unfinishing

unfinishing is the podcast about projects that are incomplete, abandoned, or not public. It’s presented by Emily Anderson and the artwork is by Graham Oakes. If you have an incomplete or private project you’d like to talk about, please email unfinishing.pod@gmail.com, contact Em on Instagram @unfinishingpod, or on Twitter @TrueBagglerag.

In this epsiode Guy Waites talks about his experience sailing solo round the world, spending months alone at sea as part of the Golden Globe Race.

Over the course of the race, Guy and the other entrants faced huge storms, enormous waves, and of course the immense psychological challenge of being alone for months and months.

But, incredibly, it wasn’t any of those challenges that prevented Guy from finishing his circumnavigation in one go. It was: barnacles. So many barnacles attached themselves to Guy’s boat that he was forced to stop to remove them.

Somewhat brilliantly, though, and despite having been excluded from the race, Guy decided to continue with his journey. He completed his circumnavigation after 287 days at sea – and also having run out of food for the last few of those days.

Find out more about Guy here: https://guywaitessailing.com/

Read about the Golden Globe Race here: https://goldengloberace.com/skippers/guy-waites/

Read about the Jester Challenge here: https://jesterchallenge.wordpress.com/what-is-the-jester-challenge/

unfinishing is the podcast about projects that are incomplete, abandoned, or not public. It’s presented by Emily Anderson and the artwork is by Graham Oakes. If you have an incomplete or private project you’d like to talk about, please email unfinishing.pod@gmail.com, contact Em on Instagram @unfinishingpod, or on Twitter  @TrueBagglerag.

In this episode Andy Jaggard tells the story of an unfinished memoir that was written by his father Gerald.

Andy discovered the memoir after his father died, and reading it opened up a maze of mysteries and unanswered questions.

The memoir includes a lot of reflection about Andy’s grandfather – who was called Captain William Jaggard and who established a well-known bookshop in Stratford-upon-Avon. Captain Jaggard firmly believed that he was descended from the printers (whose family name is also Jaggard) who published the First Folio of Shakespeare’s work in 1623. In the end Andy hired a professional genealogist to find out whether his grandfather was right...

But what’s really central to the memoir is the personal story it tells. When Andy found it, it ended abruptly at a crucial moment in the story.

A mysterious call from an American researcher eventually prompted Andy to research his father’s life, and to finish the memoir. In the process, he discovered some truly extraordinary events in the history of his family.

The completed memoir was published in April 2023. It’s called "Shakespeare Press" - the memoir of Gerald Jaggard completed by Andy Jaggard.

Links of interest

The Shakespeare Press: https://www.waterstones.com/book/shakespeare-press/andy-jaggard/9781739307707

Find out more about Gerald’s memoir on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shakespeare_press_book/

Find out more online: https://shakespeare-press.com/

unfinishing is the podcast about projects that are incomplete, abandoned, or not public. It’s presented by Emily Anderson and the artwork is by Graham Oakes. If you have an incomplete or private project you’d like to talk about, please email unfinishing.pod@gmail.com, contact Em on Instagram @unfinishingpod, or on Twitter @TrueBagglerag.

My guest in this episode is Alix Beeston, who is a writer and a Senior Lecturer in English at Cardiff University, where she researches and teaches twentieth and twenty-first century film, photography, and literature.

Alix is the perfect guest – in the last few years she’s been studying unfinished creative work. She approaches unfinished films and literary texts as windows onto the realities of artistic production for women, including the systemic barriers that affect that labour, and also as constituting significant artistic work in its own right, even if it doesn't achieve the completion of a distributed film or a published book.

In summer 2023 she published Incomplete: The Feminist Possibilities of the Unfinished Film, a collection of essays that she co-edited with Stefan Solomon.

Links of interest

Incomplete: The Feminist Possibilities of the Unfinished Film: https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520381476/incomplete

Out of Sight: Modernist Writing and the Photographic Unseen: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/in-and-out-of-sight-9780197673010?lang=en&cc=gb

unfinishing is the podcast about projects that are incomplete, abandoned, or not public. It’s presented by Emily Anderson and the artwork is by Graham Oakes. If you have an incomplete or private project you’d like to talk about, please email unfinishing.pod@gmail.com, contact Em on Instagram @unfinishingpod, or on Twitter  @TrueBagglerag.

My guests in this episode to open Series 3 are Jen Simonic and Masey Kaplan. Together, Jen and Masey founded the Loose Ends project.

The Loose Ends project has created an enormous community of knitters, embroiderers, and crafters of all varieties around the world, who finish textile works that have been left incomplete when the original crafters have passed away or become ill.

