Over three months, writers Megan Bradbury in Norwich and Juliette Bernatchez in Québec explored their UNESCO cities of literature, writing to each other and acting as each other’s eyes, looking at the familiar in new ways.
Watch the event below to hear about this process of collaboration and the commissions that came out of it, about Julian of Norwich, Marie de l’Incarnation, fortifications and castles, and what it’s like to haunt another’s creative project. The virtual residency exchange was made possible with the support of the Québec Government Office in London and l’Entente de développement culturel entre le gouvernement du Québec et la Ville de Québec.
Please note: some of this conversation takes place in French. Turn on subtitles for English captions.
The virtual residency exchange was made possible with the support of the Québec Government Office in London and l’Entente de développement culturel entre le gouvernement du Québec et la Ville de Québec.
Megan Bradbury is a British writer, and author of the critically acclaimed novel, Everyone is Watching (Picador, 2016). Described as a ‘beating heart of a novel’ by Ali Smith and ‘kaleidoscopic’ by Eimear McBride, the novel was longlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize, and was listed as one of the Guardian’s Best Books of 2016. Bradbury is a graduate of the Creative Writing Masters programme at the University of East Anglia, and has been awarded the Charles Pick Fellowship, an Author’s Foundation award, and numerous grants from Arts Council England. She reviews for the Irish Times and the Times Literary Supplement. She is also an experienced artistic collaborator and a previous recipient of the Escalator Literature Prize.
Juliette Bernatchez has a master’s degree in literary studies and is a cultural worker and author. Since 2018, she has accumulated contracts in several festivals and cultural organizations in Quebec City. In February 2021, she co-founded and co-directed CONTOURS, a literary arts production and distribution organization. As an author, she has performed in various artistic events and can be read in the magazines Zinc, Le Sabord and Françoise Stéréo. In the summer of 2022, she was awarded a creation grant from the Conseil des arts et lettres du Québec to write her first book.
Meet the World
Our Meet the World series aims to celebrate our ongoing connections with international writers and translators by sharing their writing and ideas with new readers.
