readings and discussion
The Birmingham Book Festival 2011 Programme Coming Very Soon
1 year 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!
Relay Time!
1 year 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!
The Spring Thing is nearly here
2 years 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…
Writer Networking Meeting
2 years ago
Sunday April 10th 2011
Writer Networking Meeting
Free! No need to book / 2-3.15pm / Seminar Room, Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, Birmingham B3 3HG
Guest Speaker: Stuart Evers.
Are you a writer living or working in the West Midlands? Come along and meet others, drink tea and discuss ideas. Stuart Evers is a former editor and bookseller turned fiction writer.
You can access his blog at the link above, or follow him on twitter, @stuartevers.
With thanks to Writing West Midlands.
Still to come this week
2 years 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
2 years 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
John Hegley: The Adventures of Monsieur Robinet
2 years ago
Sunday April 10th 2011
John Hegley: The Adventures of Monsieur Robinet
£8.50/£6 / 8pm / Adrian Boult Hall, Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, Birmingham B3 3HG
A brilliant evening of performance poetry and comedy to mark the end of the Spring Thing – join us, and John Hegley, to end the weekend in style..
Tales about a Frenchman with some unusual [but clean] habits, which include burying his dog’s kennel and his own luggage pieces.
The stories appear alongside other new works, which include an address to aliens on the subject of transport, a poem about a non-talking parrot, and some animal impersonations with the aid of a handkerchief.
Suitable for most people over seven.
The audience are invited to sing along. But not to dance. Much.
Hegley is known as a poet and singer with a common and comedic touch, hence the quotation from The Observer, ‘Awesomely mundane’
‘Typically brilliant songs and stories about a Gallic small-town hero with a dog called Chirac’
The Guardian
The poet Adrian Mitchell said of him:
’Just because he is one of the funniest men alive, do not
underestimate his dedicated gentleness.’
And The Luton News said that his lyrics,
‘…quite often make little sense’
BOOK ONLINE or call 0844 870 0000
The Birthday Party – Nine Arches Press are 3!
2 years ago
Sunday April 10th 2011
The Birthday Party – Nine Arches Press are 3!
£6.50/£5 / 5.45pm / Recital Hall, Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, Birmingham B3 3HG
Celebrate the third birthday of West Midlands-based independent poetry press, Nine Arches Press, with a special showcase of their most recent poets and publications. Since 2008, they have published 16 collections, 7 copies of Under the Radar magazine, and gained 4 national and regional prizenominations. They also run events, workshops, open mics and readings.
Join poets Myra Connell, Luke Kennard, Ruth Larbey and Claire Crowther to blow out the candles! (www.ninearchespress.com)
CLAIRE CROWTHER
Claire Crow
ther’s two collections, Stretch of Closures and The Clockwork Gift (Shearsman Books), have been received with wide acclaim, and have been followed up be her Nine Arches Press pamphlet, Mollicle. She was born and grew up in Hobs Moat near Solihull. Mollicle is zesty, mysterious and mischievous, the ordinary world turned kaleidoscopic and rearranged in Crowther’s distinct and elegant fashion.
ther’s two collections, Stretch of Closures and The Clockwork Gift (Shearsman Books), have been received with wide acclaim, and have been followed up be her Nine Arches Press pamphlet, Mollicle. She was born and grew up in Hobs Moat near Solihull. Mollicle is zesty, mysterious and mischievous, the ordinary world turned kaleidoscopic and rearranged in Crowther’s distinct and elegant fashion. Praise for Mollicle:
“Claire Crowther’s work is wittily compelling, a complex music. Poems by Crowther are events. With equal power, Mollicle reflects the outer world and the mind’s life, intensely illuminated.
day and night, repay your loan:
shine with sun’s compulsive light. ”
- Alison Brackenbury
“Claire Crowther’s poems employ what seems to be a singular form of logic – each one is like a mirror she has handed you in which you see something familiar, yet in a way you hadn’t managed to see before.”