Masey and Jen have some incredibly inspiring and moving stories about the unfinished projects that have been submitted to Loose Ends – as well as some very funny ones.

To submit an unfinished project to Loose Ends, to volunteer as a finisher or translator, and to donate, visit www.looseendsproject.org.

unfinishing is the podcast about things that are incomplete, abandoned, or not public. It’s presented by Emily Anderson and the artwork is by Graham Oakes. If you have an incomplete or private project you’d like to talk about, please email unfinishing.pod@gmail.com, contact Em on Instagram @unfinishingpod, or on Twitter @TrueBagglerag.

My guest in this episode is Victoria Bennett, who is a writer and creative producer. Her work includes poetry, non-fiction, video-game narrative, creative writing facilitation, and publishing.

I speak to Victoria about the experience of grief is unfinished, with a focus on her memoir All My Wild Mothers (Hachette, 2023). In the memoir Victoria describes the loss of several members of her family, her experiences of motherhood, and the process of creating a garden full of wonder with her young son.

Links of interest

All My Wild Mothers: https://www.hachette.co.uk/titles/victoria-bennett/all-my-wild-mothers/9781529398618/

Wild Women Press: http://www.wildwomenpress.com/

Women Who Run with the Wolves: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_Who_Run_with_the_Wolves

unfinishing is the podcast about projects that are unfinished, abandoned, or not public. It’s presented by Emily Anderson and the artwork is by Graham Oakes. If you have an incomplete or private project you’d like to talk about, please email unfinishing.pod@gmail.com, contact Em on Instagram @unfinishingpod, or on Twitter  @TrueBagglerag.

In this episode, Dr Steve Kershaw talks about Plato’s Critias dialogue, a text that’s not only unfinished but actually ends mid-sentence – and no-one knows why. It also happens to be the source of the legend of Atlantis. We talk about why Plato may have abandoned it, and how its incompleteness has fed into its (mis)interpretation.

Steve wrote his Ph.D. under the supervision of Prof. Richard Buxton, arguably the leading scholar on Greek myth in the world. He’s spent the last 40 years travelling in the world of the ancient Greeks and Romans, both physically and in his head, and he's been a Classics tutor for some 30 years. He currently works out of the Oxford University Department for Continuing Education.

Useful links

Steve’s Brief History of Atlantis: Plato’s Ideal State (including Steve’s translation of Critias): A Brief History of Atlantis by Stephen P. Kershaw | Hachette UK (littlebrown.co.uk) 

Mythologica, Steve’s children’s book on Greek mythology Mythologica by Stephen P. Kershaw | Quarto At A Glance | The Quarto Group (quartoknows.com)

You’re Dead to Me episode on Atlantis: You're Dead To Me - Atlantis - BBC Sounds 

Steve’s website: http://www.stevekershaw.com/index.html

unfinishing is the podcast about projects that are unfinished, abandoned, or not public. It’s presented by Emily Anderson and the artwork is by Graham Oakes. If you have an unfinished or private project you’d like to talk about, please email unfinishing.pod@gmail.com, contact Em on Instagram @unfinishingpod or on Twitter  @TrueBagglerag.

My guest this week is Jo Moseley, who is a beach cleaner, joy encourager & midlife adventurer. Alongside her lovely day job, she is also a speaker, writer and podcast host. She’s a single mum of two sons, aged 26 and 22, and she lives on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales. In August 2019, Jo became the first woman to SUP (stand up paddleboard) coast-to-coast 162 miles along the Leeds Liverpool Canal, picking up litter, fundraising for the Wave Project and the 2 Minute Beach Clean Foundation, and raising awareness of the problems of single use plastic. Jo worked with filmmaker Frit Tam to make a film about her journey called Brave Enough - A Journey Home to Joy.

We speak about Jo’s second book on Paddleboarding, which she took the very brave and unusual decision not to publish (despite having spent months working on it!) Jo tells me why she made that decision, and the process she went through to (very kindly) explain it to all the people who had helped in its creation.

Jo also explains to me the experiences she’s had with miscarriage, and why the grief of that feels to her like it will always be unfinished, as well as telling me how she’s still in an ongoing process of exploring her own dreams and ambitions – which she wasn’t able to realise in her 30s and 40s.

In June 2022, Jo’s first book Stand Up Paddleboarding in Great Britain - Beautiful Places to Paddleboard in England, Scotland and Wales was published by award winning Vertebrate Publishing. 

Two of Jo’s films Finding Joy and ⁠Found at Sea⁠ have both won awards.

