The reading will take place at British Council on Friday, March 4 at 6pm. ‘Crossing Borders’ is a creative writing project funded by the British Council and managed by Lancaster University. It is aimed at young Anglophone writers working in the fields of poetry, prose fiction and children’s writing.

Currently, over 115 African writers are enrolled. Being a cross-cultural distance-learning project it also enriches the literary and cultural lives of writers in the UK working as mentors on the scheme.

Michael Wherly who is currently mentoring participants in Cameroon, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe has produced fifty stories for BBC Radio Four and published nine novels, the first being ‘Sucking Sherbet Lemons’ and the most recent being ‘Hubbies’, he writes under the pen-name, Michael Carson.

In 1998 to 2001, Michael taught creative writing at John Moores University, Liverpool, before that, he spent about twenty years teaching English as a foreign language to students in Arabia, Iran, Oman, Sumatra, The Bahamas, Nigeria and Borneo.

Graham Mort is currently the director of postgraduate studies in Creative Writing at Lancaster University where the expanded Crossing Borders scheme is situated.

The ‘Crossing Borders’ leader has published five books of poetry and also writes short fiction and radio scripts. He has won a number of awards for his work. Graham.

His latest collection of poems, A Night on the Lash, was published by Seren in 2004.

The aims of Crossing Borders are to change the conditions of literary production, promote cultural exchange and a greater knowledge of contemporary writing in English.

It also promotes mutuality in that the learning outcomes include development of UK mentors as well as African participants.