On The Blog: Interview with Festival Book Author Jenn Ashworth & All Night Writing
7 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
8 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
8 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
Get involved with Slam! Young People set mic alight
8 months ago
by Birmingham Book Festival
in News
If you are young person aged 13+ interested in poetry and creative writing and would like to get involved
in our poetry slam which is taking place on Saturday 8th October 2011 please get in touch!
We are looking for young people from across the region who will be mentored by some of the young poets who are involved with RoguePlay’s regular Rhymes night. Throughout the afternoon our poets who include Becki Head, Kesha Campbell and Jordan Westcarr will mentor the young budding slammers as well as performing their own sets and the afternoon will be culminated in a performance and poetry slam. The public will then vote for their favourite team.
The mentoring will take place from 1pm and the peformances will happen between 4pm – 5pm at the Library Theatre, Birmingham Central Library.
The day will be compared by former Birmingham Young Poet Laureate Matt Windle.
If you are interested in getting involved in this, please send us a message via the contact page by clicking here.
Bodies In The Library
8 months ago
by Birmingham Book Festival
in News
We would like to invite you once again to experience Bodies in the Library, a free evocative audio tour of Birmingham Central 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.
In 2013, the new Library of Birmingham will be open for business. Nevertheless, before indulging in that fantastic new construction, you now have the chance to go behind the concrete walls of its predecessor and look at the old library with new eyes. Author Sibyl Ruth takes you on a poetic journey through time and library space by telling you the building’s untold stories. It is a good-bye to a building from the past, just before we delve into the future. Reflect on the vision and promise of the building when it first opened, with some of its inhabitants – both real and imagined. Discover intimate corners and wide vistas as you tread familiar paths in a long farewell.
To enjoy it you can use your own mp3 enabled device or borrow one from Bodies itself. The audio project is available to experience now and will continue to run throughout the Birmingham Book Festival 2011.
For more information follow visit www.theatrewritingpartnership.org.uk you can also follow theproject on Twitter( @ears_wide_open)
This project is a partnership between Theatre Writing Partnership and Writing West Midlands.
Celebrate Wha? An anthology of West Midlands poets
8 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
Follow the progress of Boy You Turn Me
8 months ago
You can now follow the progress of our specially commissioned sound installation called Boy You Turn Me on a blog. The installation by contemporary classical composer Ailis Ni Riain and writer David Gaffney will be situated in a vacant shop unit within the Pavilions shopping centre for the duration of the Birmingham Book Festival 2011 (6th – 16th October)
You can view the blog here www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/projects/single/1463010. To find out more about the project please click here.
There is also a Facebook group that you can join http://www.facebook.com/pages/Birmingham-Book-Festival/97775632519#!/groups/213492258688104/?id=237525156284814¬if_t=group_activity
Boy You Turn Me, Thursday 6th – Sunday 16th October 2011, Unit 10, Pavilions, Birmingham, B4 7SL
Supported by: 
The Writers’ Toolkit: Annual Writer Networking Conference
8 months ago
by Birmingham Book Festival
in News
Saturday 19th November 2011
South Birmingham College,
High Street, Digbeth,
Birmingham, B5 5SU
A conference for Writers, agents, publishers, producers, teachers, development workers and practitioners from across the literature sector.
Sixteeen sessions to choose from, plus time to network in between.
For full details and booking please visit http://www.writingwestmidlands.org/develop/the-writers-toolkit-2011/ or call 0121 246 2770
States of Independence (West)
9 months ago
Saturday 8th October
10am – 4pm/ Free, just drop in
Eastside Projects (Gallery),
86 Heath Mill Lane, Digbeth,
Birmingham, B9 4AR
States of Independence (West) is a book fair celebrating regional (and some national) independent publishers of poetry, fiction, art and several points in between. Come and browse the latest in independent publications, meet publishers, writers and other readers. There will be a programme of events and readings throughout the day, including panel discussions and flash workshops, as well as a quiet area to relax with a coffee and your just-bought book. Set within the striking surrounds of Eastside Projects Digbeth gallery, this is a chance to explore the vibrant independent publishing movement in the West ands and beyond.
States of Independence (West) has been produced by the West Midlands Independent Publishers Network, and has been managed by Writing West Midlands and Nine Arches Press. The Network includes Nine Arches Press, Flarestack Poets, Cinnamon Press, Offa’s Press, Five Seasons Press, Rubery Press and Tindal Street Press. States of Independence was first created in the East Midlands by Five Leaves Press, who have supported the Network in bringing this event to the West Midlands.
Publishers who will be present at States of Independence include:
Shoestring Press
Leafe Press
Cinnamon Press
Penned in the Margins
Five Leaves Publications
Flarestack Poets
Sidekick Books
Tindal Street Press
Offa’s Press
Supported by Eastside Projects www.eastsideprojects.org
Price: Free, just come in and browse!
Art & Writing: Launching The Barber Trail
9 months ago
by Birmingham Book Festival
in News
Thursday 13th October
6.30pm – 8.30pm (Viewing from 5.30pm)/ Free
The Barber Institute of Fine Arts,
University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2TS
Join us for an evening or prose and poetry readings inspired by the Barber’s magnificent collection of painting, sculpture, and decorative art. The Barber’s first ever writer in residence, Philip Monks, along with academics from the University of Birmingam’s English Literature department, will delight the audience with new and original pieces as well as classic works by the greats such as John Donne and Alexander Pope. A twilight tour of the collection will be supported by an Art and Writing trail highlighting a selection of artworks accompanied by specially produced literary labels.
This event is supported by a series of free creative writing workshops: No need to book, just drop in.
Friday 7 October, from 2pm-5pm
Saturday 8 October, 11am – 12noon (adults), 2.30pm – 3.30pm (adults) and 1pm – 2pm (children) Wednesday 12 October, from 2pm-5pm
Resident word-artist and playwright Philip Monks will show you how to put your love of art into words, as well as producing his own literary work in response to the Barber’s collection, architecture and people.
For more information about The Barber Institute of Fine Arts, please visit their website www.barber.org.uk
Tickets: Free
For more information and to book a place
email education[at]barber.org.uk or telephone
0121 414 2261/7335