You can find out more at: www.jomoseley.com and Jo's column in Stand-Up Paddleboarding Magazine is here: ⁠https://standuppaddlemag.co.uk/paddleboarding-for-good/⁠

Follow Jo on Instagram (⁠https://www.instagram.com/jomoseley/⁠) and Twitter (https://twitter.com/Healthyhappy50).

unfinishing is the podcast about projects that are unfinished, abandoned, or not public. It’s presented by Emily Anderson and the artwork is by Graham Oakes. If you have an unfinished or private project you’d like to talk about, please email unfinishing.pod@gmail.com, contact Em on Instagram @unfinishingpod or on Twitter  @TrueBagglerag.

My guest this week is Faye Latham, who is a writer, visual poet and rock climber based in the Lake District. In January 2020 she was awarded the Literature Wales Bursary for Writers Under 25 to support the development of her poetry, which resulted in her work being published in journals and magazines including UKClimbing.com, Lumin Journal, The CTC Rewilding Anthology, and the Cambridge Literary Review. In 2021 she was awarded a grant with the Society of Authors and her pamphlet Ruin/Nation was highly commended in the Poetry Wales Pamphlet Competition. Faye is also one of the organisers of Kendal Mountain Festival. 

Her first poetry collection is called British Mountaineers and in it she uses a style called erasure poetry. This involves taking writing composed by someone else and erasing large parts of it so that what remains creates a poem. British Mountaineers was originally a text by the mountaineer Frank Smythe, who was a well-known climber active in the 1920s and 1930s. Faye and I talk about how creating something new from Smythe’s text felt to her like a process of ‘unfinishing’ it – of showing that the tale he told was not the end of the story. 

We also talk about how Faye turned to poetry partly because she found it hard to finish novels, and about a possible erasure project for the future that has an environmental focus. At the end of the episode we get on to chatting about different forms of erasure/ unfinishing, such as the toppled statue of Edward Colston, and the Banksy artwork (now called Love is in the bin) that involved one of his paintings being shredded just after being sold. 

Links of interest:

British Mountaineers: https://www.littlepeak.co.uk/catalogue/british-mountaineers-international-orders_73/ 

Frank Smythe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Smythe 

Sarah J Sloat's book Hotel Almighty: https://www.sarahjsloat.com/publications/

unfinishing is the podcast about projects that are unfinished, abandoned, or not public. It’s presented by Emily Anderson and the artwork is by Graham Oakes. If you have an unfinished or private project you’d like to talk about, please email unfinishing.pod@gmail.com, contact Em on Instagram @unfinishingpod or on Twitter  @TrueBagglerag.

Rebecca Coles is a mountaineer. Her unfinished project is to climb all 82 of the 4000m alpine peaks with an all-female team.

Becky specialises in remote expeditions and has made first ascents in Nepal and South Georgia, Antarctica. She’s led expeditions on all seven continents, and she’s a Winter Mountaineering and Climbing Instructor and an International Mountain Leader. She has a PhD in Glacial Geomorphology.

We talked about the great number of different things that have to come together to achieve all 82 peaks, about trying to get to sleep the night before you attempt to summit, and about why Becky enjoys training military personnel.

Becky also tells me about how she motivated a judge with no walking experience to complete an ascent of Kilimanjaro, about what it feels like on a first ascent expedition when you don’t quite make it to the top, and why looking negatively at unfinished things is a dinner-party problem, rather than a personal one.

At the end of the episode, we spend a bit of time talking about Becky’s next expedition: she’s leading a 280km, camel-supported desert trek in Sudan.

Find out more about Rebecca Coles here: https://www.instagram.com/roam.mtns/

Rebecca’s piece in Sidetracked about her first ascent of Lasarmula: https://www.sidetracked.com/a-mountain-affair/

The UIAA:

https://theuiaa.org/

Rob Johnson, filmmaker:

https://www.instagram.com/filmuphigh/?hl=en

Franco Cookson is climber and the star of Fall Theory, a film by Alistair Lee that premiered in 2021, and which follows Franco completing the first ascent of an incredibly dangerous route called the Immortal in North Yorkshire.

We talk about my guesses of things Franco may not have finished (two climbing routes and an article it turns out he doesn’t remember writing). We then cover how having unfinished climbing projects is inevitable (since at some point failure is guaranteed), how climbing routes take on personalities as more people complete them, and about the importance of thinking through what could go wrong in preparation for doing a climb.

I happened to speak to Franco on his very first day as a fully professional climber, so we also speak about the socio-economic barriers to going professional, the possible effects of social media on the process, and why you’re probably doing it wrong if you enjoy doing promotion too much.

