WRAP Ambassadors, Alessandra Leone and Munashe Dziva, give us some of their WRAP highlights from last term.
Munashe’s Highlights
The end of 2020 left us with so much mystery. Like the season ending of Bridgerton, we were left with so many questions. What was going to happen to our anthology? How were we going to move on from Derek Owusu’s ‘That Reminds Me’ and on time, catch up with ‘The 392’ by Ashley Hickson-Lovence? I cannot believe that it has just been 5 months of WRAP, because the amazing talent we got introduced to is overwhelming.
Last term, WRAP came with a lot of twists as we had the chance to invite the NTSU Pride Society and
the Platform Magazine to take over the Evening Book Club. Yes, there is still more! To prepare ourselves for our featured author Ashley, WRAP launched a Short Story Competition open to all staff and students, but here’s the interesting bit, the story has to be based on a bus journey. How far does your imagination run wild when you are on a bus? The results are
In summary we have to agree that WRAP is a beautiful success, this term also marks the launch of our anthology which was approved by UNESCO City of Literature and gets the chance to be recognised internationally (at least something is crossing the boarders!). We still have more coming so stay tuned to find out more about our upcoming performances.
Alessandra’s Highlights
On the 15th of March, we had an amazing night with Ashely Hickson- Lovence, the author of an incredible book ‘The 392’. I had just finished reading the novel that morning, and so I was curious to ask Ashley why he had not written anything about the one person that book is centred on. I think his reply said it all- he wanted to leave it a mystery. I was also curious to know whether he took inspiration from the events that happened in London on the 7th of July in 2005, and he said that he did, but he also took inspiration from more recent events such as the Manchester bombing and the tragic events in 2017, which saw a number of fatalities. I enjoyed hearing what other students had to say regarding these topics.
This month’s WRAP Café also saw us back with the terrific poet Panya Banjoko. Panya read a few of her poems from her book ‘Some Things’, which I enjoyed, and we were also able to showcase some of our work at the end of the event. Finally, the month ended with Rebecca Cullen, the WRAP Manager, interviewing Ashley Hickson-Lovence. Ashley talked about ‘The 392’ and read extracts from the book. I really enjoyed the evening, even though my WIFI stopped working mid-way through the interview and so had to watch the recording! (You can watch it too, just click here!)
About Alessandra Leone & Munashe Dziva
Alessandra and Munashe joined WRAP (Writing, Reading and Pleasure) in October 2020 and have participated in a variety of writing and reading opportunities, uniting with other like-minded reading and writing enthusiasts. You can see both Alessandra and Munashe performing their poetry for NTU Christmas Advent Calendar here: https://www.ntu.ac.uk/c/christmas-advent-calendar/5-december-2020.
