This is a special live episode, hosted at Storysmith to mark the launch of Strange Relations by Ralf Webb.

We think about the contemporary crisis in masculinity through the lives and work of mid-century American writers John Cheever, Tennessee Williams, Carson McCullers and James Baldwin, considering how their legacies might inform the current moment. We speak about the censorship of radical elements of these writers' work, including elements of their politics, queerness and intimacy, and consider the role of their interpersonal and intertextual relationships in understanding their work. We speak about what it means to reclaim space in the canon and expanding terms such as bisexuality, as well as notions of boyishness. We discuss the relationship between poetry and prose, the use of novelistic techniques in non-fiction and the ethical responsibility involved in writing about well-known literary figures.

Ralf Webb is a poet, writer and editor based in Bristol. His debut collection of poems, Rotten Days in Late Summer was published by Penguin in 2021, and was shortlisted for the Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection. Webb’s poetry and critical writing has appeared in Granta, the Guardian, the London Review of Books, Fantastic Man, and The Poetry Review. He currently manages a creative writing mentorship programme in collaboration with Folio and First Story, which supports school-age writers from low-income backgrounds.

References

Strange Relations by Ralf Webb

Late Days in Rotten Summer by Ralf Webb

Warped Pastoral: Ralf Webb and Sam Buchan-Watts in conversation

Visit Storysmith for 10% discount on Ralf's work.