Tell Me On A Sunday
2 weeks ago
We know you have a story in you. Unleash it. Conjure a memory, recent or ancient, good or bad.
Tell it to yourself, re-tell it, hone it, cut it, embellish it. Pitch it to us. Get on stage and tell it.
Ikon, in collaboration with the Birmingham Book Festival presents a new series of free literary events. Hosted in Café Ikon, Tell Me On A Sunday is storytelling from life. Participants tell stories based around a specially selected theme, all with truth (and a good performance!) at their heart.
Each month, five storytellers will be chosen to perform a seven minute story live.
The events feature special guests and are curated by Cat Weatherill, one of Europe’s leading performance storytellers, who will also tell her own story. Originally championed by the Hay Festival, Cat has been creating and telling tales to adults and children for twelve years. She is also a best selling author, with books translated into nine languages.
The dates of these events are:
Sunday 19 February
Theme: Off the beaten track
Sunday 25 March
Theme: Hope and glory
Sunday 22 April
Theme: Feathers and bones
All events running from 4pm – 6.30pm and are FREE
Events begin at 4pm with Story Supper, a chance to meet fellow audience members and story tellers over a special Café Ikon menu (contact Ikon for prices). Performances commence at 5pm, finishing at 6.30pm.
Please note these events are intended for adult audiences. Places are free but should be reserved by calling Ikon on 0121 248 0708.
How to pitch your story:
Please visit the event page to see full details of how to pitch your own story and guidelines.
Join us for the launch of Clare Morrall’s new novel
2 weeks ago
Tuesday 21st February
The Roundabout Man by Clare Morrall
7pm – 8.30pm/ Free Event
Ikon Gallery
1 Oozells Square
Birmingham, B1 2HS
Sceptre and Writing West Midlands are delighted to invite you to celebrate the publication of the new novel from Clare Morrall, The Roundabout Man.
Who is The Roundabout Man? He doesn’t look like a tramp, yet he lives on a roundabout in a caravan and survives on the leftovers from a nearby motorway service station. He calls himself Quinn, the name of a boy in a world-famous series of children’s books, but he’s nearer retirement than childhood.
What he hopes no one will discover is that he’s the real Quinn, immortalised as a child by his mother in her entrancing tales about a little boy’s adventures with his triplet sisters. It is this inheritance he has successfully run away from- until now. When Quinn’s reclusive existence is invaded, he is forced to face his past, and the uncomfortable truths and secrets it contains about himself, his sisters and, most of all, his mother.
This event includes a reading and book signing.
How to book:
Places are free but should be reserved by calling Ikon on 0121 248 0708.
It’s all over
3 months ago
by Birmingham Book Festival
in News
It is the end of another lovely festival, and we are fast collating all the images, reviews and articles we want to share with you, via this site, Facebook, Twitter and our Blog.
Thank you to everyone who attended an event or supported us in any way. We enjoy each and every event and love meeting our audience.
Please continue to visit this site to keep up to date with our forthcoming events and activities.
Thanks for a great festival!
So far so good…
3 months ago
by Birmingham Book Festival
in News
Here’s a look at what we’ve been getting up to at the Festival so far. There are more pictures over at our Facebook page, too.
Last Thursday, National Poetry Day, we launched the Festival…..
and helped Birmingham Libraries announce the new Birmingh
am Poet Laureate, Jan Watts. 
Yumm Cafe in Digbeth hosted our lovely launch party and quiz, chaired by charming, funny poet Matt Harvey, who also entertained us with a few poems and got to know the 2010-11 Poet Laureate, Roy McFarlane, who also shared some words with the waiting crowd!
Roy, assuring us there are ‘bikes, bikes everywhere…’ in Amsterdam.
On Friday, we joined Tindal Street Press for the launch of their new anthology, Too Asian, Not Asian Enough, at Ikon Gallery.
Thanks to Ikon for the gorgeous backdrop!
After Tindal Street, we met writer Ian Leslie, who, in conversation with head of the new Library of Birmingham project Brian Gambles, shared with us the thinking behind his books, Born Liars. We all are, in turns out, but don’t worry, it’s okay… with special thanks to the RSA for co-presenting this event.
Saturday was our book fair for independent presses, States of Independence (West), at Eastside Projects in Digbeth.
After a very early start the presses got down to some serious bookselling, and a programme of brief readings and seminars went on throughout the day.
There was soup and cake, too…
On Monday,we were delighted to join The Writers’ Guild in presenting ‘Developing Writers with the BBC’ featuring the BBC Writersroom’s Paul Ashton.
Amongst these events a Fringe festival has been happening in and around the Festival Bookshop, featuring everything from drop in sessions with the Book Doctors to events with authors, including Edmund Bealby-Wright and Linda Green. Today favourite poems were shared with new Birmingham Poet Laureate Jan Watts.
So much more to come!! Keep checking our facebook page, our Blog, which contains some great reviews of the events we’ve enjoyed so far, and of course book your tickets for everything still to come!
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.
Birmingham Post Interviews Will Self
4 months ago
by Birmingham Book Festival
in News
Here is the Birmingham Post’s Interview with Will Self, ahead of his event on Thursday 13th October.
Image: Polly Boland
All Night at The Museum
4 months ago
A huge well done to all those who braved, and survived, Saturday’s all night writing workshop.
The fourth of these we have run, it is so pleasing to see that people still have the desire and courage to experiment with their creativity in this way.
From 11pm to 5am we wrote, drank coffee, snacked on unhealthy sugary things and wandered inquisitively around the warren of warehouses and stores that make up the Museum Collections Centre in Birmingham.
It was a long night, but a staggering experience to be surrounded by artefac
ts as eclectically arranged as these, many of which originate from the West Midlands.
Over on our October Festival Blog, our student journalists are beginning the long process of writing this up, with more detailed interviews, images and examples of creative writing to follow.
Here, on our Facebook Page, you can view a gallery of images of the night’s activities. You can also look back over our twitter feed for snippets of information and pictures posted as we went along.
You can also catch a piece about the workshop on BBC Midlands Today on Monday 3 October 2011 at 1.30pm and 6.30pm.
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.
Speak to Strangers
4 months ago
Saturday 15th October
4pm/ Free
Festival Bookshop, Library Foyer, Central Library, Chamberlain Square, Birmingham, B3 3HQ
Originally a daily fiction blog, Speak to Strangers was 100 hundred-word stories, one for each day, based on random encounters with Londoners. The series is now available in print, published by Penned in the Margins.
Speak to Strangers will visit Birmingham in October, aiming to document and capture the essence of the city through a series of original hundred-word stories.
You can follow Gemma online – day by day – as she meets and records her interactions with authors, poets and festival-goers in a new sequence hundred-word stories. And you’re invited to write about your own experiences of speaking to strangers at the festival, all at www.gemmaseltzer.co.uk.
Hear Gemma read her stories and share her experience of speaking to strangers in our Festival Bookshop from 4pm on Saturday 15th October.
To find out more, you can follow Speak to Strangers on Twitter @gemseltz and #speaktostrangers
Tickets: Free, no need to book
Cancellation of event: Owen Hatherley
4 months ago
by Birmingham Book Festival
in News
Due to unforeseen circumstances, we have had to cancel the following event Owen Hatherley: The New Ruins of Great Britain. Owen Hatherley is unfortunately unable to attend the Birmingham Book Festival this year. We are sincerely sorry for any inconvenience caused.
If you have already purchased tickets for this event, or wish to book tickets to any of our other fantastic events, please contact the Box Office on 0121 446 3232.
To see what other great events are taking place during the Festival, please click here
