First part of a two part Interview with Stella Duffy OBE-Co-Founder of Fun Palaces

Welcome back to the first part of a two part conversation with Novelist, Short story writer, Director,  Actor, all round creative Stella Duffy.  In the first part we talk generally about  her experiences of lock down and her speculations  about the future of the arts.  We also discuss her Fun Palaces project.  In the second part we explore her tastes in media at this current time. 

I look forward to you all enjoying this marvelous conversation with a fully engaged artist. 

Stella Duffy is a writer and  performer born in London who spent her childhood in New Zealand before  returning to the UK. She has written plays, and novels and directs.

Stella Duffy has written fourteen novels including her latest, London Lies Beneath which Virago will publish in November 2015. The Room of Lost Things and State of Happinesswere  both long-listed for the Orange Prize. She has written ten plays and  over fifty short stories, including several for BBC Radio 4. Her  collected stories are published by Salt inEverything is Moving, Everything is Joined. She won the CWA Short Story Dagger in 2002 (Martha Grace) and 2013 (Come Away With Me), and Stonewall Writer of the Year in 2008 (The Room of Lost Things) and 2010 (Theodora). HBO have optioned her two Theodora novels for a TV series. She wrote and presented the BBC4 documentary How to Write a Mills and Boon and has reviewed for The Review Show (BBC2), Front Row(BBCRadio4)  and written articles for most major newspapers in the UK. In addition  to her writing work she is a theatre director and performer.

Stella is also the co-founder of Fun Palaces -- an annual, free, nationwide celebration of  culture at the heart of community, using arts, science, craft, tech,  digital, heritage and sports activities as a catalyst for community  engagement.  This takes place over the first weekend in October every  year.  Fun Palaces are community events, created by and for local  people.  They are held in a variety of locations, ranging from  libraries, shopping centres, schools, parks, village squares, community  halls, swimming pools, etc.  The original (never built) Fun Palace was  the brainchild of celebrated theatre director Joan Littlewood and architect Cedric Price.  Their never-realized vision was re-interpreted for the 21st century  with the Fun Palaces campaign for cultural democracy, with community-led  events in many locations. The first weekend of action took place in  2014, with 138 Fun Palaces taking place across the UK and  internationally and in 2015 the number rose to 142, 292 Fun Palaces in  2016, and 362 in 2017.