Ghost Writers

Ian McMillan explores the ghostly presences and phantoms of predecessors, literary or not, which hover in and around all writing. In poetry and stories how do we seek through the spectres of time and memory to conjure invocations of people lost to us, and to understand the importance of human connections through time and space? With David Constantine, Denise Riley, Andrew Taylor and Clare Shaw. David Constantine's new book Rivers of the Unspoilt World interweaves fictional characters and events with the real to create new ways of seeing and connecting our past, present and possible futures. Denise Riley's latest collection Lurex is a meditation on the timelessness of time, in which the past is never really past but is both then and now, haunting, our memories and our futures. Andrew Taylor's collection Northangerland conjures the ghost of Bramwell Bronte to rewrite his poetry for the modern reader. Clare Shaw's Towards A General Theory of Love seeks to summon the Spirit of those we have loved and lost.

Presenter: Ian McMillan Producer: Cecile Wright