book
Fiction & Food
4 months ago
by Birmingham Book Festival
in birmingham, book, books, festival, fiction, literature events, News, novel, october, writing
In anticipation of the forthcoming Birmingham Food Fest, which overlaps with us by a few days, Radar Magazine asked Festival Director Sara Beadle to get thinking about the relationship between food and fiction.
Here, Sara shares with Radar’s readers six of her favourite Foodie fiction moments. Yummy.
On The Blog: Interview with Festival Book Author Jenn Ashworth & All Night Writing
4 months ago
Our fantastic team of student journalists have posted this interview with festival author Jenn Ashworth, whose book Cold Light is this year’s featured book. See Jenn on Sunday 16th October 2011.
The blog will be gaining momentum as we hurtle towards the festival – less than a week to go!
Make sure you bookmark it, or follow us on twitter (@bhambookfest) to see new content as soon as it arrives. News, reviews, previews and more.
The blogging team are also bravely joining us for tomorrow night’s All Night At The Museum, an exercise in writing and sleep deprivation, with writer Judith Allnatt at the helm. We’ll be uploading pictures and updates throughout the night. We will also be tweeting. If you prefer your warm bed on a Saturday night, you can catch up with the all nighters on BBC Midlands Today on Monday afternoon and evening (and later online).
This workshop is now sold out, but there are four more chances to develop your own writing before the festival is over. Radio Writing, Journalism, Ideas and Fiction are all covered. See the diary for more details.
The Birmingham Book Festival 2011 Programme Coming Very Soon
6 months ago
THE TIME IS ALMOST UPON US…
The Festival programme is complete and will soon be winging its way to you (if you are on our mailing list) and will be available as a pdf here from Wednesday 10 August 2011. You will also be able to peruse the events diary and click through to our box office here, or go to our box office directly once events are on sale. We are using MAC’s ticketing services – and we are confident that this will make your booking experience smooth and cost effective – there are no booking fees!
Once the programme is released look out for special offers, giveaways and more – follow us on twitter (@bhambookfest) and like our Facebook page to get the latest.
WIN TICKETS TO SEE OUR FESTIVAL BOOK AUTHOR, JENN ASHWORTH.
We are delighted to be featuring Jenn Ashworth’s second novel, Cold Light as our Festival Book. This means we will be featuring Jenn in the festival and talking about the book here. We’d love to know what you think of Cold Light.
We are offering you the chance to win tickets to meet Jenn and hear her talk about the book on 16th October 2011. To win, send us your review of Cold Light, (no more than 300 words, please) via joanne@birminghambookfestival.org. The best two reviews will win a pair of tickets to meet Jenn at the event, get your books signed and ask her any burning questions you have about Cold Light! You have until 1 October 2011 to submit your review.
If you don’t have a copy of Cold Light, you can buy one here.
Good Luck!
The Spring Thing is tomorrow! Win A Workshop..
10 months ago
Yes, we wondered too…
Yes, we wondered too…
There are now just twenty four hours between us and the first event of The Spring Thing 2011.
It has been a busy week here in the Festival office, putting finishing touches to our plans, designing and making our big version of Magnetic Poetry (and we will be posting pictures of your poems on twitter at #bbfspringthing) and a few other things just for fun (because you can’t spend *all* your time between events in the Bookshop…). 
So even if you are just passing through on Saturday or Sunday, there will be something to see and people to say hello to – so please do stop by! We will be based in the main foyer area of Birmingham Conservatoire from 11am-9pm both days.
You know all about the events by now, but just incase you need a refresher, the programme is here. Tickets are still available for most things (although some are going fast!), and you are welcome to buy them on the door. To avoid disappointment you are welcome to get tickets to any of the weekend’s events at our Ticket Desk within the Conservatoire from 11am Saturday. This is located immediately inside the main entrance.
To celebrate the start of the weekend, we are offering you the chance to win a place on our unique writing workshop experience at the Project Pigeon Loft on Sunday.
This is an evocative and interesting space, and you will have the chance to work with novelist and comic writer Paul Macdonald, as well as meet the curators of Project Pigeon and learn a bit more about what they do. You might be wondering how birds and writing go together – but this isn’t about Pigeons per se. Have a look at the Spring Thing Newspaper Issue One for an interview with the project’s curators and some words from Paul. The article therein may also provide some inspiration for the question below!
We have two places to give away. These usually retail at £23 so take advantage of this unique give away and spend a few sunny hours wandering around the loft in Digbeth. There will be tea and coffee, too, and Festival Newspaper writer Anouk Abels will be on site to capture the experience in words.
TO WIN: Email us here and tell us which popular probiotic drink is apparently important to the diet of a Pigeon. We will contact the winners by Saturday morning.