There are also bits about castles in Northumberland, about how the pupils Franco used to teach didn’t know he was also a climber, about Franco’s enthusiasm for climbers who aren’t from the normal climbing areas, and – right at the end – a bit about a play Franco started to write while at university in Manchester.

unfinishing is the podcast about projects that are unfinished, abandoned, or not public. It’s presented by Emily Anderson and the artwork is by Graham Oakes. If you have an unfinished or private project you’d like to talk about, please email unfinishing.pod@gmail.com, contact Em on Instagram @unfinishingpod or on Twitter  @TrueBagglerag.

unfinishing is the podcast about projects that are unfinished, abandoned, or not public. It’s presented by Emily Anderson and the artwork is by Graham Oakes. If you have an unfinished or private project you’d like to talk about, please email unfinishing.pod@gmail.com, contact Em on Instagram @unfinishingpod or on Twitter  @TrueBagglerag.

In this special episode, unfinishing went on the road to Kendal Mountain Festival 2022. I interviewed a lovely bunch of contributors and visitors to the festival about projects they haven’t finished. I’ve collected some of the interviews together to give you a flavour of the festival and of the extraordinary people who attend.

The first interview you’ll hear is with Steve Scott, who’s director of Kendal Mountain Festival. As well as telling me about the history and future of the festival, it turns out Steve has his own unfinished project – he has some really thoughtful ideas for a film on the theme of departure.

I speak to Jenny Tough, who’s an author and filmmaker who travels solo across mountain ranges around the world. We talk about procrastination, about the difficulties of recovering mentally after finishing an enormous expedition, and the process of combining travelling with writing.

I also talk to Charlie Smith, who’s become an expert in cold-weather expeditions, because he’s been attempting to cross Iceland for the last eight years (in the middle of winter, from North to south). The idea was originally born at Kendal many years ago, and Charlie tells me about how making the attempts have become woven into his life and self-development.

My other interviewees are:

Siobhan Daniels, author of Retirement Rebel, who has an inspiring message about encouraging women to not be afraid of aging.

Andy Dodd, from the fabulous charity Climbers Against Cancer.

Amy Hogg, a climbing instructor whose ADHD means she doesn’t always finish things immediately, but who’s able to transfer her determination to finish to those she climbs with.

Coline Payne, who was inspired by Mike Carter's One Man and His Bike to cycle all the way around the coast of the UK.

Find out more about Durham Spray Paints here: www.durhamspraypaints.com, on Facebook here, and on Instagram here.

Lewis's Epic TV episode is here, and the buildering map is here.

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unfinishing is presented by Em Anderson and the artwork is by Graham Oakes. If you have an unfinished or private project you’d like to talk about, please email unfinishing.pod@gmail.com, contact Em on Twitter @TrueBagglerag, or find Em on Instagram @thebagglerag.

Find out more about Durham Spray Paints here: www.durhamspraypaints.com, on Facebook here, https://www.facebook.com/DurhamSprayPaints/?ref=page_internal, and on Instagram here https://www.instagram.com/durhamspraypaints/?hl=en. 

Lewis's Epic TV episode is here: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EIQ7RakpsHw and the buildering map is here.

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unfinishing is presented by Em Anderson and the artwork is by Graham Oakes. If you have an unfinished or private project you’d like to talk about, please email unfinishing.pod@gmail.com, contact Em on Twitter @TrueBagglerag, or find Em on Instagram @thebagglerag.

My guest in this episode is Anna Fleming, who is a climber and a writer. In January 2022 she published Time on Rock – A Climber’s Route into the Mountains, which in July was shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize for nature writing.

In Anna’s words Time on Rock is a nature writing book about rock climbing. In it, she traces how she learnt to climb, and she shows how being a climber can give you a privileged and distinctive physical understanding of different landscapes.

Time on Rock does a wonderful job of illustrating how climbing is an ever-changing, ever-developing way of life: in other words something that very much can’t be finished.

In our conversation we talk about how climbing can be affected by other aspects of life, such as different relationships with climbing partners, where you live, and death and injury among members of the climbing community. We also talk about climbing as ‘embodied chess’, parenting, and how climbing demands a perfect balance between introversion and extraversion. (And, right at the end, Anna has some tips about vomiting seabirds).

