Welcome to European Writers Salon!
News, events and musings for writers in Europe
Dear Writers,
Welcome to European Writers Salon!
European Writers Salon has been created to connect writers living in, working in, from or affiliated with Europe in any way. All are welcome.
Our plan: a programme of online and in-person events for writers to share work and ideas.
The main event will be an in-person salon in a different European city each spring. We’ll also have local and online events throughout the year.
Our hope: to create a meaningful and inclusive community that genuinely helps writers. Although we are based in Europe, we welcome writers from all over the world. We hope you will join us.
Visit saloneurope.org for up-to-date info on our plans and details about our team and guiding principles. Thank you to Brecht de Poortere for designing our site!
Events
The Main Event: European Writers Salon 2025
Where: Brussels
When: June 2025
The first European Writers Salon will be in Brussels in June 2025, with the final dates and venue to be confirmed after September. Each year the salon will be in a new city, and we will aim to be ‘in conversation’ with the host city and writers who live there.
Programming will include panels, workshops, readings, open mics and plenty of opportunities to eat, drink and get to know other writers.
If you would like to host us or have ideas for future venues, please be in touch at contact@saloneurope.org.
Other Upcoming Events
Meetup at Norwegian Poetry Celebration
When: 3 July 2024, 7pm GMT
Where: National Poetry Library, London
You’re invited to meet up with European Writers Salon members for the European Poetry Festival’s Norwegian Poetry Celebration at the National Poetry Library. This event is free! We’ll meet for drinks in Foyer Bar in the South Bank Centre at 7pm before the reading and, let’s be honest, also probably after. If you’d like to join, please sign up here. We hope to see you there!
Online Open Mic Salon
When: 8 July 2024, 7pm CET, 6pm UK
Where: Online via Zoom
Fancy sharing your work with writers across Europe? Discovering a translated European author? Maybe taking part in a cheese quiz? Join us for this online open mic salon hosted by Kik Lodge. This event is also free.
Send us your stuff in advance to contact@saloneurope.org, or just sign up and pop along. There is no need to share work if you don’t want to, so feel free to come and listen. We’re thinking:
Flash fiction/prose poetry/poetry/CNF/hybrid/short story and novel excerpts
Around 500 words
It should be a friendly and open space and we want to hear from everyone, no matter where you live.
Mini Taster Salon and Planning Weekend
When: 13-15 September 2024
Where: Brussels
Fancy meeting our organisers and getting a taste of what’s to come? Our team is meeting in Brussels this September to tour the venue, discuss plans and enjoy getting to know our host city. We’ll be offering a limited number of tickets to writers who want to join us for a weekend of dining, tours, workshops and readings. Look for further details in our next newsletter and save the date if you want to come!
More to Come
Other events will be advertised soon. If you’d like to host a Salon or event in Europe, you can reach us at contact@saloneurope.org.
Ditto if you’d like to be put in touch with writers in a European city you are visiting or living in—we’ll see what we can do to help!
Our Cultural Life
We’d love to use this newsletter to share interesting literary and writing events across Europe. Please email us at contact@saloneurope.org if you see something you’d like us to note!
Last month we…
Visited: Exteriors: Annie Ernaux and Photography and the European Writers Festival
Listened to: Chosen Tongue, a podcast by organiser Eleonora Balsano
Read: Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck—winner of the 2024 International Booker Prize
Next Up
London, 10 June and 8 July 2024: Hatchards, Picadilly is hosting a Translation Book Group. June’s book is The Quarter by Naguib Mahfouz, translated by Roger Allen. We hope to attend on 8 July.
Berlin, 29-30 June 2024: The Reader Berlin has a 2-day creative writing workshop, particularly suited to new writers.
Birmingham, 29 June 2024: National Writers Conference, presented by Writing West Midlands, is a day of presentations and panels focused on helping writers develop their talents and career.
If there’s an event we should include in our next newsletter, let us know at contact@saloneurope.org.
Opportunities
You have until 20 June to apply for the fantastic sounding Granada Writers in Residence Programme. To be eligible you need to have published at least two books.
Passa Porta in Brussels is advertising a residency opportunity with the deadline of 24 June. To be eligible you need to have had at least one work published (not self-published). Apply here.
Those who are eligible for EU funding might want to check out the Culture Moves Europe Individual Mobility grants which are available for individuals and groups of up to five people who want to travel and carry out a creative project in another European country. Literature is one of the eligible categories. The next round opens in Autumn 2024.
Community wins
We are keen to support the writing of our community! If you have a recent or upcoming publication or achievement to share, let us know at contact@saloneurope.org.
This month we are delighted to celebrate the upcoming publication of two members of the EWS Steering Group.
Mark Bowles’ debut novel, All My Precious Madness, will be published by Galley Beggar Press in September. You can pre-order Mark’s book here.
It’s the story of Henry Nash, “son of a policeman turned council worker, “[who] has hauled his way from a working-class childhood in Bradford, through an undergraduate degree at Oxford, and into adulthood and an academic elite. But still, he can’t escape his anger. As the world – and men in particular – continue to disappoint him, so does his rage grow in momentum until it becomes almost rapturous. And lethal.”
Galley Beggar Press co-director Sam Jordison says:
“All My Precious Madness is a novel that turns Dark Academia into Really Fucking Dark Academia. Not only does it reinvent that genre in entirely unexpected ways, it presents a new kind of British writing, full-stop. Uncompromising, determinedly philosophical and high-minded – but also primal, brutal and furious. There are times when All My Precious Madness is terrifying. But it is also a hilarious and exhilarating reading experience, full of surprises, mischief and pitch-black humour. It tears your whole world down – and has you laughing while it’s doing it.”
Cauvery Madhavan’s book The Inheritance is also forthcoming from Peepal Tree Press. You can pre-order it here.
It’s 1986 and 29-year-old Marlo O’Sullivan, of London-Irish stock, has just found out that his sister is his mother. To steady his life, he moves to Glengarriff, to a cottage he has inherited in the stunning Beara Peninsula. When a neighbour dies unexpectedly, Marlo takes over his minibus service to Cork. There is nothing regular about the regulars on the bus – especially Sully, a non-verbal 6 year old, who goes nowhere but does the journey back and forth every day on his own. Marlo is landed with this a strange but compassionate arrangement, fashioned to give the child’s mother respite from his care. Sully’s obsession with an imaginary friend in the ancient oak forests of Glengarriff slowly unveils its terrible secrets – a 400-hundred-year-old tragedy reveals itself.
Support our work
European Writers Salon is a team of volunteers. As we plan our programming, we welcome anyone who wishes to consider pledging their support. You can contact us at contact@saloneurope.org or visit saloneurope.org for more information or pledge your support when you sign up to our Substack.
Thank you to those who have already pledged, we appreciate every single one of you!
Great newsletter!