Work

When is a job ‘not quite right’? For Colin Grant it was when he encountered structural racism in the heart of the BBC establishment; for Johny Pitts, it was when he learned the hard lesson that the 1990s wasn’t a post-racial world; and for Fergal Harte’s narrator, it’s when an editor suggests only certain people can be ‘bad guys’.

 

Very few of us can avoid working but, even if we do manage to hook that ‘dream’ job, it doesn’t stay perfect for long. Sooner or later, we find we – or the job – is ‘not quite right’ in some way. From the whimsical or tyrannical boss (often the same person), to structural inequality in large institutions, there seems little escape from the workplace blues — even for superheroes. Listen to the memoirs of Colin Grant and Johny Pitts, and a new story by emerging writer Fergal Harte.

 

Celebrating ten years of Speaking Volumes, Not Quite Right for Us is a singular collection of stories, essays and poems by a dynamic mix of established and surging voices alike; it’s a warning shot, an affirmation, an education ...

 

In this episode we’ll hear ‘The Invitation’ by Colin Grant; ‘The Boy With No Race?’ by Johny Pitts; and ‘Vigilantes That Kill’ by Fergal Harte (voiced by actor Rex Obano & Fergal himself). Our guide is author, lawyer, trade unionist and activist Shereen Pandit.

 

In forty short stories, poems and essays — by turns wry, gentle, furious, humorous, passionate, analytical and elliptical — these forty writers, new and established, speak volumes, invoking their experiences of outsiderness and their defiance against it.

 

Not Quite Right for Us is a stellar new anthology which explores the many ways we’ve all been made to feel ‘not quite right’ at some time or another.

 

Recorded in collaboration with Speaking Volumes.
The anthology is available at all good bookshops, or order from Flipped Eye Publishing.
If you enjoyed this episode of NQRFU, try London by Lockdown: a podcast about falling in love with a new city in the middle of a pandemic; remaining curious and open; and about making it work. Available on all podcast platforms or our website.

 

Information
Music composed by Dominique Le Gendre
Narration by Lucy Hannah
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