Folio Academy Features
Featured articles and interviews from the Folio Academy
Read Around Ukraine
In light of the tragic events taking place in Ukraine and Eastern Europe, we wanted to show our solidarity for the millions affected. Believing that literature is always a form of dialogue, and as a response to the huge demand from readers seeking to gain perspective...
Supporting Writers: Unmute Anthology
Rathbones Folio Prize, also known as the Writer’s Prize’, is proud to support all writers and so we are pleased to support and encourage reading the anthology ‘Unmute: Young Voices from Lockdown’.
Rathbones Folio Mentees – Creative Writing Extracts 2020
We're delighted to present four extracts from the 2019 – 2020 Rathbones Folio Mentees: Nidaa Raoof, Mariamah Davey, Maria Clark and Weronika Baranowska. The Rathbones Folio Mentorships 2019 – 2020, run in association with First Story and supported by Arts Council...
Rathbones Folio Prize 2020 Shortlist Photo Gallery
A selection of photographs from the Rathbones Folio 2020 Shortlist Annoucement, held at the Rathbones offices on 25 February 2020.
Rathbones Folio Mentees 2019 – Creative Writing Extracts
As part of National Writing Day, we’re delighted to share extracts from the creative writing portfolios of this year’s Rathbones Folio Mentees.
The Rathbones Folio Sessions and Prize Ceremony Photo Gallery
A selection of photographs from the Rathbones Folio Sessions and Prize Ceremony, held at the British Library on the 19th and 20th May 2019.
The Rathbones Folio 2019 Shortlist – In Conversation
Listen to this year’s shortlisted authors discuss their work and craft, ahead of the winner announcement on Monday 20 May 2019.
Rathbones Folio Mentees – Creative Writing Extracts
Read excerpts of the inaugural Rathbones Folio mentees’ creative writing portfolios
Quick-fire Questions with the Shortlisted Authors
We ask the Rathbones Folio Prize 2018 Shortlisted authors a series of quick-fire questions, in anticipation of the winner announcement on May 8th
Rathbones Folio Prize Judges Q&A
We ask our 2018 judges – Jim Crace, Nikesh Shukla, and Kate Summerscale – a series of quick-fire questions on literature, culture, and the judging process…
Reasons to be cheerful? End-of-year reading from the Folio Academy
This year’s Rathbones Folio judges and mentors recommend books that, in one way or another, lift their spirits, at the end of a year in which all our spirits have sometimes needed lifting…
Robin Yassin-Kassab and Leila Al-Sham
Q. At what age did you know you wanted to become a writer?
Robin: Perhaps since three or four, when I used to visit the bookshop my grandfather worked in, and was enchanted.
Leila: I’ve never thought ‘I want to….
Rachel Holmes
Q. At what age did you know you wanted to become a writer?
Whatever age I was the day my father pointed out to me that being a fighter pilot meant I had to kill people and animals.
Q. Was your first book published or is it still…
Lucy Hughes-Hallett
Q. At what age did you know you wanted to become a writer?
I can’t remember a time when I didn’t want to write
Q. Was your first book published or is it still lurking in a drawer somewhere?
I have a green notebook full of…
Maggie Nelson
Q. At what age did you know you wanted to become a writer?
Probably around age 8.
Q. Was your first book published or is it still lurking in a drawer somewhere?
It sounds unbelievable, but I’ve…
Laura Cumming
Q. At what age did you know you wanted to become a writer?
Not until my twenties, when I wrote my first article for The Guardian and found I loved doing it. I will always be intensely grateful to the editor who commissioned it.
Q. Was your first book published or is it still lurking…
Hisham Matar
Q. At what age did you know you wanted to become a writer?
I didn’t know I wanted to be a writer until I met my wife and then realised I had always wanted to be a writer.
Q. Was your first book published or is it still lurking in a drawer somewhere?
It was published, but several…
Ahdaf Soueif
Q. At what age did you know you wanted to become a writer?
Six.
Q. Was your first book published or is it still lurking in a drawer somewhere?
Everything I’ve ever written until 2004 has been published!
What was your favourite childhood…
Francis Spufford
Q. At what age did you know you wanted to become a writer?
Seventeen or eighteen – but it was an ambition I then gave up, and only crept my way back to in the second half of my twenties.
Q. Was your first book published or is it still lurking in a drawer somewhere?
‘Book’ is too strong a word, but there’s a hand-written, unfinished…
China Miéville
Q. At what age did you know you wanted to become a writer?
In the sense of writing stories, as young as I can remember. In the sense of doing it professionally, I think I realised that that was potentially a thing when I was 13, and started quietly wondering if it might be possible from then.
Q. Was your first book published or is it still lurking in a drawer…
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