{"id":31716,"date":"2013-06-14T21:34:45","date_gmt":"2013-06-14T21:34:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=31716"},"modified":"2013-06-14T21:34:45","modified_gmt":"2013-06-14T21:34:45","slug":"interview-with-louisa-adjoa-parker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=31716","title":{"rendered":"Interview with Louisa Adjoa Parker"},"content":{"rendered":"

Interview with Louisa Adjoa Parker<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The writer is a lonely hunter<\/a>
\n2012-01-10<\/p>\n

Gail Aldwin<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Louisa is a writer, poet and Arts Project Co-ordinator who has lived in the West Country<\/a> since she was 13. Her first poetry collection,\u00a0Salt-sweat and Tears<\/a><\/em>\u00a0was published by Cinnamon Press to critical acclaim in 2007. She has also\u00a0written a book and exhibition about the history of African and Caribbean people in Dorset<\/a> over the past 400 years, both entitled\u00a0Dorset\u2019s Hidden Histories<\/a><\/em>. Louisa has recently worked on a project using images and stories to celebrate multi-ethnic Dorset. Funded by Arts Council\u00a0England and Dorset County Council, the exhibition and book is called All Different, All Dorset<\/a><\/em> was launched in September 2011. Louisa is passionate about equality and the Arts, and hopes to\u00a0inspire people from a range of backgrounds to become interested in writing. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s start with\u00a0your writing journey<\/strong><\/p>\n

I wrote a few adventure stories when I was about six, which my mum said were like Enid Blyton<\/a> books and I still have a poem written at that time.\u00a0When I was a teenager I kept a diary for three years and wrote about everything that happened to me.\u00a0As an adult, I turned to letter writing to try to sort out problems with relationships.\u00a0In 2002, I went to Exeter University to complete the degree I\u2019d started with the Open University, and I began writing poetry alongside the essays and coursework. I was encouraged by Selima Hill<\/a> and I had a poem published in a magazine.\u00a0Getting published was exciting and encouraged me to write more. I realised I had a lot to say about being dual heritage and growing up in white communities.\u00a0My Dad is Ghanaian and came to England in the late 60s for education and he met and married my mum and had three children with her. We lived in Yorkshire<\/a>, Cambridgeshire<\/a>, and then when my Dad left we moved to Devon<\/a>. Growing up knowing only the white side of my family was weird.\u00a0No one wanted to talk about my background. Writing helped me to explore unresolved issues around my identity. It helped me come to terms with some of the things that had happened, racism and domestic violence…<\/p>\n

Read the entire interview here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Interview with Louisa Adjoa Parker The writer is a lonely hunter 2012-01-10 Gail Aldwin Louisa is a writer, poet and Arts Project Co-ordinator who has lived in the West Country since she was 13. Her first poetry collection,\u00a0Salt-sweat and Tears\u00a0was published by Cinnamon Press to critical acclaim in 2007. She has also\u00a0written a book and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,13743,8,10],"tags":[14922,741,14923],"class_list":["post-31716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-interviews","category-media-archive","category-uk","tag-gail-aldwin","tag-louisa-adjoa-parker","tag-the-writer-is-a-lonely-hunter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31716\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}