Grounding Practice: Writers in Residence
Grounding Practice returns with an event shaped by our Writers Residency, a six-month programme supporting three writers whose practices engage with creative, critical and experimental writing.
| Dates | Sat 20 Jun 2026 |
| Times | 2–6.45pm |
| Space | Lancaster Rooms |
| Price | £10 (General) / £8 (Concessions) |
Part of our ongoing artist development strand, this Grounding Practice offers the recipients a platform to share their ideas and methods developed during their residency at Somerset House Studios. Danielle Wilde, Samra Mayanja and Aparna Surendra will each present a draft in development with sharings taking the form of a libretto extract, an in-progress reading, and an analytic reflection on the role of sensibility in the writing and editing process.
2.30–4pm Aparna Surendra: Sensibility in Fiction
4.45–5.15pm Danielle Wilde: u burn me
6–6.45pm Samra Mayanja: Theatre of Autobiography
Aparna Surendra: Sensibility in Fiction
Writing requires a series of choices, with each word narrowing and shaping the possibilities on the page. A writer’s sensibility helps guide these choices. Part reflection, part discussion, Aparna Surendra will be joined by writer and fellow Studios resident Oisín McKenna to explore how they’ve developed — and continue to develop — the sensibilities that guide their own fiction writing, including through close readings of early and final drafts of their work. Their discussion will be chaired by writer Lucy Mercer.
Danielle Wilde: u burn me
Danielle Wilde presents a semi-staged work in progress of her libretto, u burn me, an opera about ancient Greek poet Sappho, desire, and fantasy set in 1990s Bradford. Wilde performs with Somerset House Studios resident Vivienne Griffin to a score composed by Hannah Perry.
Samra Mayanja, Theatre of Autobiography
Samra Mayanja shares Theatre of Autobiography, a new body of work described by Mayanja as an attempt to tell the story of a life that can’t bear to be told. Read by Kumbirai Makumbe and Jyuddah Jaymes, Theatre of Autobiography reflects on the application of performative strategies to writing, questioning the relationship between writer and reader. Through performance, the work offers ways of containing and exposing illegible sensations, mundane rumination, and the unspeakable.
With thanks to