More information about Helen Mort’s A Line Above the Sky can be found here: A Line Above the Sky (penguin.co.uk)

More information about Faye Latham’s British Mountaineers is available here: https://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/literature/between_the_lines_of_british_mountaineers_-_climbing_erasure_poetry-14319 You can find out about Faye’s event at Kendal Mountain Festival here: Faye Latham - British Mountaineers (kendalmountainfestival.com)

And if you’re intrigued by Joe Simpson and Touching the Void, follow this link: Touching the Void (2003) - IMDb

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unfinishing is presented by Em Anderson and the artwork is by Graham Oakes. If you have an unfinished or private project you’d like to talk about, please email unfinishing.pod@gmail.com, or contact Em on Twitter @TrueBagglerag.

Anna Fleming is a climber and a writer. In January 2022 she published Time on Rock – A Climber’s Route into the Mountains, which in July was shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize for nature writing.

In Anna’s words Time on Rock is a nature writing book about rock climbing. In it, she traces how she learnt to climb, and she shows how being a climber can give you a privileged and distinctive physical understanding of different landscapes.

Time on Rock does a wonderful job of illustrating how climbing is an ever-changing, ever-developing way of life: in other words something that very much can’t be finished.

In our conversation we talk about how climbing can be affected by other aspects of life, such as different relationships with climbing partners, where you live, and death and injury among members of the climbing community. We also talk about climbing as ‘embodied chess’, parenting, and how climbing demands a perfect balance between introversion and extraversion. (And, right at the end, Anna has some tips about vomiting seabirds).

More information about Helen Mort’s A Line Above the Sky can be found here: A Line Above the Sky (penguin.co.uk)

More information about Faye Latham’s British Mountaineers is available here: https://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/literature/between_the_lines_of_british_mountaineers_-_climbing_erasure_poetry-14319 You can find out about Faye’s event at Kendal Mountain Festival here: Faye Latham - British Mountaineers (kendalmountainfestival.com)

And if you’re intrigued by Joe Simpson and Touching the Void, follow this link: Touching the Void (2003) - IMDb

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unfinishing is presented by Em Anderson and the artwork is by Graham Oakes. If you have an unfinished or private project you’d like to talk about, please email unfinishing.pod@gmail.com, or contact Em on Twitter @TrueBagglerag.

Matt's design practice is called 21-87. He works with individuals and organisations to develop visual identities, publications and spaces guided by an inquisitive, research-led approach. Recent commissions include an identity for a new artist- and maker-led online store, Inland; a delightfully surprising ecom store for Australian fashion brand Song for the Mute; and a wayfinding system for an electric vehicle startup Arrival.

Matt also collaborates with a previous guest on unfinishing, Rishi Dastidar. You can listen to the episode with Rishi here: https://anchor.fm/em-anderson/episodes/with-Rishi-Dastidar--Postcards-for-strangers-e1fmh95

If you have an unfinished or unpublished project you'd like to talk about, please contact Em Anderson via email (unfinishing.pod@gmail.com) or on Twitter: @TrueBagglerag. More details and a full list of episodes are available on my website: ecanderson.wordpress.com 

For those who are interested, here are the links to various things I discuss with Matt:

• Low-tech magazine: http://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/
• Killed by Google: killedbygoogle.com
• Raspberry Pi: http://raspberrypi.org/learn/ 

Graham Oakes talks to me about his endeavours in stand-up comedy, in sketch groups, and in creating YouTube videos. Graham tells me about how he prepared for his first stand-up gig while carrying mattresses through Newcastle, and about what happened when a community of "real" vampires took against one of his YouTube videos. Graham also created the artwork for unfinishing and if you'd like to see some other examples of his work, you can find them here: @grahamoakesart

If you have an unfinished or unpublished project you'd like to talk about, please contact Em Anderson via email (unfinishing.pod@gmail.com) or on Twitter: @TrueBagglerag. More details and a full list of episodes are available on my website: ecanderson.wordpress.com 

unfinishing celebrates creative projects that never got finished, that have yet to be finished, or that never made it out into the world. What’s the value to be found in unfinished and private writing, art, and music? What stops us from finishing things off? And what might happen if the pressure to complete projects disappeared? I ask my guests to search their bottom drawers and the corners of their laptops to rediscover secret and incomplete schemes.

unfinishing is produced and presented by Em Anderson

My guest in the next episode of unfinishing is Graham Oakes, who talks to me about his endeavours in stand-up comedy, in sketch groups, and in creating YouTube videos. Graham tells me about how he prepared for his first stand-up gig while carrying mattresses through Newcastle, and about what happened when a community of "real" vampires got upset about one of his YouTube videos. Graham also created the artwork for unfinishing and if you'd like to see some other examples of his work, you can find them here: @grahamoakesart

