Five essential 5×15 videos
That you need to watch ahead of our NNF17 event

The world can change in fifteen minutes. This year at NNF we’ll be hosting our very own 5×15 event – five speakers with fifteen minutes each on the theme of ‘revolution’. Past, presents, future – the revolutionary world in life and literature will be explored in this unique event.

Tickets are available online now – it’ll take less than fifteen minutes to book, promise! Find out more >>

Haven’t heard of 5×15 before? Our Communications Intern, Lucy Schofield, has picked five essential videos to watch which will give you a flavour of what it’s all about…

Sarah Howe on the lost girls

Sarah Howe @ 5×15 from 5×15 on Vimeo.

Sarah Howe is a British poet, academic and editor. Her first book, Loop of Jade won the T.S. Eliot Prize and The Sunday Times / PFD Young Writer of the Year Award, and was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. Born in Hong Kong in 1983 to an English father and Chinese mother, she moved to England as a child. Her poems have appeared in journals including Poetry Review, Poetry London, The Guardian, The Financial Times, Ploughshares and Poetry, as well as anthologies such as Ten: The New Wave and four editions of The Best British Poetry. She has performed her work at festivals internationally and on BBC Radio 3 & 4. She is the founding editor of Prac Crit, an online journal of poetry and criticism.

Matt Haig on reasons to stay alive

Matt Haig @ 5×15 from 5×15 on Vimeo.

Matt Haig was born in 1975. His debut novel, The Last Family in England, was a UK bestseller. The Dead Fathers Club, an update of Hamlet featuring an eleven-year-old boy, and The Possession of Mr Cave, a horror story about an overprotective father, are being made into films and have been translated into numerous languages. He is also the author of The Humans and the award winning children’s novel Shadow Forest, and its sequel, The Runaway Troll. A film of The Radleys is in production with Alfonso Cuaron. His latest book is Reasons to Stay Alive. Matt has lived in London and Spain, and now lives in York with the writer Andrea Semple and their two children.

Sara Khan on Inspire

Sara Khan @ 5×15 from 5×15 on Vimeo.

Sara Khan is the co-founder and director of Inspire, a counter-extremism and human rights organisation. She helped lead the national anti-ISIS campaign #makingastand. In January 2015 and 2016 she was recognised as one of Britain’s 500 most influential people, in the prestigious Debrett’s War and Peace category. Sara was named as one of the top 10 influential woman on BBC Woman’s Hour Power list 2015 for her counter-extremism work. She has written comment pieces for the Guardian, the Independent and the Telegraph. She has also appeared on numerous media channels including BBC Radio 4’s ‘Today’ Programme and CNN Amanpour. After the 7/7 bombings she sat on the Home Office’s Tackling Extremism and Radicalisation Working Group and is currently sitting on the Department for Education’s Due Diligence and Counter-Extremism Expert Reference Group. A born human rights activist she completed an MA in Understanding and Securing Human Rights. Her book The Battle for British Islam will be published in October 2016 with Saqi Books.

Lucy Siegle on ethical living

Lucy Siegle @ 5×15 from 5×15 on Vimeo.

Lucy Siegle is a leading UK journalist on environmental issues and ethical consumerism, and a regular presenter on The One Show. She has a weekly column in the Observer and created the paper’s Observer Ethical Awards (OEAs), which have been running for over eight years. In September 2012, she directed and produced Green Cut, an acclaimed short film on sustainable style. She is the author of To Die For: Is Fashion Wearing Out the World?, an impassioned exposé of the inhumane and environmentally devastating story behind the clothes we casually buy and wear. Lucy Siegle is co-founder of The Green Carpet Challenge with Livia Firth. The pair launched a collection of handbags for Gucci at Paris fashion Week for which the leather was sourced from the world’s first accredited zero deforestation manufacturers in Brazil.

Will Self on doubt

Will Self @ 5×15 from 5×15 on Vimeo.

Will Self began writing fiction after graduating from Oxford University, and worked as a cartoonist for the New Statesman and the London listings magazine City Limits. In 1993 he was chosen as one of Granta’s ‘Best of Young British Novelists’, and his fiction includes the short-story collection The Quantity Theory of Insanity (which won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize), and novels such as How the Dead Live, Cock and Bull and Umbrella. His non-fiction includes Perfidious Man, featuring photographs by David Gamble, and collections of his journalism such as Junk Mail and Feeding Frenzy. In 2002 he took part in a “reality art” project in a one-bedroom flat on the twentieth floor of a Liverpool tower block, writing a short piece of fiction whilst being watched by the public. He is a regular broadcaster on television and radio, and contributed to numerous newspapers and magazines, writing on various topics including architecture and psychogeography. His upcoming novel is Phone.

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