Ella Risbridger is a writer and editor. Her bestselling debut, Midnight Chicken (& Other Recipes Worth Living For) (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019), was a Sunday Times Book of the Year, and won the Guild of Food Writers General Cookbook of the Year Award. Her most recent cookbook, The Year of Miracles (recipes about love + grief + growing things) (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2022), has been longlisted for the Andre Simon Awards, is a Waterstones Best Book of 2022; and was praised by Nigella Lawson, Nigel Slater, Diana Henry, and many more. The book is coincidentally partly set in Cricieth, the town down the road from Tŷ Newydd. She also writes children's books; poetry anthologies; and journalism, including for the Observer, the Financial Times, and Vogue. Her books have been translated into multiple languages, including Russian and Chinese. She lives in London with three thousand books and a cat.
Word Of Mouth: Writing About Food, Feelings & Family
On this residential course, you’ll explore food writing in all its many forms – from memoir to manual, from poetry to plays, fiction, graphic novels and beyond. Writing about food isn’t ever just writing about food: it’s writing about life. What we eat is never just what we eat: it’s who we are. Over the course of the sessions, you’ll learn to shape your narratives and touch upon different topics such as who we cook for and who we eat with, what we cook and where we shop and how we come together (or apart) at the kitchen table. Whether you are interested in a traditional recipe-led cookbook, or something more experimental, you’ll work with the tutors to shape your stories.
As award-winning authors of both fiction and memoir, and the co-editors of a forthcoming anthology of food writing, Ella and Kate will bring their experience, care and passion for new, exciting, creative work. All you’ll need are some essential ingredients: yourself, your stories, your recipes, and your memories. What you’ll take away is writing that makes people hungry, and a deeper appreciation of all the complicated flavours of life. Let’s write. Let’s eat.
Tutors
Ella Risbridger
Kate Young
Kate Young is a writer and cook. Her award-winning Little Library Cookbooks – The Little Library Cookbook (Head of Zeus, 2017), The Little Library Year (Anima, 2019), The Little Library Christmas (Anima, 2020), and The Little Library Parties (Apollo, 2022)) feature food inspired by beloved works of literature. Her debut novel Experienced, a queer romcom set in Bristol, sold in a seven-way auction and will be published by Fourth Estate in 2024. She has written for various publications, including The Guardian, and The Times; is a contributor to food magazines such as Waitrose Magazine, Delicious and Sainsbury’s Magazine; and has advised on features for the Financial Times, and The Telegraph. After a sunny Australian childhood spent indoors reading books she moved to London, which suited her much better. She now lives in the English countryside.
Guest Reader
Yẹ́misí Aríbisálà
Nigerian-born writer, visual artist and illustrator, Yẹ́misí Aríbisálà is best known for her thematic use of food writing to explore Nigerian culture. Her first book, Longthroat Memoirs: Soups, Sex and Nigerian Tastebuds, won the 2016 John Avery Prize at the André Simon Book Awards, shortlisted for The 2018 Art of Eating Prize and The Gourmand World Cookbook Awards. Her writing has been published worldwide in The New Yorker, Vogue UK, The World of Interiors, The Johannesburg Review of Books, Critical Muslim, Sandwich, Cape Town’s Chimurenga Chronic, and in New Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of Writing by Women of African Descent. Her portraits of Nigerian writers can be viewed at Google Arts & Culture, illustrations in Olongo Africa and in the Aké Review. Her recent work includes cover art for Yoruba translations of writings by Emily Rolfe Grosholz and Haruki Murakami, and a piece on smuggling food through airports for Jonathan Nunn’s London Feeds Itself.