After 30 years of writing, recording, and activism, Linton Kwesi Johnson is being honored with the publication of Selected Poems in the Penguin Classics series.

David Mitchell is faithful to fiction to the point where he describes the idea of a clinch with scriptwriting or an embrace with poetry as akin to being adulterous.

Of the initiatives leading the drive for greater representation of British artists of ethnic origin, deciBel, a showcase event in Birmingham, was the most prominent.

With the latest lineup of Martsch, Scott Plouf, Jim Roth, Brett Nelson, and Brett Netson, this is the most experienced group that Built to Spill has ever seen.

New Yorker Jesse Malin released his third solo album Glitter in the Gutter in July 2007. This is an up-tempo, powerful manifesto for survival and defiance.

Ash return with their re-energised fifth and possibly last studio LP Twilight of the Innocents, mixing classic pop lyrics and punk influenced melody.

With a world tour well underway and their latest album receiving critical and popular acclaim, Maximo Park are battling to keep their feet on the ground.

For over forty years, director Ken Loach has been bringing realistic portrayals of modern day social and political situations to our screens.

“People are far more interested in sound now, but they still don’t really know what we do.” Eddy Joseph was part of the team that won a BAFTA for Casino Royale.

In 2007, Film 4 supported British music in their films: This is England, Hallam Foe, Brothers of the Head and Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten.

Patience Agbabi — talented writer, performer, lecturer, and now mum to one-and-a-half year-old Solomon, is anything but her namesake.

The public conception of a “circus” today lies somewhere between the extravagant showpieces of Cirque du Soleil, and childhood memories of clowns and tigers.

In Waterlog, seven British artists have interpreted the water-drenched landscape of Norwich, taking their cues from WB Sebald’s The Rings of Saturn.

With an impressive collection of projects behind her, including computer game Get Away: Black Monday, and short film Liar, China Moo-Young shows no indication of slowing down.

Margaret Salmon is an American-born photographer and filmmaker, who set trends in the UK with her exhibition at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London in 2007.

The idea of a caravan gallery is a bit of a dichotomy, yet has succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of its creators, Jan Williams and Chris Teasdale.

The Wellcome Collection was the first venue of its kind in the UK, providing radical insights into wellbeing and the human condition.

There’s an appealing innocence to both Miller’s paintings and her enthusiasm as she chats from her Aberdeenshire studio across a thin, crackling line.

Scrutinizing the fabric of contemporary culture to reveal the fragility of the notions of society, ethnicity, and identity: this is the essence of Reza Aramesh.

Public art, that which is produced for the passerby and within the public sphere, functions as a starting point for aesthetic discourse and interaction.

While the music world becomes ever more dependant on its sampler and keyboard for kicks, Lisa Lindley-Jones has decided to step away from electro-pop.

Situated on walls, the pavement, telephone poles, windows, billboards, trains, cars, houses – but rarely do we stop and look at it: urban art is ubiquitous.

James Baldwin once stated, “The power to define the other seals one’s definition of oneself – who, then, in such a fearful mathematic is trapped?”

Benjamin Zephaniah is one of the UK’s most renowned novelists, playwrights, poets and activists, and has contributed to literature over the last three decades.

One of African literature’s forerunners, Ngugi wa Thiong’o is the author of several novels, plays, and non-fiction works which tackle colonialism and postcolonialism.

Widely regarded as one of the most influential bands of their time, Sonic Youth takes one more lunge at it with their new release, Rather Ripped.