If you have an unfinished or unpublished project you'd like to talk about, please contact Em Anderson via email (unfinishing.pod@gmail.com) or on Twitter: @TrueBagglerag. More details and a full list of episodes are available on my website: ecanderson.wordpress.com 

unfinishing celebrates creative projects that never got finished, that have yet to be finished, or that never made it out into the world. What’s the value to be found in unfinished and private writing, art, and music? What stops us from finishing things off? And what might happen if the pressure to complete projects disappeared? I ask my guests to search their bottom drawers and the corners of their laptops to rediscover secret and incomplete schemes.

unfinishing is produced and presented by Em Anderson

Mark Antony Owen is a poet and publisher. He talks to me about his online poetry project Subruria, which is about the place where the suburbs and the rural landscape meet. Listen in to find out why the project gets updated every three years, how Mark has created a coffee-table book on the internet, and how facts become disguised as fiction in his work. Mark is also the creator and curator of poetry journals iamb and After... and is on Twitter (where he can be found leading discussions on all things poetry) here: @MarkAntonyOwen

If you have an unfinished or unpublished project you'd like to talk about, please contact Em Anderson via email (unfinishing.pod@gmail.com) or on Twitter: @TrueBagglerag.

unfinishing celebrates creative projects that never got finished, that have yet to be finished, or that never made it out into the world. What’s the value to be found in unfinished and private writing, art, and music? What stops us from finishing things off? And what might happen if the pressure to complete projects disappeared? I ask my guests to search their bottom drawers and the corners of their laptops to rediscover secret and incomplete schemes.

unfinishing is produced and presented by Em Anderson

The artwork for unfinishing was created by Graham Oakes

Mark Antony Owen is a poet and publisher. He talks to me about his online poetry project Subruria, which is about the place where the suburbs and the rural landscape meet. The full episode is out next week - listen in to find out why the project gets updated every three years, how Mark has created a coffee-table book on the internet, and how facts become disguised as fiction in his work. Mark is also the creator and curator of poetry journals iamb and After... and is on Twitter (where he can be found leading discussions on all things poetry) here:  @MarkAntonyOwen

If you have an unfinished or unpublished project you'd like to talk about, please contact Em Anderson via email (unfinishing.pod@gmail.com) or on Twitter (@TrueBagglerag). 

Sophie’s website is here: Www.mrsophie.com It includes examples of her text, audio, and visual work, as well as her radio show 'Polyfilla' on No Bounds Radio.

The Aphex Twin poetry anthology to which Sophie has contributed is here: https://www.brokensleepbooks.com/product-page/you-ve-got-so-many-machines-richard-an-anthology-of-aphex-twin-poetry It’s published by Broken Sleep books and is edited by Rishi Dastidar and Aaron Kent. And some things we mention in the podcast: Star and Shadow Cinema: Star and Shadow Programme; The Paper (Good Press): The Paper – Good Press — good books & more

If you have a project you never finished or never made public that you'd like to talk about, email unfinished.unpublished@gmail.com

unfinishing celebrates creative projects that never got finished, that have yet to be finished, or that never made it out into the world. I ask my guests to search their bottom drawers and the corners of their laptops to rediscover secret and incomplete schemes. unfinishing is presented by Em Anderson (@TrueBagglerag). The artwork for unfinishing was created by Graham Oakes: https://www.instagram.com/grahamoakesart/

Subscribe here across podcast platforms to listen to the episode when it's released (you can also catch-up on previous episodes via the same link): unfinishing • A podcast on Anchor

My guest is Rishi Dastidar, who is a poet and copywriter. Rishi’s poetry has been published by the BBC, the Financial Times and the New Scientist, amongst many others. His second collection, entitled Saffron Jack, is published by Nine Arches Press. Rishi is also co-editor of Too Young, Too Loud, Too Different: Poems from Malika’s Poetry Kitchen, and he serves as chair of the writer development organisation Spread The Word. Rishi has written for many different brands over the course of his career in copywriting, and was recently a judge for D&AD.

Rishi’s unfinished project is Self-Portrait Postcards, which began when he started writing down all of his Facebook updates (filling over fifty notebooks in the process). Rishi ended up collaborating with the designed Matt Busher to create an exhibition in which his updates were displayed on postcards, with visitors invited to choose one to take away with them. 

For those who are interested, the unfinished novels Rishi mentions in our conversation are Vladimir Nabokov’s The Original of Laura and David Foster Wallace’s The Pale King. 

unfinishing celebrates creative projects that never got finished, that have yet to be finished, or that never made it out into the world. I ask my guests to search their bottom drawers and the corners of their laptops to rediscover secret and incomplete schemes. If you have a project you never finished or never made public that you'd like to talk about, email unfinished.unpublished@gmail.com 

unfinishing is presented by Em Anderson (@TrueBagglerag). 

