What happened just after I won the Bridport Prize…
New update
At Arvon Totleigh Barton on a recent retreat.
After winning the Bridport Memoir Prize back in March, things have moved fast! I am thrilled to now be agented with A.M Heath and in the next stage of revisions on my manuscript. To find out more how things unfolded, read my latest Substack article.
Also coming up, a few events and workshops:
Firstly, I will be one of the key note speakers on this one day creative conference, Sussex Retold: Sites, Sounds and Stories at Sussex University on June 19th which brings together artists, scholars, land-workers and policymakers to ‘share ideas on heritage, diversity and progressive futures. SOLD OUT
On June 27th, I will be running The Four Directions, a (free) poetry / writing workshop around the artist benches I collaborated on for Towner Gallery last year with sculptor Will Spankie, up on the South Downs near Beachy Head (see post).
This workshop is part of the Downs to the Sea arts and nature programme and is run by my old allies and collaborators, Writing our Legacy. Also booking fast, details here.
And finally, I will be offering a two hour Life writing session as part of New Writing South’s Wellbeing for Writers season at the Yellow Wave cafe in Hove (one of my favourite seafront cafes). Booking here. FULLY BOOKED.
My memoir Meeting the Water wins the Bridport Memoir Prize!
After almost a decade of intense creative and emotional labour, I am utterly delighted that my memoir manuscript, Meeting the Water, has WON the Bridport Memoir Prize, an international creative writing award for unpublished memoir !!!
It is an incredible lift, boost, affirmation etc…. and will certainly help in getting my manuscript into the right hands and out into the world in print …my next step!
Amidst the rage, sorrow and despair at all that is happening to Iran and across the region, (the history of which I write about in my book) this news today is a precious glimmer that I needed – and a spur to keep telling and amplifying stories by women which too often get overlooked.
My first chapter and overview of my memoir is now published on the Bridport Prize website to read – and if you follow my Substack I will link to this and be sharing more of my writing / process connected to this book over the coming weeks and months.
To all those who have supported me over the last decade, either with my writing, art or by helping us get to Thailand last year to complete the story that is now the ending of my book, THANKYOU!!!!!
Special thanks to my editorial mentor, the incredible LeoneRoss for her guidance and insight over the last year on this final iteration of the manuscript.
And to the Bridport team, especially the memoir judge Mannie Coe who selected my work !
#BridportPrize #MemoirWriting #CreativeNonfiction #WomenWriting #MeetingTheWater
New Article on Substack – What it takes to write a book – the gift economy of a writer
https://alinahazadeh.substack.com
What a piece of work it is to finish writing a book!
I am almost in my 9th year of writing and about a month away from a fully edited final draft of my memoir, Meeting the Water. And I now know that the birthing of a book is not purely solitary, as I used to think it was when, for 25 years as a visual artist I wove my poetry, provocation and essay into the bodies of my public performances and installations. Because although when it comes down to it you just have to sit down at the page or screen alone and get the words down, stay focused, and persist, what I have realised is that, behind that long process are many – often unseen – helping hands
So here are some glimpses into that gift economy which has held and resourced me for nine years – and some of the other core elements – time, place, and the emotional journey – that are part of the process.
Read my newest Substack article on this – What it takes to write a book – the gift economy of a writer – and as an update on my project Meeting the Water that many of you supported us with on our Thailand crowdfunder a year ago now, finally bearing fruit..
#MemoirWriting #MeetingTheWater #WritingCommunity
Poem – The Impermanence of Small Things
In between the quiet but intense process of working on the closing chapters of my first book, and as the seasons change and the world turns increasingly precarious, I’ve been reworking a poem I first wrote during the pandemic, reflecting on impermanence and pleasure through the intimate lens of family life …
Now free to read over on my Substack.
First published in Covert magazine in 2021 by Writing Our Legacy.
Where There is a Ruin… new poem on Substack
I just published a long poem on my Substack inspired by this verse – Where there is a ruin, there is hope of treasure .. Har koja viran bovad, anja omide ganj hast. ہر کجا ویران بود آنجا امید گنج هست — Jelaluddin Rumi
Taken from my archive of work but not published, it was written and performed in Coventry Cathedral as part of my National Artist Residency for Rising Global Peace Forum in 2016.
Coventry, a city flattened by bombing in WWII, now a City of Sanctuary and centre for global peace initiatives. Global peace seems further than ever from us in these dark days, I know – as Iran (my mother country), Gaza, Israel, Ukraine burn. Grief and rage. And for what.
But still we write, still we hope.
Read via link in my bio or at: www.alinahazadeh.substack.com
The Four Directions – new artist commission now launched!
Thrilled to have my poems carved into beautiful oak benches made by sculptor Will Spankie and given a permanent home around Warren Hill dewpond high up on the South Downs near Beachy Head. The Downs by the sea is one of my happy places, though for some this area is highly charged and this commission addresses that.
A commission from Towner Eastbourne.
“Sited at the compass points around the Warren Hill Dew Pond, four new benches provide a welcome location for gathering, rest and reflection for people of all ages and abilities, allowing appreciation of the surrounding landscape and views across Eastbourne and Pevensey Bay to the East and Beachy Head and the sea to the South.
…Each seat has been inscribed with a text written by artist and writer Alinah Azadeh – entitled ‘To the North’, ‘To the South’, ‘To the East’ and ‘To the West’; the four reflective texts referencing the views from each of the benches..
…Close to Beachy Head and the Seven Sisters the site is uniquely and safely placed to serve as a site of reflection, remembrance and communal gathering for those who have lost loved ones to suicide at the nearby cliffs. The benches form part of an initiative by those involved in suicide prevention to reframe the area with more positive associations, providing an alternative site for reflection away from the cliffs themselves. “
The project has been delivered by Towner as part of its ongoing commissioning programme of public realm artworks for Eastbourne, in collaboration with the Eastbourne Downland Group. It has been generously supported by East Sussex County Council Public Health and the South Downs National Park Authority. “
Read more on the Towner project page here.
Read my latest Substack post on it here ‘Poems for those we love, lose and long for…”
Thanks for East Sussex Public Health Team and South Downs National Park Authority for supporting this commission.
To Wake Up
New poem on my Substack, read here
Where do you Stand?
A poem in solidarity with those struggling for peace. Read on my Substack here.
March 2025 Update
Click below to read what I have been up to over on my Substack..
