The Royal Society of Literature (RSL), the voice for the value of literature in the UK, has unveiled plans for Dalloway Day 2021. Every year on ‘a Wednesday in mid-June’, the society celebrates the work and legacy of Virginia Woolf.
On Wednesday 16 June, their second virtual Dalloway Day will feature online panel discussions, a writing workshop, a podcast, and self-guided walking tours of Bloomsbury. This full-day programme celebrates 100 years since Woolf’s only short story collection, Monday or Tuesday, was published and interrogates female friendship, and Woolf’s evergreen influence on literary, and material, landscapes. Audiences can register at https://rsliterature.org/rsl-event/dalloway-day-2021/.
Dalloway Day 2021 Events:
Introducing Virginia Woolf – a workshop with Kabe Wilson
Multimedia Artist and Woolf scholar Kabe Wilson will deliver an introductory session on Virginia Woolf to students of Mulberry School Trust. This session will include a lecture and a writing workshop on Woolf’s own inspirations, writers who were inspired by Woolf, and how we can creatively interact with classic texts in a modern context.
Exploring Bloomsbury with Susheila Nasta, Romesh Gunsekera and Alexander Bubb.
After a year in which walks through our neighbourhoods have been our sanctuary, the RSL have curated a digital audiotour exploring the incredible influence of South Asians on Bloomsbury. Curated and narrated by Susheila Nasta, Romesh Gunsekera with Alexander Bubb, the tour is integrated into the map of Bloomsbury, as well as available as a playlist on the RSL’s Soundcloud. Listeners can follow along using the interactive map. The map and tour are available to enjoy from home, or as a self-guided walking tour through the home neighbourhoods of the Bloomsbury Group.
As part of Dalloway Day 2021, the RSL is also relaunching ‘There We Stop; There We Stand’, an interactive map and audio walking tour from artist S. I. Martin – author, artist and founder 500 Years of Black London walks – which explores the compelling Black cultural heritage of Soho, by touching on the lives of those whose portraits hang in the National Portrait Gallery, in the footsteps of Clarissa Dalloway. S. I. Martin’s narration is integrated throughout the map, as well as available as a playlist on the RSL’s Soundcloud. Listeners can follow along using the interactive map.
Lit Hub Podcast: Deborah Levy and Merve Emre on Virginia Woolf
In a conversation hosted by US site Literary Hub, Deborah Levy and Merve Emre discuss what Virginia Woolf means to them and the enduring influence of her work upon their own writing.
Material Culture in a Digital World
Join the RSL to interrogate how our ideas about material culture have changed, in the 100 years since Clarissa Dalloway walked the streets of London with best-selling author and Fellow of the RSL Kate Mosse, Claire Wilcox, Professor in Fashion Curation and Senior Curator of Fashion at the V&A, and Shahidha Bari, Professor of Fashion Cultures and Histories, and presenter of BBC Radio 3’s Free Thinking.
In 1925, Virginia Woolf coined the phrase ‘frock consciousness’; in 2021 many of us are considering whether we will ever again don a pair of high-heeled shoes. In this discussion of experts across fashion, fiction and curation, the RSL explore how clothes shape our lives, the importance of fashion to fiction in creating worlds, and how material culture lives on in a digital world.
Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield: Critical Friendship
‘We have got the same job, Virginia, and it is really very curious & thrilling that we should both, quite apart from each other, be after so very nearly the same thing.’ Katherine Mansfield
Join the RSL as they unspool the relationship between two of modernism’s most significant writers, Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield. Although their friendship was brief – from 1917 until Mansfield’s death in 1923 – its effect on their work was profound. Despite scathing critiques of each other’s work, and many disagreements, the bond between Woolf and Mansfield was marked by mutual appreciation; upon Mansfield’s death, Woolf wrote ‘I was jealous of her writing – the only writing I have ever been jealous of.’
Marking 100 years since the publication of Woolf’s only short story collection Monday or Tuesday, writers Kirsty Gunn, Emily Midorikawa, Irenosen Okojie and Emma Claire Sweeney will consider the short stories of Mansfield and Woolf, and the unique tensions of personal and professional friendship.
This is an online event hosted on the British Library platform. Bookers are sent a link in advance giving access and can watch at any time for 48 hours after the start time.
WRITE & SHINE: Blue & Green
Led by writer Gemma Seltzer, this specially commissioned Write & Shine workshop will focus on the short story, celebrating the 100th anniversary of Virginia Woolf’s collection, Monday or Tuesday.
The workshop will take inspiration from Virginia Woolf’s story of the same name, Blue & Green, celebrating these two colours through surreal images and associations. In this workshop, the audience will be guided through writing prompts to explore the role of colour in our creative work, its relationship to place, and how to work with inspiration from the past. Write & Shine morning writing workshops are open to all levels of experience.