The artwork for unfinishing was created by Graham Oakes: https://www.instagram.com/grahamoakesart/

In Series 2, Episode 1, my guest is Rishi Dastidar, who is a poet and copywriter. Rishi’s poetry has been published by the BBC, the Financial Times and the New Scientist, amongst many others. His second collection, entitled Saffron Jack, is published by Nine Arches Press. Rishi is also co-editor of Too Young, Too Loud, Too Different: Poems from Malika’s Poetry Kitchen, and he serves as chair of the writer development organisation Spread The Word. Rishi has written for many different brands over the course of his career in copywriting, and was recently a judge for D&AD.

Rishi’s unfinished project is Self-Portrait Postcards, which began when he started writing down all of his Facebook updates (filling over fifty notebooks in the process). Rishi ended up collaborating with the designed Matt Busher to create an exhibition in which his updates were displayed on postcards, with visitors invited to choose one to take away with them. 

For those who are interested, the unfinished novels Rishi mentions in our conversation are Vladimir Nabokov’s The Original of Laura and David Foster Wallace’s The Pale King. 

unfinishing is presented by Em Anderson (@TrueBagglerag). The artwork for unfinishing was created by Graham Oakes https://www.instagram.com/grahamoakesart/

If you would like to be a guest on Series 2 of Unfinished/Unpublished, email me on unfinished.unpublished@gmail.com, or catch me on Twitter @TrueBagglerag.

Michael Farris Smith’s novels have appeared on Best of the Year lists with Esquire and with NPR, among many others, and he’s also been a finalist for the Southern Book Prize and the Gold Dagger Award. His essays have appeared in the New York Times. Michael’s latest novel is called Nick, and it tells the story of Nick Carraway, narrator of the Great Gatsby, before we meet him in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic work which was first published in 1925.

Michael has appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row to discuss Nick, and the novel also been reviewed in the Guardian and the Times. In the US it’s been reviewed in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the LA Times and elsewhere.

We talk about why and how Michael approached Nick as an unfinished character – as someone who we don’t learn that much about in The Great Gatsby – and what it was like having to wait for the copyright on Gatsby to expire before Nick could be published.

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There are just a couple of episodes left in Series 1 of Unfinished/Unpublished and I’m now recruiting for Series 2. If you have an unfinished or unpublished project you’d like to talk about, email me at unfinished.unpublished@gmail.com. (You can also contact me on Twitter @TrueBagglerag). So far I’ve interviewed writers, artists, musicians, historians, and gardeners – everyone’s welcome!

In this episode my guest is the author Michael Farris Smith. We talk about his most recent novel Nick, which tells the story of what happens to Nick Carraway, narrator of The Great Gatsby, before we meet him F. Scott Fitzgerald's famous novel. The novel Nick is both finished and published, but we talk about why Michael was compelled to flesh out (or finish!) Nick's character, and what it was like to have to wait to publish while the clock ticked down on Gatsby's copyright... 

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Listen to more episodes of Unfinished/Unpublished here: https://anchor.fm/em-anderson 

You can also get in touch via email on unfinished.unpublished@gmail.com, or via Twitter @TrueBagglerag.

Richard is a brilliant writer and director for television and the stage. His writing includes three series of Bluestone 42, the BBC sitcom about a bomb disposal unit serving in Afghanistan, which he co-wrote and created with James Cary. He co-wrote the multi-award-winning and Bafta-nominated Miranda, also for the BBC, as well as several episodes of Secret Diary Of A Call Girl, which was for ITV2. On the stage, he co-wrote and directed the Olivier Award-nominated Potted Panto and Potted Potter.

Richard tells me about three projects that are either unfinished or unpublished. The first is Bluestone 42 (Richard has lots of ideas about what could happen to the characters), the second is a sitcom about an authoritarian leader that couldn’t go ahead because people were wary of being assassinated, and the third is a novel that’s completely finished but never made it into the public realm.

Richard has lots of anecdotes about the making of Bluestone 42 and Miranda (stick around until the end for the latter), including the real-life inspiration for Bluestone provided by army contacts, and the lunch habits of the Miranda team…

We also have a chat about how Richard had to change certain jokes in performances of Potted Potter and Potted Panto depending on when and where they were being performed, and about whether or not comedy and satire have any effect on politics.

You can read more about Richard’s work here: http://www.richardhurst.co.uk/biog.html

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I’m now recruiting guests for Series 2 of Unfinished/Unpublished, so if you have a project that has yet to be completed or that hasn’t made it out into the world, contact me via email on unfinished.unpublished@gmail.com. You can also reach me on Twitter @TrueBagglerag.

