Writer

Norma Cohen photo: Paul Robinson
Responding to a restless, internal dialogue, my writing comes from a unifying desire to connect with people as I do as a performer and teacher, seizing the moment and transforming it.
`Impassioned, clear prose.’  (Carol Bergman, writer: NY, 2018)
Contact:  normacohen52@gmail.com; 07931 173981 agent: John Parker: thejohnparkerconsultancy@gmail.com NORMA COHEN: WRITING CV Profile: Norma Cohen is a London based writer/performer whose writing ranges from novels and short stories to plays for stage and radio and arts journalism. Much of her work reflects, with a light touch and a deal of sardonic humour, her experience of growing up in Liverpool in a Jewish Communist household during the Cold War era. Trained as a dancer, Norma moved into theatre, and later into journalism and fiction writing. She currently maintains both strands of her professional life, writing and performing, and has just completed her second novel: Waiting for Farid. Fiction: Ganzer Macher: dramatised reading of novel extracts:  Novel London/Big Green Bookshop Waiting for Farid:  reading of novel extract: Novel London/Travelling Through Bookshop The Fish and Chip Boat: Celebrating Liverpool and Culture: Orbis magazine Childhood short story:  Jewish Year Book 2008/09 At the Adelphi: novel extract from 1956: Saying Goodbye: Jewish Renaissance A Violent Tale/Mordechai’s First Brush with Love: short story, Loki Books Novel extracts: Jewish Book Week readings: Hackney Libraries, Stoke Newington Bookshop
  • Non-Fiction:
  • Karl Marx was a Scouser: a Liverpudlian childhood: lead feature, Jewish Quarterly
  • Alan Kane: Britain’s Ambassador of Song: lead feature, Jewish Renaissance & The Cable
  • Theatre works: A Guide to Working in the Theatre pub.National Theatre/ Theatre Museum
  • Radiant Illusion? Middle-class recruits to communism in the 1930s. Eve Editions.
  • Out of Focus: Images of Women in the Media. Women’s Press
  • Death of a Mother; daughters’ stories: John Lennon is dead; in memoriam. Pandora Press
  • Bouquet with Flying Lovers, Celebrating a Life.  Gally Cat Press/ MS Society
  • The Fish and Chip Boat: Celebrating Liverpool and Culture. Orbis magazine
  • Lithuania: Place of Rain: lead feature, Jewish Renaissance
  • The Dybbuk of Delight: Jewish Women’s Poetry. Poems. Five Leaves Press.
  • Theatre plays:
  • Key to Return set in Palestine (P21 Gallery, 2022)
  • Gone for a Burton Rehearsed Reading, JW3
  • No Reasonable Offer Refused Rehearsed Reading, Park Theatre 2013
  • Does it come with Ketchup? Rosemary  Branch 2009
  • Giulietta’s Feast: relationship between Federico Fellini and his wife/muse Giulietta Masina:                                Rehearsed Readings, Rosemary Branch & Stratford East 2009
  • Toot, Toot: TV comedy drama Rehearsed Reading  Ship of Fools  2008
  • The Unbroken Line: Rehearsed Readings Theatre Royal, Stratford East & Rosemary Branch Theatre 2008
  • My Federico/Giulietta’s Feast Rehearsed Reading with Jane Lapotaire, Rosemary Branch                                            (Arts Council Commission Award) 2000
  • Radio:
  • The Last Supper (short story) BBC Radio 4, director  Alfred Bradley
  • That’s Up to You, Comrade (play) Rehearsed Reading Jewish Book Week/Hackney Libraries
  • The Deeper Well (play, set in the former GDR) extract, LBC Drama Festival
  • Let’s Move:  two series of play scripts for BBC Schools Radio
  • Pen to Paper: sketches, BBC Radio 4
  • Film:
  • Picnic in Gaza (screenplay: PVK Pictures)
  • Journalism:
  • recent:
  • English PEN 2019: memorial: Raficq Abdullah
  • Part of a current: one of the family: House of Commons, December, 2017
  • Cape Times, South Africa: Insight: David Lurie obituary
  • New Camden Journal: Party Animals by David Aaronovitch: book review/feature
  • The Guardian, Other Lives: obituary: David Lurie
  • Smithdown Litfest 2017, Liverpool: review: publisher Ian Skillicorn’s website
  • Heldenplatz: Jewish Socialist
  • previous:
  • Freelance arts journalism for Yorkshire Post, The Lecturer, The Guardian, Dance & Dancer,                                     Radio Times, Jewish Quarterly, Jewish Renaissance
  • Dance Editor: TES
  • Health Editor: City Limits
  • Awards/Prizes:
  • Society of Women Writers & Journalists Charitable Foundation: bursary for novel writing
  • Arts Council, England: grant for mentoring from writer Jacob Ross on novel in progress: Leaving Lime Street, set in Liverpool, 1956
  • Arts Council Literature Award: further writing grant to finish the novel
  • British Embassy Lithuania funding:  to research family roots in Lithuania and meet with Jewish writers in Vilnius and Kaunas
  • WIZO Short Story Prize for  Goodbye to Childish Things
  • Arts Council Commission Award to write stage play: My Federico
  • Waiting for Farid, novel extract, finalist EASTSIDE/TEXACO Competition
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