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Damian Barr’s Literary Salon is closing after 15 years, as Barr – author of Maggie & Me and You Will Be Safe Here (Bloomsbury) – focuses on his own writing.
Barr launched the salon at Shoreditch House in London in 2008, and the team has since grown to a business employing eight people part-time. The salon has hosted the likes of David Nicholls, Maggie O’Farrell, Douglas Stuart and Colm Tóibín. The archive of Damian Barr’s Literary Salon podcast will remain live, but no new episodes are planned. Barr said of the staff: "They all work part-time on Salon and are reallocating their time and energy to other projects, some in publishing and some outside. They’ve all been involved in the process and we hope to work together on future projects and are very much still in touch."
On why he’s ending the salon “for now”, Barr told The Bookseller: “There is no good time to end a good thing. I launched Maggie & Me at my Salon at Shoreditch house with Rowan Pelling interviewing me. And I launched You Will Be Safe Here at my Salon at the Savoy with Kirsty Wark interviewing me – a thrilling experience some prime ministers have not survived!
“I have so much I want to write and have just done a two-book deal with Canongate Books, which feels like a homecoming. And I am co-writing a play which will be announced later this year. None of us know how much time we have, but I do know I need more time for my own words—not a new struggle for a writer, I know. I cannot keep doing all the good things so I need to just step back and let others take the stage while I write behind it.”
He continued that “I am most grateful to all the writers who trusted me with their words, from works in progress to world premieres,” and said in a newsletter sent out to patrons announcing the news that he would be answering questions and sharing memories on the Salon Instagram and Facebook at 7 p.m. GMT on Friday 15th September.
Barr said: “I’m incredibly grateful to each and every member of the Salon team past and present for their dedication and care – most especially Kirsty Milner and Rosie Chipping. Thank you: Amy Very for our world-class website, Bakul Patki for all the media-wrangling and Daisy Honeybunn for taking pictures I’ll treasure forever. And, to each and every one of the hundreds of writers who have trusted me with their words – thank you, thank you.”