If you are not a winner, don’t worry – you can still buy a ticket to this workshop (subject to availability) here.
Meanwhile, today, Friday, the Festival team will be out and about in the centre of Birmingham (around Birmingham Cathedral and Birmingham Central Library) asking you for your phrases to describe Birmingham – as inspiration for Talking Cities on Saturday night. Come and see us between 12-2 today, we will swap you a word for a chocolate!
We hope to see you this weekend at some of the Spring Thing’s events, or in the foyer enjoying the chance to read, relax and talk to friends. Say hello to our team – we love to meet people!
Have a great Spring Thing.
The Festival Team
The Spring Thing is nearly here
10 months ago
by Birmingham Book Festival
in alys fowler, april 2011, audio installation, birmingham, book, books, cake, candi miller, comedy, crime fiction, david lodge, editing, festival, fiction, gardening, helen calcutt, historical fiction, library, life writing, literature events, new voices, News, novel, panel discussion, performance, pigeons, poetry, publishing, readings and discussion, sophie hannah, spring, spring thing, sustainability, the writing squads, tindal street press, writing, writing west midlands
We are very excited here. It is less than two weeks until we enjoy two whole days of books, writers, chatting about books and writers, sharing ideas, networking, workshops, and of course a few quirky things too.
Coming up next week:
On Friday 8th April, the BBF team will be out and about in the city, at Birmingham Cathedral and Birmingham Library, asking you to get involved in a writing installation. So if you see us, stop by and say hello! We *might* be carrying chocolate…
Give & Take is a new feature of the Festival, too. It’s simple – you bring along to events any books you no longer want, and donate them to the G&T bin. You are then welcome to help yourself to a book from the bin.
Anticipation is building…
The event most people seem to be talking about is Project Pigeon’s writing workshop – in their actual pigeon loft in Digbeth. Far from being a cold and unwelcoming space, this is a friendly, informative, enlightening place where the project’s curators, Alex and Ian, are eager to talk to people about the pursuit of social change they are on, (and introduce us to the baby pigeons they’ve hatched this month). A place full of story and history, atmosphere and personality, inspiration will not be hard to come by.
We’re also getting excited about the fantastic John Hegley, who will be making us laugh and think on Sunday evening and closing the festival is style. That’s right after we celebrate the third birthday of indpendent press Nine Arches with readings from several of their poets . That’s a whole night of excellent poetry, cake and conversation.
Launching The Daily Spring Thing
To celebrate the Spring Thing, and the rich literary fabric here in Birmingham, we are launching The Birmingham Book Festival Newspaper. This is a free paper that will be published every day during both Festivals of the year. So, in preparation for the Spring Thing, issue one is ready. In it you will find plenty of information about events, advice on planning your weekend depending on your writing/reading interests, and yes, there is even a gossip column. Heaven knows what’ll go in that…
Spring Thing Newspaper Issue One
Issue Two will be published on the morning of the Saturday of the Spring Thing, and will be packed with information about the weekend ahead. It will include, among other things, an interview with crime writer Sophie Hannah, who is joining us on Saturday to eat cake and talk about the messy business of writing about murder and mystery.
Now to choose the cake…
Still to come this week
11 months ago
Unfortunately, we have to announce that the Wilbur Smith Event has been unavoidably cancelled. We had been looking forward to this event as much as you, so it is to our great disappointment that Wilbur won’t be joining us this Wednesday evening. For any of you that purchased tickets for the event, you can claim a refund by contacting the Box Office.
You can, of course, still get tickets for the fantastic Mo Hayder, who joins us on Thursday evening.
Thursday 14th April 2011
Mo Hayder: Hanging Hill
£6.50 / £5 / 7pm / Recital Hall, Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, Birmingham B3 3HG
Supported by Birmingham Libraries
In Mo Hayder’s latest novel sisters Sally and Zoe find themselves in situations worse than they had ever imagined. Married to a successful business man, Sally is a dreamer, whereas her sister Zoe is her polar opposite. A detective inspector working out of Bath Central. Zoe loves her job, and oozes self-confidence. No one would guess that she hides a crippling secret that dates back twenty years, and which – if exposed – may destroy her.
Fortunes change though and when Sally’s daughter has fallen into difficulties, and finds she needs cash – lots of it – fast. Sally finds herself divorced and penniless with her teenage daughter to support. Now, the only way to survive is to do things she never thought possible, to go places she never knew existed… With no one to help her, Sally is forced into a criminal world of extreme pornography and illegal drugs; a world in which teenage girls can go missing.
Both sisters are intent on survival until one does something so terrifying that there’s no way back… A story so chilling you’ll be thankful it isn’t yours.