– Roddy Lumsden
RUTH LARBEY
Ruth Larbey was born in Cyprus, and grew up in Nottingham, Hong Kong and rural Cumbria. She has spent her last two years working at an international development charity in London, after completing her MA at Warwick University in 2008. Funglish is her debut pamphlet of poems, and is a maiden voyage alive with the simple thrill of exploration, re-imagining liminal spaces into new territories vibrant with possibility.
Praise for Funglish
“There’s a drastic incandescence to Ruth Larbey’s syntax which pulls you into her poetry. Writing with an edgy control reminiscent of Emily Dickinson, her poems create exacting ‘electric constellations’ of vision and nerve in which no word is wasted, no darkness left unexplored. As Dickinson wrote, ‘A word is dead when it is said, some say. I say it just begins to live that day.’ Ruth Larbey’s language is alive and gravid.” - David Morley
LUKE KENNARD
Luke Kennard won an Eric Gregory award in 2005 for his first collection of prose poems The Solex Brothers (Stride Books). His second collection of poetry The Harbour Beyond the Movie was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Collection in 2007 making him the youngest poet ever to be nominated for the award. His criticism has appeared in Poetry London and The T
imes Literary Supplement. He is currently reviewing fiction for The National.
Luke Kennard’s Planet-Shaped Horse is an unhinged black-comedy poem-play from one of contemporary poetry’s most unique voices. Both terrible and beautiful things happen. Hermits and doctors are not what they seem and neither Miranda nor Simon seem capable of reining in or reforming their unreliable narrator…
Praise for Luke Kennard:
His language is exciting and it feels to me that he’s a truly 21st-century writer, taking inspiration from all over the place, unafraid of barriers and conventions. – Ian McMillan, The Times
Inventive, academically aware, fearless and hugely enjoyable.
– Nick Laird, The Telegraph
Luke Kennard writes vibrant, original poems that stick in your mind for a long time and enliven your imagination.
- Sophie Hannah
MYRA CONNELL
Myra Connell’s second collection of poems, From the Boat, was published by Nine Arches Press in 2010. Her poems have appeared in various magazines, and her short stories in two collections from Tindal Street Press, Her Majesty and Are You She?
She lives in Birmingham and has two grown-up sons.
From the Boat comes from a time of waiting, of mourning, and of finding small consolations. They are, many of them, small poems, the opposite of heroic. Bare, spare in mood, and exploring a sense of dislocation and disorientation, they look coldly at what is left when almost everything is pared away.
Myra Connell’s poetry is measured yet generous; experimental and adventurous; sharp, often angry, and yet tender.
BOOK ONLINE or call 0844 870 0000
Reading with Tindal Street Press
2 years 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
Workshop: Creating Characters with Paul Dowswell
2 years ago
Sunday 10th April 2011
Workshop Creating Characters with Paul Dowswell
£23/£17/ 3.15-5.45pm / Seminar Room, Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, Birmingham B3 3HG
How do you invent believable, interesting and rounded characters in children’s and adult fiction? Writer Paul Dowswell will explore basic rules, first or third person, back story and motivation.
Paul writes historical fiction for Bloomsbury Publishers.
Book Online or call 0844 870 0000.
The Edible Garden: Alys Fowler
2 years ago
Sunday 10th April 2011
The Edible Garden: Alys Fowler
£6.50/£5 / 2.15pm / Recital Hall, Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, Birmingham B3 3HG
Growing your own is, says Alys Fowler, ‘a powerful political gesture about our oil-reliant food chain’.
In this timely new book, Gardeners’ World’s thrifty and resourceful Alys Fowler shows that there is a way to take the good life and re-fashion it to fit in with life in the city.
Abandoning the limitations of traditional gardening methods, she has created a beautifully productive garden at home in Kings Heath where tomatoes sit happily next to roses, carrots are woven between the lavenders and potatoes grow in pots on the patio. And all of this is produced in a way that mimics natural systems, producing delicious homegrown food for her table. And she shares her favourite recipes for the hearty dishes, pickles and jams she makes to use up her bountiful harvest, proving that no-one need go hungry on her grow-your-own regime.
Good for the pocket, good for the environment and hugely rewarding for the soul, The Edible Garden urges urbanites everywhere to chuck out the old gardening rules and create their own haven that’s as good to look at as it is to eat.
