We are delighted that three Blake Friedmann authors, Romalyn Ante, Janice Galloway and Kaite O’Reilly, have been elected fellows of the Royal Society of Literature.
The election took place at the RSL’s annual summer party on 12 July, where the new Fellows signed their names in the RSL Roll Book, which dates back to 1825.
Founded in 1820, the Royal Society of Literature is a charity which represents the voice of literature in the UK. To be nominated as a fellow, a writer must have published or produced two works of outstanding literary merit, and nominations must be made by two fellows or honorary fellows. This was the second and final year of the RSL Open initiative, which has seen 60 new writers from backgrounds underrepresented in UK literary culture elected to Fellowship. Readers and writers from across the UK recommended writers for nomination, who were then considered by a panel. This year the panel consisted of Monica Ali, Nick Laird, Sabrina Mahfouz, Charlotte Mendelson, Daljit Nagra, Irenosen Okojie and Chibundu Onuzo, and was chaired by Damian Barr.
Damian Barr said of the new Fellows: ‘This is a list of powerful talents and pioneering trailblazers; gifted writers of all genres who lit the way and who continue to inspire us in darker times. Their recognition is richly deserved and, for some, long overdue. The Royal Society of Literature is all the richer for these new Fellows, just as the world is for their words.’
About Romalyn Ante
Photo: S Chadawong
Romalyn Ante was born and lived in the Philippines until she migrated to the UK when she was 16 years old. She is now based in Wolverhampton. Romalyn is a poet and works as a specialist nurse practitioner. She is a co-founding editor of harana poetry, and the first East-Asian to win the Poetry London Prize (2018) and the Manchester Poetry Prize (2017). She also won the Creative Future Literary Award 2017.
Romalyn’s debut poetry collection, ANTIEMETIC FOR HOMESICKNESS, was published by Chatto & Windus and was an Irish Times Best Poetry Book of 2020, an Observer Poetry Book of the Month and a Poetry School Poetry Book of the Year 2020. It was also a National Poetry Day UK Recommended Read and is longlisted for the Jhalak Prize and the Dylan Thomas Prize.
Follow Romalyn on Twitter here
About Janice Galloway
Janice Galloway was born in Ayrshire in 1955. Her first novel, THE TRICK IS TO KEEP BREATHING (Vintage), now widely regarded as a contemporary Scottish classic, was published in 1990. It was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel, Scottish First Book, Italia Premio Acerbi and Aer Lingus Awards, and won the MIND/Allen Lane Book of the Year. Her second novel was FOREIGN PARTS (Vintage, 1995), which won Te McVitie's Prize. CLARA (Vintage), a fictionalised account of the life of Clara Schumann, was published in 2003 and won the Saltire Book of the Year.
Janice is also the author of two works of ‘anti-memoir’: THIS IS NOT ABOUT ME (Granta, 2010), was shortlisted for The Biographer's Club First Book and won Scottish non-fiction Book of the Year; ALL MADE UP (Granta, 2011) won the SMIT Book of the Year and a Creative Scotland Award. Her latest book, JELLYFISH (Granta, 2019), is a short story collection exploring sex and sexuality, parenthood, relationships, the connections between generations, death, ambition and loss.
About Kaite O’Reilly
Photo: Hayley Madden
Kaite O' Reilly is an award-winning playwright and poet (Peggy Ramsay Award, Manchester Evening News Best Play of 2004, International Susan Smith Blackburn Award 2009, Ted Hughes Award for New Works in Poetry 2011), a recipient of two Unlimited Commissions, part of the Cultural Olympiad for the London Olympics (for IN WATER I'M WEIGHTLESS and LEANER, FASTER, STRONGER) and a Fellow of International Research Centre ‘Interweaving Performance Cultures’, Freie Universität, Berlin.