5x15

Colin Grant is the author of Homecoming (2019); Negro with a Hat: The Rise and Fall of Marcus Garvey (2008), I and I: The Natural Mystics Marley, Tosh and Wailer (2011), Bageye at the Wheel (2012). Homecoming draws on over a hundred first-hand interviews, archival recordings and memoirs by the women and men who came to Britain from the West Indies between the late 1940s and the early 1960s. In their own words, we witness the transition from the optimism of the first post-war arrivals to the race riots of the late 1950s. Homecoming is an unforgettable portrait of a generation, which brilliantly illuminates an essential and much-misunderstood chapter of our history. Colin Grant is an author and teaches creative non-fiction writing, most recently for Arvon and Sierra Nevada College. Grant is also a historian, Associate Fellow in the Centre for Caribbean Studies and producer for BBC Radio. He joined the BBC in 1991, and has worked as a TV script editor and radio producer of arts and science programmes on radio 4 and the World Service. He has written and directed plays including The Clinic, based on the lives of the photojournalists, Tim Page and Don McCullin. Grant has also written and produced several radio drama-documentaries. 5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

Reshma Saujani is the daughter of immigrant parents and a Yale Law school graduate. She became the first Indian-American woman to run for Congress, in what was touted as a hotly-contested race, where she was endorsed by the New York Observer and the Daily News and featured on the cover of the New York Times and the Washington Post. She then lost spectacularly, picked herself up and went on to found Girls Who Code, a non-profit organisation which aims to close the gender gap in technology and has so far taught 100,000 girls to code. Reshma’s new book Brave, Not Perfect, looks at the ways that boys and girls are raised and argues women and girls should embrace imperfection and bravery. Recorded live at the Tabernacle in London's Notting Hill on 11th March 2019. 5x15 brings together outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. Learn more about 5x15 events: www.5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

Kate Mosse is the author of nine novels & short story collections, including the No 1 multimillion selling Languedoc Trilogy - Labyrinth, Sepulchre and Citadel - and No 1 bestselling Gothic fiction including The Winter Ghosts and The Taxidermist's Daughter, which she is currently adapting for the stage. Her books have been translated into 38 languages and published in more than 40 countries. She has also written three works of non-fiction, four plays, contributed essays and introductions to classic novels and collections. A champion of women's creativity, Kate is the Founder Director of the Women's Prize for Fiction - the largest annual celebration of women's writing in the world - and sits on the Executive Committee of Women of the World. She was awarded an OBE in 2013 for services to literature and women and was named Woman of the Year for her service to the arts in the Everywoman Awards. She is a regular guest on book & arts shows on radio and television. 5x15 brings together outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

David Olusoga lives in Bristol and is a British-Nigerian historian, broadcaster and film-maker. Born in Lagos, Nigeria he studied history and journalism in the UK. He’s a multi award-winning documentary maker and is the presenter of the BBC 2 Series “The World’s War: Forgotten Soldiers of Empire”, and “Britain’s Forgotten Slave Owners”. He also presented a major landmark series for the BBC “Black and British” and is author of an accompanying book. David is an award winning author. His first book was “The Kaiser’s Holocaust: Germany’s Forgotten Genocide and the Colonial Roots of Nazism”. “The World’s War: Forgotten Soldiers of the Empire” was the winner of the World War One Book of the Year at the Political Book Awards 2015. In May 2020 he also published A House Through Time. 5x15 brings together outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each. Recorded at 5x15 in Bristol in 2015. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

Benjamin Moser was born in Houston. He is the author of Why This World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector, a finalist for the National Book Critics’ Circle Award and a New York Times Notable Book of 2009. For his work bringing Clarice Lispector to international prominence, he received Brazil’s first State Prize for Cultural Diplomacy. He won a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2017, and his latest book, Sontag: Her Life and Work, won the Pulitzer Prize. 5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

In A Thousand Ships, broadcaster and classicist Natalie Haynes retells the story of the Trojan War from an all-female perspective, for fans of Madeline Miller and Pat Barker. This was never the story of one woman, or two. It was the story of all of them. . . The devastating consequences of the fall of Troy stretch from Mount Olympus to Mount Ida, from the citadel of Troy to the distant Greek islands, and across oceans and sky in between. These are the stories of the women embroiled in that legendary war and its terrible aftermath, as well as the feud and the fatal decisions that started it all. . . Powerfully told from an all-female perspective, A Thousand Ships gives voices to the women, girls and goddesses who, for so long, have been silent. 5x15 brings together outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

Neil Gaiman in conversation with Rosie Boycott. Neil Gaiman is the author of numerous New York Times bestsellers, including Neverwhere, American Gods, The Ocean at the End of the Lane and the Sandman series of graphic novels. Neil Gaiman is credited with being one of the creators of modern comics, as well as an author whose work crosses genres and reaches audiences of all ages. He is a prolific creator of works of prose, poetry, film, journalism, comics, song lyrics, and drama. In conversation with Rosie Boycott, he'll be talking about the unconfined power of the imagination and fiction's limitless possibilities. 5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

Roger Robinson is a writer who has performed worldwide. He is the winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize 2019 and RSL Ondaatje Prize 2020. He was chosen by Decibel as one of 50 writers who have influenced the Black-British writing canon. His latest collection ‘A Portable Paradise’ was a New Statesman book of the year. He is an alumnus of The Complete Works and was shortlisted for The OCM Bocas Poetry Prize, The Oxford Brookes Poetry Prize, commended by the Forward Poetry Prize and is currently shortlisted for the Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry 2020. He has received commissions from The National Trust, London Open House, BBC, The National Portrait Gallery, V&A, INIVA, MK Gallery and Theatre Royal Stratford East where he also was an associate artist. He is an experienced workshop leader and has toured extensively with the British Council. His workshops have been part of a shortlist for the Gulbenkian Prize for Museums and Galleries and were also a part of the Webby Award-winning Barbican’s Can I Have A Word. He is co-founder of both Spoke Lab and the international writing collective Malika’s Poetry Kitchen. He is the lead vocalist and lyricist for King Midas Sound and has also recorded solo albums with Jahtari Records. 5x15 brings together outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

Ben Okri is a poet, novelist, essayist, short story writer, anthologist, aphorist, and playwright. He has also written film scripts. His works have won numerous national and international prizes, including the Booker Prize for Fiction. 5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each. Learn more about 5x15 events: 5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories

Parwana Fayyaz was born in Kabul, Afghanistan. She is currently working towards a Ph.D. on the medieval Persian poet Jami at Trinity College, Cambridge. She is a poet and would like to stay in academia. She recently won Best Single Poem at the Forward Prizes 2019 for her poem ‘Forty Names’, which draws inspiration from both narrative and lyrical medieval Persian traditions, and brings to life a story that Fayyaz heard from her parents when she was a child. ‘It is about a mountain called kohi chehal dokhtaran, “the forty girls’ mountain”. My poem tries to re-narrate the story by giving the forty women their names, a lamp and their colourful scarves.’ Recorded live at The Tabernacle in London on 18th November 2019. 5x15 brings together five outstanding individuals to tell of their lives, passions and inspirations. There are only two rules - no scripts and only 15 minutes each. Learn more about 5x15 events: www.5x15stories.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/5x15stories Facebook: www.facebook.com/5x15stories Instagram: www.instagram.com/5x15stories