Book Online or call 0844 870 0000
Outlaws & Ashes: New Voices In Fiction: Stuart Evers & Naomi Wood
2 years 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.
Book Online or call 0844 870 0000
Writing Workshop: Project Pigeon (with Paul McDonald)
2 years ago
Sunday 10th April 2011
Writing with Project Pigeon & Paul McDonald
£23/£17 / 11am – 1pm /Project Pigeon Loft, Milk Street, Digbeth, Birmingham B5 5NH
Do you know much about Pigeons? That they have won medals for saving lives, been featured in many great works of art and films? That they race, find their way home and can even be involved in artworks? Pigeon fancying has a long history in the West Midlands, and those at Project Pigeon are part of an expansive, innovative project designed to explore the history and social impact of pigeon keeping in this region. Project Pigeon works with pigeons and people to bring about social change. They do lots of things with their pigeons, such as run workshops, make musical performances, curate exhibitions and design and build city centre lofts. Project Pigeon is run by Alexandra Lockett and Ian England. The project started in January 2009 and it is open ended – it has taken them to lots of places and they have made lots of discoveries.
They have invited us, and writer Paul McDonald, to come along and meet the birds and hear some of the amazing stories of this adventure.
Born in Walsall, Paul McDonald left school at 16 to train as a saddlemaker. In 1986 he began full-time study, completed his PhD in 1993 and now lectures at Wolverhampton University. Paul remains in Walsall where, to his horror, he’s developing a taste for chunky jewellery and combat dogs. His novels include Do I Love You? and Kiss Me Softly Amy Turtle. He is published by Tindal Street Press
.
Please note that due to the nature of the venue, facilities are limited. Warm clothing and sensible footwear is advised. Tea and coffee will be available but you are welcome to bring a flask!
For more information, visit www.project-pigeon.co.uk
Project Pigeon’s Loft is located on Milk Street, Digbeth, Birmingham (in Boxxed’s backyard opposite a youth hostel, under a viaduct)
Book Online or call 0844 870 0000
Workshop: Poetry With Roz Goddard
2 years ago
Sunday 10th April 2011
Poetry Workshop with Roz Goddard
£23/£17 / 11am-1.30pm / Seminar Room, Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, Birmingham B3 3HG
Who knows wh
at an apple thinks? (Edwin Morgan).Explore the role of poet as the receiver of messages. How do we interpret what a fence panel thinks, or a peach? We will look at celebrated poets who use personae and use voices other than our own.
Roz Goddard’s fourth poetry collection is The Sopranos Sonnets & Other Poems (Nine Arches Press). She is a former poet-laureate for Birmingham, and her work is permanently displayed in BMAG’s newest gallery. Her poetry has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and 4. She runs writing workshops and courses, including for the Arvon Foundation and mentors individual writers. She is currently studying for an MPhil in writing at Glamorgan University. More details of her work can be found at (www.rozgoddard.com)
Book Online or call 0844 870 0000
Talking Cities: Performance Poetry
2 years ago
Saturday 9th April 2011
Talking Cities: Performance Poetry
Free! No need to book / 6.30pm / The Library Theatre, Birmingham Central Library, Paradise Place, Birmingham B3 3HQ
Hosted by, and featuring, Birmingham’s Poet Laureate Roy McFarlane plus a host of special guests [watch this space!], this evening of performance poetry looks at cities – our own and those we visit. Supported by Birmingham Libraries.
Partly inspired by Poet Laureate Roy’s recent visit to Amsterdam, this event encourages other poets to think about the places that mean something to them – home and away.
Lively, touching and not without laughs, this showcase has been devised specially for The Spring Thing.
Guest poets on the night include Dave Reeves, Julie Boden, Bohdan Piasecki, Kadisha, Alan’ Kurly’ McGeachie and Roz Goddard.
Workshop: Editing Your Fiction with Will Buckingham
2 years ago
Saturday 9th April 2011
Workshop: Editing Your Fiction
£23/£17 / 2pm – 4.30pm / Shakespeare Memorial Room, Birmingham Central Library, Paradise Place, Birmingham B3 3HQ
Writer Will Buckingham leads this popular workshop on editing , offering practical advice on perfecting your writing.
