We end with Jeanette’s response to how we hold onto our imagination even as we grow up. Thank you for joining us for your regular culture fix🥰

With Oranges, Jeanette says she wanted to make an avatar of herself. She wanted to be free, untrapped, unbound. “It wasn’t just a way to get out of Accrington, but also to live a bigger life,” she says. This is why the arts is a lifeline for everyone, and why we should fight for it.

This book was written while Jeanette was going through losses of loved ones and personal health issues. What helped push through was her wanting to take stock and get behind what she wants to campaign for. This book is a labour of love as well as a testament to her resilience.

History is a collection of found objects that got washed away by the tide; so find the magic in the moment instead of having an end goal, she says. Jeanette is, and has always been, a firm believer of creativity as an incremental process, not a singular event.

40 years of telling stories - and this time, she goes meta, telling us about storytelling. We start with a reading from her new non-fictiom book, One Aladdin Two Lamps:

Loved the Festival? Went home with a book or two? As a publicly-funded organisation, we always appreciate whatever feedback our audience has for us. Please visit the link below🔗 to fill out a short survey (it won’t take more than 5 minutes)!

uk.culturecounts.cc/s/2983Gi/spl...

1. Come see one of our favourite Mancunians, Jeanette Winterson, talk about her new book, One Aladdin and Two Lamps, a bold, brilliant celebration of the power of storytelling and a radical look at the future.
🗓️ 7pm, Tue 11 Nov
📍 RNCM
🎟️ manchesterliteraturefestival.co.uk/events/jeane...

Great audience questions including where Zadie draws inspiration instead of doomscrolling, how she reckons with her own fame and power while she advocates so hard for the powerless, and the art of crafting perfect sentences. Thank you for coming!

Zadie is not immune to the looming threat of the environment disaster and confesses of despairing. She feels as if the average person does what they can within their power; however, when there are actors who are actively causing harm, how are we to fight it?

About our lives online, and the paradigm shift happening to the entire global population:

Katie describes the structure Zadie’s essay collection as quasi-religious, and Zadie agrees. She describes it as a confession, and that she puts everything on the line.

What drew Zadie to write about the visual arts? It was having children, she replies. “Telly was my visual art when I was growing up,” she says with a chuckle. But when she went to the Whitney Museum holding her child, she realised it was one of the spaces where she could still feel like herself.

Zadie opens her new essay collection with an idea of hospitality, and a reflection on our freedom in this age of algorithms. She tells Katie that she thinks of her writing as opening the door for someone; it’s an invitation for people to come in, and she’s welcoming them inside.

We finish the night with Patrick’s vision for Community Clothing in 20 years. Thank you so much for coming and contributing to such an important conversation♥️🥼

Again brilliant audience qs including who should be held accountable for the fast fashion industry, how to maintain a sustainable business similar to that of Patrick’s model, and his views on the booming secondhand clothing indistry.

The importance of shopping locally:

Now, everyone produces “fashion”. The market and the system is too big for the practical needs of the average person. Every year, 30 billion items that are produced are never even sold. Despite this, more and more money gets invested into the industry, raising profit and turnover targets even more.