Local Writing events January 2013

Anna Turner has just informed me of some fantastic events taking place locally in January, so I thought I would post the information for my followers:

Thursday 17 January
Meet the Author - Fiona Shaw
Central Library, Halifax
7.30pm

FIONA SHAW is a writer living in York. She is the author of a memoir, Out of Me (Virago, 2001) and four novels. She is a Royal Literary Fund writing fellow and teaches creative and life writing. Her most recent novel, A Stone’s Throw, is published by Serpent’s Tail. Set in England and Africa, and opening during World War II, A Stone’s Throw is a novel about family, about love, about duty; it’s about the people we miss and the secrets we keep. Above all though, it’s about the choices we make – and those we don’t.

Tickets - £3

Wednesday 23 January

Meet the Author - Stephen May
King Cross Library
6pm

STEPHEN MAY is an award-winning novelist who lives in West Yorkshire. In 2009 he won the Welsh Book of the Year Reader’s Prize for his first novel TAG (Cinnamon Press, 2008), despite not being in the slightest bit Welsh. His second novel Life! Death! Prizes! was published by Bloomsbury in 2012. For 19-year-old Billy and his little brother, Oscar, their mother’s death is the most random and tragic and stupid thing that could possibly have happened to them. Now Billy must be both mother and father to Oscar. Funny, bittersweet and unforgettable, Life! Death! Prizes! is a story of grief, resilience and brotherly love.

£3

Sunday 27 January

11.30am – 1.30pm        
Writing the Journey – a Poetry Workshop with Christy Ducker

Write yourself into a change of scene. Join Christy Ducker for a poetry workshop that focuses on travel and transformation.

£6/4

2.30pm – 4.30pm               

Literary Thievery - Short story workshop with Cassandra Parkin

Do we ever really grow out of fairy-tales? Why do grown adults still love films like A Company of Wolves and Snow White and the Huntsman? And if you’re writing for modern adults, what exactly is the relevance of stories about dwarves, royalty, stepmothers, gingerbread houses, and wolves dressed up as our grandmothers? Dive into the world’s Grimmest treasure-chest and see what you can discover to fire your short-story writing.

£6/4

2.30pm – 4.30pm

The Long Poem: finding the story and the form – a Poetry Workshop with Pauline Plummer

Using mythic and fairy tale journeys, we'll look at plotting the long narrative poem - orchestrating its parts to create contrast and narrative hooks. We'll link that to the forms of poetry, mood and tone, using examples from a range of  verse novels/autobiographies from Bernardine Evaristo's 'Lara'  to Basil Bunting's 'Briggflatts' and Byron's 'Don Juan'.

£6/4

5pm – 6pm                        

Tales of Magic and Faraway Places

Readings and discussion with Christy Ducker, Cassandra Parker and Pauline Plummer

Chaired by James Nash

The nights have drawn in and the hours of darkness crowd the days at both ends. Are you fed up of winter already? Come along to this reading where three exciting new writers will transport you through magic and tales of faraway places.

Free event

CHRISTY DUCKER lives in Northumberland. Her pamphlet Armour (Smith/Doorstop, 2011) was a Poetry Book Society Choice. She has received the Andrew Waterhouse Prize, and is currently writing a collection of poems about Grace Darling, as part of her PhD research at Newcastle University. ‘Unsettling and edgy, these poems have the strangeness of myth and the zany logic of nursery rhymes, but for adult ears.’ Simon Armitage

CASSANDRA PARKIN grew up in Hull, and now lives in East Yorkshire. Her short story collection, New World Fairy Tales (Salt, 2011), won the 2011 Scott Prize for Short Stories. Drawing on the original, unexpurgated tales collected by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, six of their most famous works are re-imagined in the rich and endlessly varied landscapes of contemporary America.

PAULINE PLUMMER is originally from Liverpool but has lived in the North East since the 1980s. She tutors creative writing for Northumbria University and the Open University. Written in Chaucer’s rime royal, From Here to Timbuktu is a book about Third World poverty and First World consumption. It’s a travelogue, a satire, an epic poem, and a journey across the savannah in a four–wheel drive from here – to Timbuktu.