unfinishing is the podcast about projects that are incomplete, abandoned, works-in-progress or not public. It’s presented by Emily Anderson. If you have an incomplete or private project you’d like to talk about, please contact us via our website: https://unfinishing.co.uk/.

Akeem Balogun is a writer. His debut collection of stories, The Storm, won the Society of Authors' Somerset Maugham Award, a competition he now judges. Akeem is eclectic with his form, and has written stories, audio drama, and creative pieces for artists and festivals.

He curated Words, Vision and Sound for the 31st Off the Shelf Literature Festival of Words, a multimedia literature event. It was also featured in the Huddersfield Literature Festival. His latest work, Post-modern Hustle, was published by Intergraphia Books and features artwork by Thomas D. Fowler.

Akeem’s first unfinished project is a short story collection called Expressions. It has finished elements, but for the most part consists of stories that are unwritten or ideas - all safely collected in a notebook for when the time is right to complete and publish them.

His second unfinished project is a novel with the working title of The District. The book depicts a particular set of characters whose lives Akeem wants to see in print. After countless drafts and lots of feedback, the end is in sight.

Akeem is highly motivated by a desire to make his writing excellent. In fact, the pursuit of excellence is one of the reasons the works we discuss aren’t yet out in the world - so they’ll be worth the wait.

⁠Links of interest:

About Akeem: Written Gallery – Writing by Akeem Balogun

The Literary Studio: About Us | The Literary Studio

The Storm, with original cover painting by Arantza Pardo: The Storm – Written Gallery

Akeem’s book recommendations:

Richard Ford, Canada (2012): Canada (novel) - Wikipedia

Tibor Fischer, Good To Be God (2009): Good To Be God by Tibor Fischer | Waterstones

Ted Chiang, Exhalation: Stories (2019): Exhalation: Stories - Wikipedia

Kerry Hadley Price, Gamble (2018): https://www.waterstones.com/book/gamble/kerry-hadley-pryce/9781784631307

The first live unfinishing took place at the Crossed Wires festival 2026!

The audience had the treat of hearing the fabulous Dr RJ Wade unfurling the mysteries behind an unfished portrait held at the University of Leeds. Wade gave some brilliant insights into the unfinished nature of the portrait - the ways in which its unfinishedness changes how we interact with it, and the clues its incompleteness gives about how it was created.

The portrait, which is of the significant Victorian politician Richard Cobden, was painted by the wonderful artist Emma Aloysia Novello, likely in May 1861. Wade’s research has uncovered that Novello led an extraordinary, rich, intriguing life - travelling across Europe and maintaining her status as an artist despite the barriers presented by the gender norms of the time.

Wade’s research also, however, revealed tragic and unsettling information about the last years of Emma’s life. Two heart-breaking documents - the first admitting her to a ‘lunatic’ asylum, after which all other papers from and about her stop - and the second a record of her death.

Wade tells us about how these last years came about, but argues we should resist the temptation to see Emma’s life as ‘incomplete’. Her work, her travel, her relationships, and above all her ability to maintain her profession as an artist - all speak of a meaningful, varied, and important life.

Links of interest:

View Emma Novello’s portrait of Richard Cobden here - where you can also read about Wade’s fascinating research: The portrait | Special Collections | Library | University of Leeds

More about Wade: RJ Wade | Library | University of Leeds

The book Wade mentions, titled How to do Nothing, is by Jenny Odell. Find out more here: How to do nothing: the new guide to refocusing on the real world | Life and style | The Guardian

unfinishing is the podcast about projects that are incomplete, abandoned, works-in-progress or not public. It’s presented by Emily Anderson and the artwork is by Graham Oakes. If you have an incomplete or private project you’d like to talk about, please contact us via our website: https://unfinishing.co.uk/.

Our guest in this episode is Professor Manuel Barcia. Professor Barcia is Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Global Engagement) at the University of Bath, with responsibility for developing and leading the university’s international engagement. He’s also a world-leading scholar in Atlantic and global history. His work focuses on slavery, resistance, and the legacies of colonialism. Over the years he has been a recipient of multiple research fellowships and awards, including a prestigious Philip Leverhulme Prize in 2014. His global perspective is deeply informed by both the nature of his scholarship and his extensive experience working with institutions and researchers from all over the world.

Professor Barcia studied History at undergraduate level at the University of Havana in Cuba, then went on to experience life as an international student in the UK when he took a MA in Comparative History (as a Chevening scholar) and a PhD in History at the University of Essex. After concluding his PhD, he taught at the universities of Essex and Nottingham before going to Leeds in 2006.

Manuel is here to tell me about two unfinished books.

One is titled, The Cuban Sugar Kings: The Untold Story of a Minor League Baseball Team and the Cuban Revolution. It tells the story of the Cuban Sugar Kings, better known as the Havana Sugar Kings, a team who made history. Not only did they maintain a historical relationship with the Cincinnati Reds, but also won the most important prize in Minor League baseball, the mini-World Series of 1960, and found themselves immersed in the events that led to and followed the triumph of the 1959 Revolution led by Fidel Castro.

Despite having conducted interviews with members of the team, and having a rich body of research material ready to go, this is a project Manuel has had to abandon and will never be able to finish.

The future of Manuel’s other unfinished book is looking more hopeful. It’s called The First Anglo-Asante War: Colonialism and Abolition in the Gold Coast, 1823-1831. Manuel tells us about this complex (and often gory) period of history, as well as the surprising things he’s found in the archives while researching it.

Links of interest

About Manuel: Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Global Engagement)

The Havana Sugar Kings: Havana Sugar Kings – Official League

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