Will is a writer, lecturer and philosopher. His most recent book is Finding Our Sea-Legs: Ethics, Experience and the Ocean of Stories, is an exploration of the relationship between ethics and storytelling. The book is published by Kingston University Press
Will’s first novel, Cargo Fever, is published by Tindal Street Press. He is currently working on a second novel called The Martyrdom of Ivan Gelski, a second philosophy book, and various short stories and essays. His philosophy blog thinkbuddha.org was listed by the Sunday Times as one of the top 100 blogs of 2009. When Will is not writing, he teaches in the department of English and Creative Writing at De Montfort University, Leicester.
Book Online or call 0844 870 0000
Bodies In The Library: An Audio Journey
2 years ago
Bodies In The Library
Commissioned by Theatre Writing Partnership and Writing West Midlands, BODIES IN THE LIBRARY by Sibyl Ruth is a poetic and evocative audio journey exploring the past and present of Birmingham’s Central Library. Reflect on the pain and pleasure of its architectural idiosyncracies with some of its inhabitants, both real and imagined.
Bodies launches on Saturday 9th April and will be available thereafter (closing date tbc). To enjoy it you can use your own mp3 enabled device or borrow one from Bodies itself.
In advance of the launch, follow the project on Twitter( @ears_wide_open) or visit www.theatrewritingpartnership.org.uk for more information. There will be chances to download the audio tracks in advance for those with their own mp3 enabled device.
Be one of the first to experience ‘Bodies’, and gain extra insight into the process by attending one of two ‘how to’ sessions with the creators - Saturday 9th April 2011, 11am, 12.30pm, 2.30pm.
These sessions begin in the Library Foyer (next to reception desk in Central Library) and last approximately 30 minutes. They are FREE – just turn up!
This is a partnership project between Theatre Writing Partnership and Writing West Midlands.
The Writing Squads – Live!
2 years ago
Saturday 9th April 2011
The Writing Squads – Live!
Free – no need to book / 2.15pm / Arena Foyer, Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, Birmingham B3 3HG
Members of Writing West Midlands’ young creative writing groups ‘The Writing Squads’ come together to share some of the work they have developed with professional writers over the last few months. Poetry, short stories, mini-plays - there are no rules!
Join them, and writer Helen Calcutt, for a showcase of new young voices.
This event is FREE and there is no need to book.
The Writing Squads are a project of Writing West Midlands and are ongoing. For more information, go to their website.
**Please note for free events tickets are subject to availability on the day .**
Panel: The New Optimists
2 years ago
Saturday 9th April 2011
The New Optimists: Professor Hazel Barrett,Professor Gina Rippon and Dr Stuart Slater.
£6.50/£5 / 4pm / Arena Foyer, Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, Birmingham B3 3HG
Nick Booth (www.Podnosh.com) chairs a panel of contributors to the popular book The New Optimists – Geographer Professor Hazel Barrett, Neuroscientist Professor Gina Rippon and expert in Artificial Intelligence & Games Development Dr Stuart Slater. Their task: to interrogate what the future holds for us.
The New Optimists are lots of scientists (over 80 to date), a loose collection of non-scientists who are good at making things happen, plus a book, a website, some events — and profits from the sale of any of these activities will be used to fund young scientists. The idea was spawned by Kate Cooper in early 2009 when she asked lots of scientists the simple John Brockman question “What are you optimistic about?” Over 80 responded, and what they’ve said has been compiled into this book The New Optimists: Scientists view tomorrow’s world & what it means to us. This book was launched in September 2010 through a multimedia venture set up for the purpose, Linus Publishing.
Read more about The New Optimists and it’s contributors at their website, or follow them on twitter (@newoptimists)
Supported by The New Optimists.
Book Online or call 0844 870 0000
Panel: Turning History Into Story – Guy Saville, Saul David and Gaynor Arnold
2 years ago
The Festival regrets that this event has been cancelled.
