Vol. 8 of Story Time, a new series on the program featuring an author reading aloud from his work. In this episode, Luke Kennard reads aloud from his new novel, Black Bag, available from Zando. It was the official March 2026 pick of the⁠Otherppl Book Club⁠.

Kennard is an award-winning poet and novelist. In 2014 he was named one of the Next Generation Poets by the Poetry Book Society in their once-per-decade list. His collection, Cain, was shortlisted for the International Dylan Thomas Prize and described by Alan Hollinghurst as “the cleverest and funniest thing I’ve read this year,” and Notes on the Sonnets won the Forward prize for Best Poetry Collection in 2021. The Transition, his first novel, was a BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime and longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize. The Book of Jonah, his new poetry collection, will be published by Picador in 2025. Luke Kennard lives in Birmingham, UK, where he teaches Creative Writing at Birmingham University.

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Excerpt from 'Black Bag,' by Luke Kennard