strangers on trains.

Featured writers also include Sara Wheeler, Paul Dodgson, Andrew Cowan and Sanjida O’Connell.

Listen to the full episode here: https://podcast.rlf.org.uk

07/09/2026

RLF Writers’ News – September 2026 ✍️

Publishing Highlights:
📖 Celebrating new publications from Anthony Quinn (The Millionaire Waltz) and Wren James (The Victors).

Broadcasts:
📻 Amanda Dalton’s radio drama The Observer’s Book is available now on BBC Sounds.

Productions:
🎭 Ben Musgrave’s new play The Go-Between is touring theatres across East Anglia until 19 September.
🎭 Stephen Wyatt’s new play Look Up At The Stars will be staged at London’s Hen and Chickens Theatre from 24 – 27 September.

Collected: Live:
📚This month’s panel event is The Books That Changed Us at The Reader Bookshop in Liverpool on 24 September, with Zoë Howe, Carys Bray, David Swann, Peter Kalu and Lizzie Nunnery.

Events & Appearances:
📅 Zoë Howe has begun a series of four creative reading and writing workshops at Liverpool Central Library.
📅 Ian Seed gave the Matt Simpson Annual Reading at the Bluecoat Gallery, Liverpool, on 1 September.
📅 Katharine McMahon, Wren James and Testament will be running RLF Reading Round sessions at The Queen's Reading Room Festival in Chatsworth House, Derbyshire, on 19 & 20 September.

Awards:
🏆 Congratulations to Jim Carruth, whose short story Leavin Eden has won the 2026 Neil Gunn prize.

Read the full roundup:

News, events, book releases, broadcast dates and theatre productions form our RLF writers in September 2026.