We apologise for any inconvenience caused. If you have a ticket to this event, you can obtain a refund by contacting The Ticketsellers on 0844 870 0000 or you can exchange this ticket at the Spring Thing for another ticket to another event of the same value (subject to availability).
Books by these authors will still be available in the Festival Bookshop.
Saturday 9th April 2011
Panel: Turning History Into Story – Guy Saville, Saul David and Gaynor Arnold
£6.50/£5 / 12pm / Recital Hall, Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, Birmingham B3 3HG
Historian and broadcaster Saul David and historical novelists Guy Saville and Gaynor Arnold come together to talk about the process of turning dates and facts into creative narrative.
Saul David is the author of several critically-acclaimed history books, including The Indian Mutiny: 1857 (shortlisted for the Westminster Medal for Military Literature), Zulu: the Heroism and Tragedy of the Zulu War of 1879 (a Waterstone’s Military History Book of the Year) and, most recently, Victoria’s Wars: The Rise of Empire. His latest work of history – Soldiers: The British Redcoat from the Glorious Revolution to Waterloo – will be published by Penguin in February 2012.
Saul has also written two historical novels, set during the wars of the late Victorian period and featuring the Anglo-African soldier George Hart. The first, Zulu Hart, was published l
ast year. Praised by Bernard Cornwell and Conn Iggulden, it was chosen as a Waterstone’s New Talent in Fiction title and reached No. 4 in the Daily Telegraph hardback fiction bestsellers (see Books for reviews). The follow up, Hart of Empire, was published on 5 August.
An experienced broadcaster, Saul has presented and appeared in history programmes for all the major TV channels and is a regular on Radio 4. He is Professor of War Studies at the University of Buckingham, and Programme Director for Buckingham’s London-based MA in Military History.
Guy Saville was born in 1973. He has lived in South America and North Africa. The Afrika Reich is his first novel – a high-octane thriller of alternate history that combines meticulous research with edge of the seat suspense. Others have imagined a Europe ruled by Hitler but never before have we seen his empire stretch beyond the equator. Written with a cinematic sense of action, the book takes the conventions of the men-on-a-mission story and turns them on their head. It delivers more than just a page-turning plot. A rich cast of characters gives the narrative real emotional depth. This is a human story of love, revenge and the battle for Africa.
The research for the book has taken Guy Saville to the Nazis’ actual plans for Africa, the weaponry they were developing and declassified British intelligence documents. Real life historical figures appear with fictional characters to build a thoroughly convincing account of how the world might have been.
Please note that this event previously listed Robyn Young as a participant. Unfortunately Robyn is no longer able to take part. We are delighted that Tindal Street’s Gaynor Arnold is able to join this panel.
Gaynor Arnold was born and brought up in Cardiff, and was an au pair in Paris before reading English at St Hilda’s College, Oxford. She is married, with two grown-up children and currently works for Birmingham’s Adoption & Fostering Service. She is a member of a writer’s group and has had several short stories published in magazines and anthologies. Girl in a Blue Dress is her first novel. It was longlisted for The Man Booker Prize 2008, the Orange Broadband Prize 2009, and the Desmond Elliott Prize 2009, and was shortlisted for the McKitterick Prize 2009. Her short story collection, Lying Together, was published by Tindal Street Press in February 2011.
More information about Gaynor and her writing here
With thanks to Hodder and Stoughton and Tindal Street Press.
Book Online or call 0844 870 0000
Workshop: Truth, Lies & Life Writing – Candi Miller
2 years ago
Saturday 9th April 2011
Workshop: Truth, Lies & Life Writing – Candi Miller
£23/17 / Shakespeare Memorial Room, Birmingham Central Library, Paradise Place, Birmingham B3 3HQ
A writing workshop which considers the impossibility of truth when writing your or someone else’s life – and encourages you to do it anyway. You will engage in writing activities designed to help develop vivid recall so you can power your life-writing. With novelist Candi Miller (Salt and Honey)
Book Online or call 0844 870 0000
David Lodge: Launching A Man Of Parts
2 years ago
Saturday 9th April 2011
David Lodge: Launching A Man Of Parts
£6.50 /£5 /7.30pm/ Recital Hall, Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, Birmingham B3 3HG
Sponsored by Harvill Secker.
