Suite (212)

In our latest Session, Juliet talks to London-based Irish writer Keith Ridgway about his three most recent novels, Hawthorn & Child (2012), A Shock (2021) and Dooneen (2026), recently published by Fitzcarraldo Editions. They discussed the differences between novels and short story collections, and how much they matter; Keith’s fragmentary plots and open-ended use of the ‘detective’ genre; the way Irish ‘experimental’ writers are often read with a national lineage that begins with Joyce, Beckett and Flann O’Brien; the way reformist and radical politics, from the Easter Rising to Corbynism, have been crushed by the British Establishment, and how that comes into Keith’s work; and the pressure on writers not to be pessimistic amidst dark times, and how Keith balances hope and despair in his novels.

In one of our most meta episodes to date, Juliet also asked Keith about his reticence about self-promotion and the obligation for contemporary writers to publicise themselves on social media, and about his scepticism regarding interviews with authors.

A full list of references is available to Suite (212) subscribers. To support us on Patreon for as little as £3 per month, please go to www.patreon.com/c/suite212.

In our latest session, Juliet talks to Kyiv-based filmmaker and writer Oleksiy Radynski about four of his works – his feature-length documentary Infinity According to Florian (202x), his two works about the Russian occupation of Ukraine’s infamous nuclear plant, Chornobyl 22 (2023) and the longer Special Operation (2025), and his docu-fiction Where Russia Ends (2024), using found footage from the Science Film Studio in Kyiv.

They discussed the project to save modernist buildings in Kyiv and the contradictions of the fight to preserve futurist architecture, as well as the experience of working with Soviet artist, musicologist and architect Florian Yuriev; how Oleksiy sourced the CCTV and other footage that made up his two Chornobyl films; the experience of working in Kyiv since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began; and the importance of understanding the nature of Russian colonial expansion and imperialist in the east, and its parallels with the occupation of the Americas.

For a full list of references from this episode, please subscribe via https://www.patreon.com/c/suite212 for as little as £3.50 per month.

In our latest Session, Juliet talks to film director, visual artist and composer Imran Perretta about his new feature film Ish (2025), due to be released in the UK and Ireland on 31 July, as well as his short film the destructors (2020) and his installation A Riot in Three Acts, first exhibited at Somerset House in 2024. They talked about how the works were shaped by Thatcherism and neoliberalism, the War on Terror and the genocide in Gaza, institutional racism and police profiling, as well as how the works combine formal experimentation with deeply personal narratives, bringing in cinematic influences such as Abbas Kiarostami, Steve McQueen and Cristian Mungiu.

Juliet talks to poet and writer Lotte L.S. about Red Herring Press, which Lotte set up in 2020 to print, publish and distribute local writing in Great Yarmouth in Norfolk. They discuss what Red Herring Press does; how it grew out of the COVID-19 lockdown; Lotte’s idea of ‘amateurising professionalism’ and the advantages of working outside a literary market; how cheap commercial rents and lack of affordable housing shape the Press, and the town’s arts scene more broadly; the Press’ Creative Writing workshops and publications; their membership model and how other local groups use their space; the town’s relationship with Norwich, a designated UNESCO City of Literature with the National Centre for Writing and the famous Creative Writing MA at the University of East Anglia; Great Yarmouth’s past as a fishing town, its recent history of deindustrialisation and migration, and how their publications draw on this; and Lotte’s long essay An Economy of Starlings (2024), responding to the election of Rupert Lowe as a Reform MP in 2024, and foundation of the far-right Restore Britain.

To subscribe to Red Herring Press and/or buy their publications, go to https://www.redherringpress.org/

A full list of references is available to Suite (212) subscribers. To support us on Patreon for as little as £3 per month, please go to https://www.patreon.com/c/suite212.

In our latest Session, Juliet talks to William Raban about his five decades in film, and especially his engagement with London, from his time in the London Film-Makers’ Co-operative in the early 1970s to his most recent work in 2020. They discussed William’s origins in the Structural and Materialist movement of the Seventies, and his use of different film formats from 8mm to digital; how he made his feature-length Thames Film (1986), narrated by John Hurt and shown on Channel 4; his A13 (1994) and Island Race (1996), made partly in response to the election of a British National Party councillor on the Isle of Dogs in east London; how authors such as Charles Dickens and T. S. Eliot have come into his work; and the difficulty of making films in the wake of the atrocities in Gaza and elsewhere.

A full list of references, with links is available to Patreon subscribers – go to https://www.patreon.com/c/suite212 to subscribe to Suite (212) for as little as £3.50 a month.