The Corrymeela Podcast, Season 3, Episode 6. Sef Townsend

Sef Townsend is a storyteller and musician. He’s collected stories and songs from his travels all around the globe, and has worked with refugees, people in exile and those in asylum detention. Sef’s work has included peace and reconciliation projects, and sharing his stories with audiences in schools, museums, churches, mosques and synagogues around the world. He has co-written two collections of short stories: London Folk Tales for Children (The History Press, 2019) and London’s River Tales for Children (The History Press, 2022).As always, you can download a full transcript and discussion questions here.

Yousif M. Qasmiyeh is a poet and scholar whose work has appeared in publications including Modern Poetry in Translation, Critical Quarterly, Cambridge Literary Review, New England Review, and Poetry London. His collection Writing the Camp (Broken Sleep Books, 2021), was a Poetry Book Society Recommendation and was shortlisted for the 2022 Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize. Yousif is Writer in Residence for Refugee Hosts - a research project at University College London. His latest collection, Eating the Archive, was published by Broken Sleep Books in 2023.As always, you can download a full transcript and discussion questions here.

Rachel Mann is a poet, theologian, broadcaster, and Anglican priest, who, since 2023, has served as Archdeacon of Salford and Bolton. She has published two collections of poetry: her first, A Kingdom of Love (Carcanet, 2019) was highly commended in the Forward Prizes for Poetry. The areas covered by her work include theology, cultural history, and heavy metal music; she’s also written a book of reflections for Lent based on the works of Jane Austen. Rachel has appeared as a panellist on the BBC Radio 4 programmes The Moral Maze and Beyond Belief, and is a regular contributor to Thought For The Day. Her second poetry collection Eleanor Among the Saints was published by Carcanet at the start of 2024.As always, you can download a full transcript and discussion questions here.

Dong Jin Kim is a writer and academic whose research interests are in the areas of peacebuilding, humanitarian and development cooperation, theology, and comparative studies of peace processes. He has collaborated with various humanitarian, development, and peace and reconciliation organisations, including Okedongmu Children in Korea, Korean Sharing Movement, and Corrymeela. Jin was a Senior Research Fellow in Peace and Reconciliation Studies at the Irish School of Ecumenics at Trinity College Dublin. He was a Goodwill Ambassador for Peace on the Korean Peninsula at the South Korean Ministry of Unification from 2020 to 2022. Jin is the author of The Korean Peace Process and Civil Society: Towards Strategic Peacebuilding (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), and co-editor of Reconciling Divided States: Peace Processes in Ireland and Korea (Routledge, 2022, with David Mitchell). As always, you can download a full transcript and discussion questions here.

Jan Carson is a writer and community arts facilitator based in Belfast. She has written three novels, two collections of short stories, and two flash fiction anthologies; her work has also appeared in a number of journals and on BBC Radio 3 and 4. Her second novel, The Fire Starters (Transworld, 2019), won the EU Prize for Literature and was shortlisted for the Dalkey Novel of the Year Award. Her latest short story collection, Quickly, While They Still Have Horses was published by Penguin in April 2024. Jan is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.As always, you can download a full transcript and discussion questions here.

Prof. John Paul Lederach is a conflict transformation practitioner, writer, and academic. He has worked with communities all over the world, in countries including Somalia, Nicaragua, and Nepal. John Paul is the author of more than twenty books including The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace (Oxford University Press, 2005), When Blood and Bones Cry Out: Journeys Through the Soundscape of Healing and Reconciliation (University of Queensland Press, 2010), and Reconcile: Confict Transformation for Ordinary Christians (Herald Press, 2014). His writing explores social healing, spirituality, and the role of the arts in conflict transformation. John Paul is Professor Emeritus of International Peacebuilding at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, and a senior fellow at Humanity United.As always, you can download a full transcript and discussion questions.

Dr. Peter Coleman is a professor of psychology and education at Columbia University, and a renowned expert on constructive conflict resolution, intractable conflict, and sustaining peace. He directs the Morton Deutsch International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution and is co-executive director of Columbia University’s Advanced Consortium on Cooperation, Conflict, and Complexity (AC4). Peter is also the co-creator of the Conflict Intelligence Assessment and the Polarization Detox Challenge. His most recent book, The Way Out: How to Overcome Toxic Polarization was released by Columbia University Press in 2021.As always, you can download a full transcript and discussion questions. You can sign up for the Polarization Detox Challenge via this link.

Nóirín Ní Riain is an Irish theologian and recording artist who has performed to audiences all over the world. She specialises in Irish traditional music and Gregorian chant, and has collaborated musically with the monks of Glenstal Abbey in Co. Limerick, where she lived for many years. Nóirín is the author of Theosony: Towards a Theology of Listening (Columba Books, 2011), and the autobiography Listen With the Ear of the Heart (Veritas, 2010). She was ordained as an interfaith minister in 2017, and now presides over ceremonies to mark births, marriages, separations, deaths, and other important milestones. Her book Sacred Rituals: A Simple Book of Everyday Prayer was published by Hachette Books Ireland in 2023.A full transcript of the episode, along with group discussion questions, is available here.

Lesley Carroll is an ordained Presbyterian minister. She’s held a number of public roles in Northern Ireland, including serving as deputy chief commissioner at the Equality Commission and as an associate member of the Victims and Survivors Forum. In 2006, she was appointed to a member of the Independent Consultative Group on the Past. She has served as the Prisoner Ombudsman for Northern Ireland since 2019.A full transcript of the episode, along with group discussion questions, is available here.

Juliane Okot Bitek is a poet. Her 100 Days (University of Alberta Press, 2016) was nominated for several writing prizes including the 2017 BC Book Prize, the Pat Lowther Award, the 2017 Alberta Book Awards and the 2017 Canadian Authors Award for Poetry. It won the 2017 IndieFab Book of the Year Award for poetry and the 2017 Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry. Her second collection, A is for Acholi (Wolsak and Wynn, 2022), was shortlisted for the 2023 Pat Lowther Memorial Award and is a finalist for the 2023 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize, and the 2023 Jim Deva Prize for Writing that Provokes. Her most recent collection of poetry, Song & Dread (2023), is published by Talonbooks under the name Otoniya J. Okot Bitek. She is an assistant professor of Black Studies, joint appointed in English and Gender Studies at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario.A full transcript of the episode, along with group discussion questions, is available here.