Mo has written some of the most terrifying crime thrillers you will ever read. Her first novel, Birdman, was hailed as ‘a first-class shocker’ by the Guardian, and her follow-up, The Treatment, was voted by The Times one of the top ten most scary thrillers ever written. Mo Hayder is one of the bestselling and most critically acclaimed of contemporary British crime thriller novelists, admired by her peers and eagerly followed by her readers.
Mo’s books are 100% authentic, drawing on her long research with several UK police forces and on her personal encounters with criminals and prostitutes. She specialises in confronting criminal acts head-on in her writing, fearlessly tackling the darker side of life where many turn away. Hayder has taught creative writing and is now a full-time author at the peak of her talents.
With thanks to Transworld Publishers.
BOOK ONLINE or call 0844 870 0000
Mo Hayder: Hanging Hill
11 months ago
Thursday 14th April 2011
Mo Hayder: Hanging Hill
£6.50 / £5 / 7pm / Recital Hall, Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, Birmingham B3 3HG
Supported by Birmingham Libraries
In Mo Hayder’s latest novel sisters Sally and Zoe find themselves in situations worse than they had ever imagined. Married to a successful business man, Sally is a dreamer, whereas her sister Zoe is her polar opposite. A detective inspector working out of Bath Central. Zoe loves her job, and oozes self-confidence. No one would guess that she hides a crippling secret that dates back twenty years, and which – if exposed – may destroy her.
Fortunes change though and when Sally’s daughter has fallen into difficulties, and finds she needs cash – lots of it – fast. Sally finds herself divorced and penniless with her teenage daughter to support. Now, the only way to survive is to do things she never thought possible, to go places she never knew existed… With no one to help her, Sally is forced into a criminal world of extreme pornography and illegal drugs; a world in which teenage girls can go missing.
Both sisters are intent on survival until one does something so terrifying that there’s no way back… A story so chilling you’ll be thankful it isn’t yours.
Mo has written some of the most terrifying crime thrillers you will ever read. Her first novel, Birdman, was hailed as ‘a first-class shocker’ by the Guardian, and her follow-up, The Treatment, was voted by The Times one of the top ten most scary thrillers ever written. Mo Hayder is one of the bestselling and most critically acclaimed of contemporary British crime thriller novelists, admired by her peers and eagerly followed by her readers.
Mo’s books are 100% authentic, drawing on her long research with several UK police forces and on her personal encounters with criminals and prostitutes. She specialises in confronting criminal acts head-on in her writing, fearlessly tackling the darker side of life where many turn away. Hayder has taught creative writing and is now a full-time author at the peak of her talents.
With thanks to Transworld Publishers.
BOOK ONLINE or call 0844 870 0000
Reading with Tindal Street Press
11 months ago
Sunday 10th April 2011
Reading with Tindal Street Press
£6.50/£5 / 4pm/ Recital Hall, Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, Birmingham B3 3HG
Join Tindal Street Press for a reading group of sorts – a chance to meet some of the writers they are publishing this year and discuss their new books – Paul Wilson and David Belbin. Tindal Street have a reputation for uncovering remarkable fiction – this year’s cast of characters are no exception.
Paul Wilson’s novel is titled The Visiting Angel. Care worker Patrick Shepherd has been struggling for as long as he can remember: orphaned, mourning a brother, and battling each day to rebuild the lives of the broken residents of his halfway house. But when he’s called to talk a man named Saul down from a ledge, Patrick’s world is suddenly shocked back into life. Saul looks exactly like Liam, Patrick’s brother, whom he thought was dead.
Dissolute, charming and uncannily perceptive, Saul says that he’s an angel on a mission to heal the fragile souls of a very particular list of people: Sarah, a GUM clinic nurse trapped by her own grief; Tusa, an HIV positive asylum seeker afraid to lose her last vestige of hope; and Edward, accused of murdering a lost child. Saul must help them weave the frayed edges of their lives back together again.
But for Patrick to understand the meaning of this visitation, he first must face his traumatic childhood in the council orphanage, Providence House, and the terrifying betrayal that tore the brothers apart.
Praise for Paul Wilson:
The equal of Graham Swift at his best
— Independent
David Belbin’s novel, Bone and Cane, is set in Nottingham in 1997. Sarah Bone is a Labour politician with a hidden radical past, about to face the election battle of her life. She also has a radical ex-boyfriend, Nick Cane, just released from prison for growing and selling cannabis. They’re brought together again when Sarah campaigns successfully for the release of Ed Clarke, a wrongfully imprisoned ‘murderer’, only to be sexually assaulted on the night she celebrates his release with him. Is she responsible for a terrible injustice?
Nick’s life is strangely bound up with Ed Clarke’s: inmates in the same prison and now working illegally for the same mini-cab firm. Will the old chemistry spark as Nick and Sarah work together to expose Ed Clarke’s guilt? As the election of a generation heats up, Bone and Cane’s convictions are tested to the limit.
