Archive for January, 2011
A Short Digest of Everything We Know
1 year ago
by Birmingham Book Festival
in News
There have been so many great emails/news items lately that we want to share with you.
We can’t fit everything in here, so apologies if we’ve missed you – you can always tweet us and we’ll pass the message on.
Here’s a selection of news and other things:
Writer Christine Coleman, whose novel Paper Lanterns we launched back in March 2010, is reserching the background to the letters from China that inspired the novel. She is asking for our help in tracking down the authors and recipients of them.
On Christine’s website you can view the letters and see more about her search – she is asking everyone to take a look – you never know where these connections may come from! A fascinating research project, too.
Our friends over at Sampad are very much looking forward to their latest production, Henna:
sampad in association with Arena Theatre presents
Henna: Thursday 17 February 7.30pm
Arena Theatre, Wulfruna St, Wolverhampton WV1 1SE
Tickets: £8 (£6 concessions)
Ticket Office: 01902 321321 / www.arenatheatre.info
On the eve of a wedding a young bride-to-be is having henna applied to her hands. As the patterns emerge, the stories begin to unfold…
British Punjabi storytellers Peter and Gorg Chand take you on a journey to incredible landscapes, with tales full of love, loss, betrayal and bollywood dancing!
With stories collected and translated from India and being told here for the first time, Peter and Gorg invite you to the wedding of the year!
Some really good things happening over at Writing East Midlands at the moment, according to their most recent newsletter - Alt Fiction festival, opportunities for poets and mentoring opportunities to mention a few.
Birmingham Libraries have an event on 1st February:
JILTED GENERATION: how Britain has bankrupted its youth with Ed Howker and Shiv Malik
Tuesday 1st February 2011 6.00pm – 8.30pm
Birmingham Library Theatre, Central Library, Birmingham
Free tickets via Birmingham Box Office on 0121 303 2323, online or in person at Birmingham Central Library reception.
Oh, and there are some gorgeous things happening over at Ikon Gallery.
Think that’s it for now…
More to come soon!
2011 – New Year, New Website, New Programme (almost!)
1 year ago
by Birmingham Book Festival
in News
Happy New Year to you all from the Book Festival team. We haven’t had a lot of rest over Christmas and January – we are busy planning for 2011 and beyond.
We have given the website a bit of an overhaul. We hope you find it easier to use. We will be adding more to it over the next few months as we move towards the big ‘moments’ in the Birmingham Book Festival calendar.
Following in the footsteps of our first ever Spring Festival (The Spring Thing) last year, we have another mini-festival to offer you in 2011.
The Spring Thing 2011 : Saturday 9th & Sunday 10th April.
This will be a fantastic weekend of literary events and workshops in Birmingham – the kind of thing you’ve come to expect from us and maybe some new things, too!
So far we can tell you we will be featuring some great literature, including crime/psychological thriller writer Sophie Hannah (if you haven’t read a Sophie Hannah novel yet, this should be your year – there are six of them now and Point of Rescue will be hitting your screens as an ITV drama in March..), a Book Festival Debate , a readers group, an evening of poetry in performance, workshops on many aspects of creative writing, and an intriguing non-fiction event that we think will surprise and delight.. Oh, and there will definitely be cake. More details as soon as we can release them, and a full programme and tickets will be available in February.
The Festival Bookshop, well loved in October, will be back. This is the place to hang out , listen to music, talk, drink tea, buy books and bump into writers and other readers.
We’ve also got a very exciting event planned for later in April that, for now, is under wraps – but we’ll tell you as soon as we can.
You might want to follow us on twitter, for all the latest and to let us know what you would like to see at this Festival and the next (October 4-20th 2011), which we are also starting to put together.
In the meantime there are other things to look forward to. Forthcoming open mic nights with guest writers in partnership with the Hippodrome, for one…. Watch this space.
Hoping you’re all having a good 2011 so far – our feet have hardly touched the floor!