David Lodge is a novelist, critic, and Emeritus Professor of English Literature at the University of Birmingham, where he taught for many years, taking early retirement in 1987 to write full-time.
His new novel, A Man of Parts, is his fifteenth work of fiction. Others include Changing Places (1975), Small World (1984), and Nice Work (1988), all of which are set partly in “Rummidge,” a mythical version of Birmingham, where he continues to live. He has won several prizes and awards, including the Hawtherndon Prize and the Yorkshire Post Fiction Prize for Changing Places, the Sunday Express Book of the Year Award for Nice Work and the Whitbread Book of the Year Award for How Far Can You Go? (1980). Both Small World and Nice Work were shortlisted for the Booker Prize. David Lodge adapted Nice Work and Charles Dickens’ Martin Chuzzlewit as television serials for the BBC, produced at Pebble Mill in 1989 and 1994 respectively. More recent novels include Therapy (1995), Thinks…(2001), Author, Author (2004), and Deaf Sentence (2008) His stage plays The Writing Game (1990) and Home Truths (1998) were premiered at the Birmingham Rep, and a new play, Secret Thoughts, based on the novel Thinks… will be premiered at the Bolton Octagon in May of this year. He is the author of numerous works of literary criticism, including The Art of Fiction, Consciousness and the Novel, and The Year of Henry James. In 1998 he was awarded the CBE for services to literature.
A Man of Parts, is about H.G.Wells. As the second war he has lived through moves into its final phase, the ailing “H.G.” loo
ks back on a life crowded with incident, books, and women. David Lodge achieves a riveting portrait of a remarkable man who embodied as many contradictions as he had talents: a socialist who enjoyed his affluence, an acclaimed novelist who turned against the literary novel, a feminist womaniser, sensual yet incurably romantic, irresistible and exasperating by turns to those who knew him personally, but always vitally human.
Join us in celebrating the publication of this latest work with David.
Book Online or call 0844 870 0000
Cake & Crime: Sophie Hannah
2 years ago
Saturday 9th April 2011
Cake & Crime: Sophie Hannah
2pm – 3.15pm / £8 & £6 (includes refreshments)/ Recital Hall, Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, Birmingham B3 3HG
Celebrating the publication of her sixth psychological crime thriller Lasting Damage, and the forthcoming ITV dramatisation of an earlier novel in the same series, Point of Rescue, Sophie comes to Birmingham to eat yummy cake and talk about her writing career so far.
About Lasting Damage
It`s 1.15 a.m. Connie Bowskill should be asleep. Instead, she`s logging on to a property website in search of a particular house: 11 Bentley Grove, Cambridge. She knows it`s for sale; she saw the estate agent`s board in the front garden less than six hours ago.
Soon Connie is clicking on the `Virtual Tour` button, keen to see the inside of 11 Bentley Grove and put her mind at rest once and for all. She finds herself looking at a scene from a nightmare: in the living room, in the middle of the carpet, there`s a woman lying face down in a huge pool of blood. In shock, Connie wakes her husband Kit. But when Kit sits down at the computer to take a look, he sees no dead body, only a pristine beige carpet in a perfectly ordinary room…
Sophie Hannah is the author of five internationally bestselling psychological thrillers – Little Face, Hurting Distance, The Point of Rescue, The Other Half Lives and A Room Swept White. Her novels are published in 20 countries, with more foreign rights deals under negotiation. The Other Half Lives was shortlisted for the 2010 Independent Booksellers’ Book of the Year Award. Little Face and Hurting Distance were both longlisted for the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award, and Little Face was longlisted for the IMPAC Award. The Point of Rescue is currently being made for television, and will appear on ITV1 in 2011. Lasting Damage is the sixth novel in this series.
Sophie has also published five collections of poetry. Her fifth, Pessimism for Beginners, was shortlisted for the 2007 TS Eliot Award. Her poetry is studied at GCSE, A-level and degree level across the UK. From 1997 to 1999 she was Fellow Commoner in Creative Arts at Trinity College, Cambridge, and between 1999 and 2001 she was a fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford. She is thirty-nine and lives in Cambridge with her husband and two children, where she is Fellow Commoner at Lucy Cavendish College.
