Writing Liverpool: Essays and Interviews

Featuring interviews and essays from the likes of Alan Bleasdale, Terence Davies, Linda Grant, Roger McGough, Willy Russell, Levi Tafari and Paul Du Noyer Writing Liverpool asks if there is a distinctive Liverpool literary voice, and if so, how it can be identified. The book locates Liverpool as a city with a complex literary and cultural heritage, charting its ongoing connections and affiliations with Ireland, Wales and the US as well as the importance of its working-class culture, particularly arising from its seafaring history. The introduction considers the ways in which Liverpool which, though central because of its status as second port of Empire, by the middle of the twentieth century was very much at the margins of British culture. Chapters explore poetry, novels, drama, TV drama and film from writers as diverse as James Hanley, Malcolm Lowry, J. G. Farrell, Beryl Bainbridge, Brian Patten, Linda la Plante and Ramsey Campbell, and demonstrate the remarkable strength and depth of creative talent in the city. Writing Liverpool will be required reading for anyone interested in Liverpool.

Deryn Rees-Jones is an Anglo Welsh poet, who lives and works in Liverpool.

Michael Murphy was senior lecturer in English at Nottingham Trent University, the author of several academic books and collections of poetry and coeditor of 'Liverpool Writing: Essays and Interviews'.