Archive for June, 2010
Eavesdroppers Rejoice – Your Day Is Nearing..
1 year ago
by Birmingham Book Festival
in News
Come on, admit it. You love it. Listening to other people’s conversations when you’re pretending to read a book/listen to your ipod/look out the window/eat your lunch/fall down the stairs. Especially if said conversations are salacious or shocking or just downright weird.
The only downside to this most fascinating of pursuits is the slight guilty blush you develop as you realise you’ve been holding your book upside down. You’re an amateur. You need help.
Now you’ve been challenged to go pro. Bugged is an eavesdropper’s dream. You listen in wherever you are on July 1st 2010, then you write something in response to what you’ve heard. Not only is no-one going to judge you for your listening in, you’re actually being told to do it. All the cool kids are doing it. Its allowed.
If you’re worried that permission to recklessly invade personal space will take all the fun out of it, fear not. Check out Bugged’s website for some classic chunks of conversation overheard so far, in the run up to what they’re calling B.O.D (Big Overhearing Day).
The icing on this particular nosey cake is that whatever you write has the chance to appear on their website, or even in the Bugged anthology, released in the autumn and launched at the Birmingham Book Festival.
So…. get yourself a pen and paper, or one of those newfangled typing devices that sit on your knees. Go somewhere that you are likely to encounter other people on Thursday, 1 July (the Book Festival team will be eavesdropping around the Custard Factory), and let your peeled ears do the rest.
Note: Book. Right way up. Otherwise gives the game away.
Join Michael Thomas and Roz Goddard in launching their new poetry collections
1 year 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.
Script workshops for dramatic writers
1 year ago
Check out TENacity, a programme of workshops designed to develop playwrights – a variety of venues, dates, times and tutors, and some of them are free!
Visit Script’s website for more:
http://www.scriptonline.net/stage.html
Or see their flyer here:
Bugged!
1 year ago
by Birmingham Book Festival
in News
BUGGED is a fantastic new writing project for summer 2010. This is how it works:
Launched at the Spring Thing on May 29th 2010, the project encourages you to go forth and eavesdrop, then turning your overhears into short pieces and submitting them to the competition.
Bugged encourages everyone to listen and write in response to what they hear – and you’ll be in great company, with a long list of professional writers taking part in the project. See www.bugged.org.uk for more information and Ts&Cs.
Their website encourages you to ‘ listen in to conversations and fragments of speech around you. Be discreet. Try not to get punched.’ That’s very good advice.
Eavesdropping day is July 1st, and submissions must be in before August 15th. There will then be launch events for the resulting anthology at Manchester Literature Festival and here, at the Birmingham Book Festival, in October 2010.
What are you waiting for?
The Spring Thing : Reviewed
1 year ago
by Birmingham Book Festival
in News
Writer Christine Coleman has reviewed the day here
Go to our YouTube Channel for video feedback from our audience
Audience queue for book signing with Carol Ann Duffy
Books and More Books...
We want your feedback!
1 year ago
by Birmingham Book Festival
in News
If you came to the Spring Thing we would welcome your feedback. If you didn’t manage to fill out one of our paper questionnaires, here is a link to an online survey. We are very grateful for your comments.
http://www.kwiksurveys.com/online-survey.php?surveyID=KNOLML_b3d4bd18
Write Your Children’s Book Workshop
1 year ago
WRITE YOUR CHILDREN’S BOOK!
Saturday June 19th, Kitchen Garden Cafe, Kings Heath, 10-4pm. £30 (£25).
Email sara[at]birminghambookfestival.org to book.
Children’s author Leila Rasheed leads a fun, practical one-day workshop. We’ll use writing games and exercises to focus on the skills of writing for children and young people. How do you get the story right for the age range? How do you create a gripping plot and characters that come alive on the page? What’s a hook and do you need one? How do you prepare a submission to an editor or agent? Come along for inspiration, information and motivation! And if you’ve got a work in progress, bring along the first page for fast, friendly feedback from a professional.
Complete beginners and those with some experience are both welcome.
Leila says….
I’m the author of three novels for 8 – 12 year olds, the first of which was Chips, Beans and Limousines (shortlisted for the Explore Book Award, longlisted for the Waterstone’s book prize, a Red House ‘Read of the Year’). Most recently, I’ve written a Young Adult novel, The World Turned Upside Down, as a commission for the Stratford-Upon-Avon Literary Festival 2010. My qualifications include an MA in Children’s Literature and an MA in Writing. I also have several years of experience as a children’s bookseller. In 2009 I was Honorary Teaching Fellow on the University of Warwick’s Writing MA.