With thanks to Tindal Street Press. 
GET THE BOOKS FIRST! You will soon be able to buy Paul and David’s books directly from Tindal Street – watch this space..
Book Online or call 0844 870 0000
World Book Night in Birmingham
11 months ago
World Book Night
Birmingham Libraries are arranging some events to celebrate World Book Night on 5th March 2011 – featuring some of Birmingham’s great writing talent, Mike Gayle, Catherine O’Flynn and R.J.Ellory. See their flyer.. Celebrate World Book Night in Birmingham . There is also ‘poetry, laughs and free books’ outside the library after the main event – so join them and many other writers for a celebration of readi
ng and writing. Good stuff!
The Spring Thing
We haven’t forgotten, by the way, that there is a Spring festival coming up… here is a little taster of the flyer we are printing for you as we speak…
You’re all desperate to know what’s in the programme – well, we can tell you that it includes workshops (including one with the amazing Project Pigeon), events, including with David Lodge, John Hegley, and Sophie Hannah, poetry, including a birthday party for the lovely Nine Arches Press and an exciting audio installation in the Central Library, Bodies In The Library.
You can follow Bodies on twitter (@_ears_wide_open) .
There are also ‘festival extra’ events including with the delightful Mo Hayder…
So you have the dates, you have the web address… your interest is piqued… what now?
We are busily uploading all of the events (all 22!) onto this site so that you can book your tickets. We hope to have this function available on Monday 21st February at the latest. That’s only a few days away.
While we wait, we would like to take the opportunity to thank the Spring Thing’s sponsor, Newman University College, Birmingham. Newman have long been supportive of our work and continue to get enthusiastic about our events and activities. Their staff and students will be around at the Spring Thing, involved in various ways, and they will be manning a stall, too. Feel free to pop by and talk to them, or visit www.newman.ac.uk
Outlaws & Ashes: New Voices In Fiction: Stuart Evers & Naomi Wood
11 months ago
Sunday 10th April 2011
Outlaws & Ashes: New Voices In Fiction: Stuart Evers
£6.50 / £5 / 12.30 – 1.45pm / Recital Hall, Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, Birmingham B3 3HG
It is always a pleasure to discover great new writing. The two authors featured here are well worth taking note of, for their talents and for choosing subjects often avoided.
Stuart’s collection Ten Stories About Smoking weaves tales of love, loss and yearning around the symbolic cigarette, locating the extraordinary in the ordinary. Ten sto
ries of allure, betrayal, nostalgia, solitude, seduction, damage, desire and loss; of silence broken by the click of a lighter; insomnia defined by a glowing ember; a magician’s trick; a lover’s scent; a final wish. These are stories that go to the heart of things.
‘In this remarkable collection, Stuart Evers winds a course through worlds of yearning, secrets and mortification in prose
as lithe as a ribbon of smoke’ Wells Tower
‘Love, loss and recovery are the real themes of these quiet, haunting stories, which add up into an unexpectedly powerful book. An impressive debut’ Aravind Adiga
‘Evers has found possibility in even the bleakest and smallest of lives, with each delicately linked not only by a cigarette but also by a glimpse into how terrifyingly empty a life can be’ David Vann
‘With powerfully understated writing, Evers has an eye for the humor that lives alongside sadness, and above all for the humanity in the smallest of actions’ Evie Wyld
A former bookseller and editor, Stuart Evers now writes about books for the Guardian, Independent, New Statesman, Time Out and many other publications. His fiction has appeared in 3:AM Magazine, Litro, The Book Club Boutique Magazine and on EverydayGenius.com.
If you were forced to live with faith, or without, which would you choose? Naomi’s debut novel, The Godless Boys, draws the choices into sharp relief.
England. 1986. The Church controls the country, and all members of the Secular Movement have been expelled to the Island. On the Island, religion is outlawed. A gang of boys patrols the community, searching for signs of faith, and punishing any believers. When an English girl arrives – intent on finding her mother who disappeared, mysteriously, ten years ago – she is swept up in the dangerous games of the gang. But while one boy falls in love with her, the other wants revenge for the wrongs of the past, and, as the violence escalates, the English girl becomes their pawn.
The Godless Boys is a book about faith, and life without faith; about love, and its absence. But above all, it’s about power, and how dangerous it can be to stand out from the crowd. Both violent and tender, it’s a remarkable debut, and clearly marks Naomi Wood as a name to note.
Naomi Wood is 27. She studied at Cambridge and at UEA for her MA in Creative Writing. Originally from York, she has gone on to live in Hong Kong, Paris and Washington DC. This is her first novel.
With thanks to Picador.
