Following our double-episode on the Florence Working-Class Literature Festival back in February, our co-host Matt was invited to this year’s festival, recording this episode on-site at the ex-GKN factory in Florence. Featuring the various writers, researchers, organisers, and activists in attendance, this episode captures the atmosphere of the festival at this critical time for the GKN struggle.
Continue reading “WCL 14: Live from the Working-Class Literature Festival”
Double episode about Jack Hilton, a working-class author, World War I veteran, unemployed movement organiser, and trade union activist from Rochdale, north-west England.
Continue reading “WCL 12-13: Jack Hilton, Rochdale Caliban”
Two-part podcast episode about the Working-Class Literature Festival held every year in Florence, at the former GKN car parts factory, which was taken over by the workers after they were made redundant in 2021.
Continue reading “WCL10-11: Florence Working-Class Literature Festival”
Three-part podcast series on the migrant worker poetry scene in China, the precarious social conditions in which these poets live and, of course, the poetry they produce.
Continue reading “WCL 7-9: Chinese migrant worker poetry”
In this two-part episode, Working Class Literature speak to DD Johnston about his new novel, Disnaeland, about a working-class Scottish community’s response to societal collapse. We also discuss his previous novels and his participation in McDonald’s Workers’ Resistance, a radical collective of angry employees at the world’s biggest fast food chain.
Continue reading “WCL 5-6: DD Johnston’s proletarian apocalypse”
A Working Class Literature podcast double-episode in which we talk to acclaimed author, poet and Professor of Children’s Literature, Michael Rosen, about his anthology, Workers’ Tales: Socialist Fairy Tales, Fables, and Allegories from Great Britain, which gathers together short stories from the labour and socialist press between 1880 and 1920.
Continue reading “WCL E3-4: Michael Rosen’s socialist fairy tales”
Episode two of the Working Class Literature podcast about Joseph Skipsey, a poet and coal miner from the North East of England. After entering the mines as a child, he would grow up to become a nationally-renowned poet, respected by some of the most famous artists of the nineteenth century. In this episode, we speak to researcher Dr Gordon Tait and musician Chris Harrison, both of whom have been doing lots of work around Skipsey’s life and poetry.
Continue reading “WCL E2: Joseph Skipsey – poet and pitman”
First episode of the Working Class Literature podcast, about the life and work of radical hobo author T-Bone Slim. A prolific columnist for the revolutionary Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) union in the United States, he was also a poet and songwriter as well as a barge captain working on the New York waterfront.
Continue reading “WCL E1: T-Bone Slim – the laureate of the logging camps”
One of the Working Class History team has started a new sister podcast to ours, taking a radical look at fiction and culture. Check out this short audio introduction. Continue reading “More information about Working Class Literature”
Following on from the success of the Working Class History podcast and social media pages, we recently decided to start a new sister project: Working Class Literature. Continue reading “Introducing Working Class Literature”