literature events
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.
Celebrate Wha? An anthology of West Midlands poets
5 months ago
Here’s an event you might like, featuring the current Birmingham Poet Laureate, Roy McFarlane, and others from the West Midlands..
The Drum presents Celebrate Wha?
Hosted by Dr Robert Beckford, a night of poetry, conversations and music…
- Thu 22 Sep, 7.30pm
- £5 (£3)
- Studio
Ten Black British Poets from the West Midlands
Edited by Eric Doumerc and Roy McFarlane (Birmingham Poet Laureate 2011)
Celebrate Wha? is an anthology of poems about identity and race, curried goat ‘n’ rice. Ten poets – Dreadlock Alien, Sue Brown, Marcia Calame, Evoke, Martin Glynn, Michelle Hubbard, Kokumo, Roy McFarlane, Chester Morrison and Moqapi Selassie – explore what it means to be black and British and from the West Midlands. This is the English language in a Caribbean coat, Auden in a Creole accent. Celebrate Wha? celebrates writing with a reggae rhythm, born out of a heady mixture of dub, grime and performance poetry, politics and music, anger and laughter. Join us for the official launch of an anthology dedicated to Birmingham’s Black poets – long overdue.
http://www.the-drum.org.uk/event/celebrate-wha
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 results of the Poetry Relay are in!
6 months ago
- The final team, finished at last
- Deborah Alma brings her props
Saturday’s relay was a great success. We careened around the West Midlands in a minibus, racing through high streets and across parks to perform our poems in relay. All of our poets made it to their alloted destinations, all of them wrote their 20 lines, and we released ten pigeons from the brilliant Project Pigeon who raced back to Birmingham and determined the final order of the poem.
- Philip Monks takes the baton at Burton
- Emma Purshouse gets things going at Stoke on Trent
As the day wore on we lost time, gained it 
back, grabbed cups of tea where we could, infiltrated cinema queues and park festivals, performed live on Touch FM, entertained a pub garden full of walkers on the Malvern hills, and delighted the security guards and station managers at Stoke station. Kids on bikes helped us release our pigeons, elderly wanderers took a quick rest to listen to us in Bromyard, and dog show enthusiasts got more than they bargained for in Polesworth.
It was a fantastic day of surprises, laughs, rushing around and excellent poetry. All of our poets responded to their task in different and interesting ways, and the words we got to know well by the end of the day seemed ever more relevant as the band of merry poets grew.
Live on Touch FM at Polesworth
- Unsuspecting walkers at Malvern
However, a relay is still a race, and we must tell you the results!
Our ten pigeons arrived safely back on saturday evening, and once they had a quick rest they revealed the order in which our poems returned. The full poem will be written up for you soon, but here is the final order as they flew in…
- Hatton Country World’s poem by Helen Yendall came in first.
- Second was Bromyard’s ode, by sack-racing Deborah Alma.
- Next in was Burton-On-Trent’s ode to beer, by Philip Monks.
- Fourth was Telford Odeon’s poem about the art of queuing by aptly dressed Dave Reeves.
- Fifth was Adrian Johnson’s poem for the Malvern Hills about cycling.
- Sixth was Polesworth, with Malcolm Dewhirst’s poem for the park.
- Seventh was the place it all began, Stoke on Trent, with Emma Purshouse’s imagining of Platform Diving.
- Eighth was our final venue, Stafford, with Roz Goddard’s offering on pies and snorkelling.
- Ninth was Worcester’s stain glass making ode, by Rohit Ballal.
- Tenth was Kurly McGeachie’s poem for Highley, hot coal shovelling!
The pigeons take flight
A bus full of poets!Here are a couple of pictures of the day, but watch this space as the team from Monty Funk , who followed us around for the entire 12 hours recording, will be producing some audio/interactive content for us – to mark the day and build a lasting legacy as we head towards London 2012.
Gracious thanks to all of our venues, poets (special mention to Emma P, who was first on the bus and performed her poem no less than TEN times) and team – we all had a wonderful day, and the weather held.
Particular thanks to London 2012 and Arts Council England for inspiring and supporting the venture.
Relay Time!
6 months ago
Tomorrow we embark upon the maddest event we’ve ever attempted (and we are known for having odd ideas).
The Great West Midlands Poetry Relay is a big ask, but we are so excited to be doing it. We want to thank, and wish luck to, everyone who has agreed to be involved.
Our poets, Emma Purshouse, Philip Monks, Malcolm Dewhirst, Helen Yendall, Rohit Ballal, Adrian Johnson, Deborah Alma, Kurly McGeachie, Dave Reeves and Roz Goddard – we can’t wait to hear your poems and hope you’ve packed your sandwiches and got your comfortable travelling clothes on ready to step onto the poetry bus. The bus will be packed with snacks, pens, paper and other things required to keep ten poets alive for twelve hours.
We’re also delighted to be working with the guys over at Monty Funk who are coming with us and recording audio all day that they will then edit into a series of podcasts about the Relay – you’ll be able to experience the poems long after the day’s events are over. They will be available online and even mapped so you can download them in the places they were created.
Thanks are also due to our friends at Project Pigeon
We also want to thank our venues, all ten of them, without whom this wouldn’t be happening. We can’t wait to see how the shoppers at Hatton Country World or the cinema goers at Telford Odeon react to our bus rolling up and the inevitable outpouring of poets.
Lastly, thanks are due to Arts Council England and the Cultural Olympiad Open Weekend team for supporting the event.
We will be LIVE BLOGGING tomorrow on this site – as often as we get signal, we will be updating to let you know where we are along the route, how big and unruly the poem is becoming and who has been travel sick.
Lastly, we’ll be on BBC Radio WM tonight after 9pm, on the Loyd Williams show, and on BBC Radio Stoke tomorrow at 7.15am talking about the Relay, so listen out for us.
That’s it for now – we’re off to polish the megaphone and pack the bus!
Are you Birmingham’s next Poet Laureate?
6 months ago
Birmingham Poet Laureate Roy McFarlane performs with Amsterdam City Poet Frank Starik
It’s that time of the year again. Birmingham Libraries are currently seeking the next Birmingham Poet Laureate.
The new laureate will compete for the title against other hopefuls, performing around the city on National Poetry Day (6 October) and ending up at our Festival Launch for a special live announcement that evening.
Full Details about the scheme and how to apply can be found here. The deadline is 12th August 2011.
This is a unique opportunity to get involved with the writing community in Birmingham and promote poetry in the city. Good luck!
Post Spring Thing: The Newspaper, and the final event to look forward to!
9 months ago
Here is the final Issue of the Daily Spring Thing. Spring Thing Newspaper issue 4
We still have one more event to go: the fabulous Mo Hayder tomorrow, Thursday 14th April, at 7pm, Birmingham Conservatoire, £6.50/£5, tickets available on the door. More information here. Please join us in celebrating the end of this Spring Season of events. There will be wine and a final chance to buy books – including Mo’s, which will be discounted from the RRP, of course.
There is also a great review of our Project Pigeon workshop here.
More pictures, reviews and thoughts to come…
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…