Join us for lots of cake and coffee and the chance to hear Sophie talk about her work. Questions welcome!
With thanks to Hodder and Stoughton
Book Online or call 0844 870 0000
Join Michael Thomas and Roz Goddard in launching their new poetry collections
2 years ago
Details of a Birmingham poetry launch you might like…
Birmingham Launch: The Sopranos Sonnets & Other Poems and Port Winston Mulberry
Roz Goddard & Michael Wyndham Thomas
Thursday 15th July from 7.30pm – 9.00pm.
The Priory Rooms, Bull Street, Birmingham, B4 6AF.
FREE Entry
Celebrate the Launch of two brand new poetry collections from Nine Arches Press and Littlejohn & Bray, with readings from Roz Goddard and Michael Wyndham Thomas.
About Roz Goddard’s The Sopranos Sonnets & Other Poems:
Roz Goddard’s The Sopranos Sonnets & Other Poems is acutely observed, streetwise and bittersweet. At its heart are ten sonnet-portraits inspired by the television series about a dysfunctional mafia boss and his family. Among the cast of characters is Gloria, the hauntingly-seductive mistress with a built-in self-destruct button, and Leotardo, ready to murder at the drop of a letter…
This pamphlet will be available as a standard pamphlet, but also as a signed limited-edition pamphlet in a print run of 100 copies only.
About Michael Wyndham Thomas’s latest poetry collection, Port Winston Mulberry from Littlejohn & Bray:
Mulberries was the name of the artificial harbours used for the D-Day landings in June, 1944. The title poem of the collection, Port Winston Mulberry highlights one of Michael Wyndham Thomas’s abiding interests: giving voice to anonymous witnesses when history throws a fit. But this is just one strand in his latest collection. Reflections on how relationships are (or ought to be); observations of the passing human scene; the light and shade of memory; even commemorations of a father’s lethal choice of van–all of these and more find voice in a collection as varied in mood and form as in subject. ‘My dad drove vans,’ declares the opening poem. Michael Wyndham Thomas drives in all directions and returns with much to report.
Win Tickets to the Spring Thing!
3 years ago
Want to win a pair of tickets to the Spring Thing? Fifty words or less on a book/short story/poem/collection/show you’ve read/seen and loved by one of the day’s writers – see
http://www.birminghambookfestival.org/events-2010/spring-thing-more-details for the full list. Send it to sara[at]birminghambookfestival[dot]org …by 5pm Friday 30 April 2010, with your name and email address. Good luck!
Christine Coleman Book Launch
3 years ago
Tuesday 27 April 2010 : A Launch Event for Christine Coleman’s new novel, Paper Lanterns. In conversation with Clarissa Dickson-Wright, Christine will read from her new book and talk about the ideas behind it.
Venue: The Ikon Gallery, 1 Oozells Square, Birmingham B1 2HS
Time: 6.45pm
Tickets: Free but please reserve via Sara Beadle on 0121 246 2792 or sara[at]birminghambookfestival[dot]org
The Spring Thing
3 years ago
You can WIN a pair of tickets to this event: Fifty words or less on a book/short story/poem/collection/show you’ve read/seen and loved by one of the day’s writers. Send it to sara[at]birminghambookfestival[dot]org …by 5pm Friday 30 April 2010, with your name and email address. Good luck!
The Birmingham Book Festival’s Spring Thing: A Festival In A Day
Saturday 29 May 2010
Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place, Birmingham B3 3HG
10.30am (for a 10.45 start) – 5.30pm.
Sponsored by Newman College
Booking is now open for this day long literature fest featuring Carol Ann Duffy, Helen Dunmore, Stuart Maconie, Amanda Smyth, Samantha Harvey, Aifric Campbell, Jo Bell & Jenn Ashworth.
List of Events:
- National Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy returns to Birmingham for another much-anticipated reading.
- Novelist Helen Dunmore talks about her new novel Betrayal.
