WRITING COERCIVE CONTROL with guest Carla Jenkins

In the sixth and final episode of this important and groundbreaking live-recorded, interactive podcast series on writing about coercive control, host Abigail Tarttelin will interview author Carla Jenkins to discuss writing about coercive control as a debut novelist in her book FIFTY MINUTES.

Therapy was meant to solve her problems, not make them worse...
Twenty-year-old Dani is desperate to overcome her demons, leave her dead-end job and return to her hard-won place at university. Using her limited earnings, she decides to start seeing a psychotherapist.

Richard Goode is educated, sophisticated and worldly-everything Dani aspires to be. As he intuitively unpicks her self-loathing, Dani assumes the fantasies she's developing about him live only in her head. That is, until things take a shocking turn...

Descending into a maelstrom of twisted desire, manipulation and mistrust, the power struggle between Dani and Richard escalates until she's forced to make a decision she never would have anticipated.

Carla Jenkins lives in Devon. She’s always loved writing but only started taking it seriously three years ago after attending her first Arvon course. She promptly left her job as a secondary school English teacher and signed up for a Masters in Creative Writing at Exeter University. She did more Arvon workshops and courses. She did the Ninety Day Novel program with the Novelry. She started getting up at four in the morning and wrote her debut novel, Fifty Minutes.



Writing Coercive Control, a live talk and podcast series, will expand our understanding of coercive control by exploring its use in cultural narratives and by states, parents, industries, and intimate partners. Six authors will discuss their works, the unique challenges of writing about this topic, and how our stories can present a way to resist this endemic form of abuse.

This is the final episode in this six-part talk series. In Episode One, Sahar Delijani discusses representations of state control in Iran in her work-in-progress novel THE LUMINOUS BLUE. In Episode Two, author Rowan Hisayo Buchanan talks about writing about parental control in her third novel, THE SLEEPWATCHER. In episode three, Winnie M Li discusses #metoo and control in the workplace and entertainment industry in her thriller COMPLICIT. In episode four, Chimene Suleyman talks about her memoir THE CHAIN which focuses on an ex who used coercive control to abuse his female partners, many of whom connected after their ordeals. In episode five, poet Kim Moore discusses writing poetry about domestic coercive control (if you're reading this before June 19th tickets are available to book here). All episodes are available online after the live broadcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

This event is hosted by Abigail Tarttelin and Clear Lines Festival with festival co-founder, the author and activist Winnie M Li, and supported by funding from Arts Council England's National Lottery Project Grants scheme.

Abigail is an award-winning British-Irish author of the novels FLICK, GOLDEN BOY, and DEAD GIRLS, and 2024 recipient of Arts Council England-funding to write her fourth novel and provide insight into the writing process via her Substack and Instagram. She writes novels and for screen with an adaptation of GOLDEN BOY in the works at BBC Film.

Clear Lines started as the UK’s first-ever festival dedicated to addressing sexual assault and consent through the arts and discussion. Founded and crowdfunded by volunteers in 2015, it was a truly special grassroots success -- and is still going. Clear Lines was born out of the need to create an open, honest, and inclusive conversation around these experiences, to replace the shame and silence with insight, understanding, and community. Since our two multi-day festivals in 2015 and 2017, we now hold a series of events online, in London, and further afield, often partnering with organisations to create a survivor-centered, arts-inspired dialogue around sexual violence and abuse. Clear Lines is proud to co-present this important podcast series.

Clear Lines offers a FREE creative writing resource for survivors of sexual abuse and violence, which you can download here: https://clearlines.org.uk/our-free-creative-writing-guide-for-survivors-available-here/

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