Richard Hurst has written and directed an abundance of fabulous television and drama. Highlights include Bluestone 42, the BBC sitcom about a bomb disposal unit which he co-wrote and created with James Cary, and seventeen episodes of the multi-award-winning and BAFTA nominated Miranda (BBC). On stage, Richard co-wrote and directed the Olivier Award nominated Potted Panto and Potted Potter.

Richard tells me about three of his projects that are either unfinished or unpublished: Bluestone 42 (which he'd like to carry on!), a comedy about an authoritarian leader, and a novel that's finished but has yet to shared publicly...

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I'm now recruiting guests for Series Two of Unfinished/Unpublished, so if you have an unfinished or unpublished project you'd like to talk about, email me, Emily Anderson on unfinished.unpublished@gmail.com. You can also contact me via Twitter. 

You can find out all about Maggie’s work via her blog, which is www.hortiventure.com. She’s also on instagram @hortiventure.

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I’m now recuiting guests for Series 2 of Unfinished/Unpublished. So if you have an unfinished or unpublished project that you’d like to talk about, email me, Emily Anderson at unfinished.unpublished@gmail.com. You can also get in touch via Twitter @TrueBagglerag.

Her love of gardening began 10 years ago when she started community gardening. It’s led her on a path that’s taken her gardening around the world. You can find out all about Maggie’s work via her blog, which is www.hortiventure.com. She’s also on instagram @hortiventure.

Maggie has fascinating things to say about the links between gardening and art, opening up private gardens, and gardening behind the scenes.

The full interview with Maggie will be available at 9pm on Thursday 22 April across podcast platforms. You can subscribe here to listen to the interview: https://anchor.fm/em-anderson

You can find his website here: www.peterashley.wordpress.com And he's on Twitter as @pashleyjackson.
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If you have an unfinished project you’d like to talk about, email me, Emily Anderson at unfinished.unpublished@gmail.com. You can also follow me on Twitter @TrueBagglerag: https://twitter.com/TrueBagglerag

Kevin is on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/KevinFrediani You can find out more about the botanic garden in Dundee here: https://www.dundee.ac.uk/botanic/

Some special thanks are due for this episode. First, to listener Helen Barker for suggesting that I should speak to a gardener. Second, to Katy Merrington, the cultural gardener at the Hepworth Art Gallery, and to Rebecca Slack from the Plant Network for putting me in touch with Kevin.

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If you have an unfinished project you’d like to talk about, email me, Emily Anderson at unfinished.unpublished@gmail.com. You can also follow me on Twitter @TrueBagglerag.

You can find out more about Brenton's work by following him on Twitter @ChasingEris or by looking at his website: https://brentonclutterbuck.weebly.com/

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If you have an unfinished or unpublished project you’d like to talk about, please email unfinished.unpublished@gmail.com. You can also follow me on Twitter @TrueBagglerag.

Sarah Geissler is a fashion historian and writer. She researches costume, homemade clothing, and communities of dress, including cosplay and historical costuming. She also makes her own clothes and has worked as a costume volunteer at Beamish Museum. She researched and co-curated the exhibition ‘Dressing the Decades: 85 years of Visitor Clothing’ at Preston Manor, Brighton. She has previously been a copywriter in luxury fashion, a catwalk video archive annotator, and old style photographer.

In Summer 2020 Sarah was one of the volunteers who engaged in a mammoth effort to sew scrubs for the NHS. Her unfinished project is a quilt made from the offcuts. We talk about how it was useful to have something to do with your hands, about why quilts are particularly emotional objects, and about when you should put projects on the naughty step.

Sarah also has fascinating things to say about what you can find out about people just by looking at their clothes…

Sarah can be found on Instagram at @sarahmary.gee, or on LinkedIn at Sarah-Mary Geissler: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-mary-geissler-866431108/

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Subscribe to Unfinished/Unpublished on Spotify here: https://open.spotify.com/show/1ez2Ji4YEwBSm7uzpZ5nzC

Subscribe on iTunes here: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/unfinished-unpublished/id1546490983

Subscribe on other platforms here: https://anchor.fm/em-anderson

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Unfinished/Unpublished celebrates creative projects that never got finished, that have yet to be finished, or that never made it out into the world. I ask my guests to search their bottom drawers and the abandoned corners of their laptops to rediscover secret and incomplete schemes.

If you have an unfinished or unpublished project you’d like to talk about, email me at unfinished.unpublished@gmail.com

Or, follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/TrueBagglerag