- Novelists Amanda Smyth (Black Rock), Aifric Campbell (The Semantics Of Murder, The Loss Adjustor) and Samantha Harvey (The Wilderness) talk about their writing experiences.
- Writer, Presenter and Broadcaster Stuart Maconie talks about his Adventures on the High Teas and that elusive ‘middle England’.
- Poet Jo Bell and Novelist Jenn Ashworth come together in Too Much Information, ‘wise wicked and witty words from two lively writers’.
Tickets are for the whole day and entitle you to a place at each event.
Day Tickets: £29, £25, £19 (Concessions £26, £22, £16)
To Book call 0121 303 2323 or visit this page.
Click here to download a PDF flyer.
More information about each of the writers and a timetable will be available on this site nearer the time.
If you have any questions about this event feel free to contact us via the form on this site or on 0121 246 2792.
Orange Prize Readers’ Day: Joanne Harris and Francesca Kay
4 years ago
On Saturday 9 May the Birmingham Book Festival hosted the third Orange Prize Readers’ Day.
Kate Mosse, Honorary Director of the Orange Prize for Fiction and best selling author headed a panel of winners, judges and previously short listed authors for an afternoon of readings and discussion.
For those who couldn’t attend the event we attempted to live blog the event but due to technical problems we had to abandon this. However never undeterred, here are the bits we got with the rest of event taken from hand written notes.
I hope you that the for those of you who couldn’t attend, reading the following four blogs will give you an insight into the day and access to the best comments and advice offered by the wonderful writers who appeared….
Session One: Francesca Kay and Joanne Harris: ‘It’s not about the sound of a character’s voice, it’s about their heart beating’
Kate Mosse begins by asking Joanne about writing across different genres…
Joanne: I write in different genres so that I won’t be pigeon holed. A lot of my fiction features food and my readers were always asking about the recipes so I wrote the cookery books – with the help of former chef Fran Warde.
Kate: You are associated very strongly with writing about France, is that a blessing or a curse?
Joanne: Writing has enabled me to travel to the places I couldn’t travel to when I was younger and dreaming about it whilst I was in Leeds Grammar School….I am never tempted to write about places I don’t know however.
Kate asks the authors about writing about place…
Joanne: I always start with smell. For Paris it’s things like the smell of a certain bakery or a certain street after the rain.
Kate to Francesca: Will you ever go back to a place in your writing like Joanna did in ‘The Lollypop Shoes’?
Francesca: I greatly admire writers who write about where they know, like Anne Tyler who always writes about Baltimore. I’d like to go back to the Antartic, the setting of ‘An Equal Stillness’, one day – the door is ajar.
Kate to Joanna: Did you feel pressure to return to Chocolat, or did you want to revisit it?
Joanne: I didn’t want to do it for a while, because I thought it would just be a ‘Chocolat 2′ and I didn’t want to be stuck there like St Marys Mead! I wanted to give something new to the story, people kept asking me what happened to them….also my child who was a prototype for the child in Chocolate had grown to a new age…Writing Vianne again was like meeting a old friend after several years and wondering how they ended up in that place. I had lots of readers saying to me,’why did you do that to Vianne’ and I said ‘I didn’t do that to Vianne, life did!’
Question from audience: What did you think of the movie of Chocolat?
Joanne: It was a different animal, it belonged to the filmmakers….but every word in it was mine, the cast was amazing and and people liked it! I have no niggles about the film.
Question from audience: How do you make characters real?
Francesca: You have to see them absolutely, know what they wear, look like, eat for breakfast and most importantly what they are feeling.
Joanne: I agree, it’s a question of belief and the little details, you need to be able to second guess their reactions. I believe in the pasts of characters, lots of my characters are dragging their pasts around behind them! If you develop your characters, they will develop a voice of their own.
Question from the audience: How did you write as a man for ‘Blackberry Wine’?
Joanne: I think of it as writing an individual, its like method acting – what makes them tick? What do they care about? It’s not about the sound of their voice it’s the sound of their heart beating.
Kate: What will you be working on next ?
Francesca: It’s so lovely to be asked ‘what are you writing next’, instead of ‘why are you writing at all’!
by Karen