FOUR authors have been selected to take up writing residencies at Gladstone’s Library in Flintshire.
Today, Andrea Russell, Warden of Gladstone’s Library, and Louisa Yates, Director of Collections and Research at the Library, have revealed the Writers in Residence for 2024.
Suji Kwock Kim, author of Notes from the North, Karen Lloyd, Abundance: Nature in Recovery, Sarah Smith, Hear no Evil and Dan Kaszeta, author of Toxic will take up residential places at the Library next year.
Gladstone’s Library, based in Hawarden, is a Grade I listed building.
It is unique as the UK’s only Prime Ministerial library and a rare example of a residential library, with 26 bedrooms and an on-site restaurant.
The authors’ submitted books impressed both an internal shortlisting panel and a judging panel which included Welsh National Poet Hannan Issa (My Body Can House Two Hearts), memoirist Guy Stagg (The Crossways) and Freddie Baveystock, head of English at Harris Westminster Sixth Form.
Andrea Russell said: “We received more than 100 entries to our Writers in Residence scheme, and this year the quality of submissions has been wonderful to see, so a huge congratulations to Suji, Karen, Sarah and Dan for being selected.
“I look forward to welcoming them all when they arrive at the Library.”
The Writer in Residence scheme at Gladstone’s Library includes a stay of up to a month in one of the on-site bedrooms, three meals a day and access to the silent Reading Rooms from 9am to 9pm each day. It is supported by a kind sponsor and was founded a decade ago by then Warden Peter Francis and author Damian Barr.
Karen Lloyd said: “I’m thrilled, not only because of being awarded the residency but because the team have reacted so positively to Abundance - and what I was attempting to achieve by writing it.”
Dan Kaszeta said: “I visited Gladstone’s Library in early 2020 and really fell in love with the place. I’m really looking forward to this residency. It’s the environment where I think I can really get a lot of writing done.”
The Writers in Residence will be involved in a series of talks and writing masterclasses during their stays. Details for these are available on www.gladstoneslibrary.org
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Author notes:
Dan Kaszeta is a lifelong specialist in defence against chemical, biological, and radiological threats, with significant experience in broader defence subjects. Starting his career with active service in the US Army Chemical Corps, he went on to work at the US Department of Defense and the White House Military office, before relocating to the UK.
In recent years Dan has become a widely-quoted authority on public affairs related to war crimes, particularly the misuse of chemical weapons. He contributes to the open-source intelligence site Bellingcat and is often quoted across other media. Dan’s recent books include Toxic (2020) and Forest Resistance: Baltic Resistance against the Nazis and Soviets (2023)
He grew up in the US state of Arizona and went to university in Texas at Texas Christian University. He worked in the White House for 12 years from 1996-2008 and now lives in London where he was awarded Freedom of the City of London. He is a “Liveryman” - a member of the Worshipful Company of Security Professionals, worked as a verger in St. Martin in the Fields Church for three and a half years and during the height of the pandemic, he trained as an NHS vaccinator and vaccinated 1,094 people.
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Karen Lloyd is a writer and tutor whose work engages with the environment through literature and the arts. Her aim is that her writing helps to generate understanding amongst non-specialist readers on climate research, biodiversity, and regeneration. As well as writing long-form non-fiction and poetry Karen also publishes journalism, speaks at festivals and works with broadcasters.
Karen’s first book, The Gathering Tide (2015) was selected as an author’s book of the year in 2015 in The Observer and Abundance – the book that won her residency here at Gladstone’s – was longlisted for the Wainwright Prize in 2022 for writing on conservation. As well as writing about her own locale in the North-West of England, her work also explores environmental and social concerns across boundaries; her current project explores social and environmental justice in a number of countries including Costa Rica, Spain and the UK.
Karen lives in the English Lake District. She is writer in residence with Lancaster University's Future Places Centre. She studied for her MLitt at Stirling University which resulted in her first book. Her essays have been published on various literary websites and in Bending Genre: Essays on Creative Nonfiction (Bloomsbury Academic, 2023).
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Poet and playwright Suji Kwock Kim is author of Notes from the North (2020) – which won her the residency here at Gladstone’s – and Notes from the Divided Country (2003), which won multiple awards upon its release, including the Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets. Up until recently, Suji was Poet-in Residence at the beautiful Wordsworth Trust in Grasmere.
Suji’s parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents were all born in what is now North Korea, where her grandfather, uncle, aunt and cousins still live, if they have not already passed away. Her mother’s grandfather was a co-founder of the Korean Language Society during the Japanese occupation, for which he was imprisoned, since Korean had been outlawed by the Japanese colonizers. After WWII and the Korean War, he became Dean and a Linguistics Professor at Yonsei University; decades later, Suji followed in his footsteps, studying not only at Yonsei but also universities in Seoul and the US.
Suji is currently working on her second full-length poetry collection, DISORIENT.
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Sarah Smith (Hear no Evil) grew up in Lanarkshire and then moved into the west end of Glasgow to study English at University of Glasgow in the mid-80s, before taking a Creative Writing MA. She has worked extensively for projects supporting disabled people into education and employment.
Her poetry, flash fiction and short stories have been published in a wide variety of print and online anthologies and magazines. Her debut novel, Hear No Evil (2022) was inspired by the landmark case of Jean Campbell, the first deaf person to be tried in the High Court in Scotland.
Whatever the format, Sarah’s work explores themes around marginalised individuals, social history, and popular culture. As well as writing, Sarah has spent thirty years working on projects that support disabled people to access learning, employment, and cultural opportunities; she still works as a creative writing tutor, most recently with Glasgow Mental Health Network.