Karen's blog: Wakefield Literature Festival, 18-27 September 2015

With only days to go until the start of the Wakefield Literature Festival, I thought I would share details of the upcoming events:

Wakefield Lit Fest 2015 - 18th - 27th September

Get Set for the Opening Weekend!

Get set for a packed start to Wakefield Lit Fest 2015! The Orangery Arts Bar & Café is geared up and ready to serve an array of unique beers and wines from Kirkstall Brewery so you can relax and contemplate mixed metaphors and the day’s events and peruse our book swap area.

The festival is delighted to welcome back Dr Jonathan Foyle for a pre-festival event on Thursday 17th September, presented by the Wakefield Civic Society. The talk celebrates the anniversary of the Magna Carta and what Lincoln Cathedral reveals about that fascinating period.

The opening weekend kicks off with An Evening with Gillian Clarke, national poet of Wales and one of Wales’ most influential and widely read contemporary writers. Local award-winning Yew Tree Youth Theatre presents a double bill of drama at the Cathedral Academy with new plays by Gemma Whelan and Andrew Payne.

Saturday sees the festival go to Featherstone, following the success of Ossett ‘Festival in Day’ last year presented in partnership with Ossett Observer and Trinity Church. Featherstone Festival of Words is a bespoke mini festival centred around Featherstone Library with a range of events including family friendly activities with Rusticus Arts; high octane fun with multi-award nominated graphic novelists the Etherington Brothers; a creative workshop with writer and broadcaster Ian Clayton; a murder mystery tea dance and an evening of rugby talk with Scratching Shed Publishing.

Make a day of it and explore the city and discover your creative side in inspirational settings with a creative writing workshop with Matt Abbott at The Hepworth Wakefield to help kick that writer’s block, or be amazed by the vistas and stunning parkland at Nostell Priory at a day of creative writing and poetry. Take a trip to Newmillerdam and enjoy a tranquil guided walk around the lake with selected readings of poetry and prose with a woodland theme.

Get an insight into world-renowned Wakefield-born artist Barbara Hepworth in a talk that coincides with a major retrospective at Tate Britain and publication, ‘The Drawings of Barbara Hepworth.’ Why not catch Laura Barnett, author of ‘The Versions of Us’ and one of the Observer’s New Faces of Fiction 2015 at Wakefield Library to hear more about her first novel.

Families are invited along to Trinity Heroes where superhero wannabes can get involved with free hands on activities and be inspired by comic book villains and graphic artists at Trinity Walk Shopping Centre followed by a red carpet premiere event on 26th September.

Images: Kate Fox, Nick Arnold & Nine Lives

Children and Young People are invited to discover something new…

New for 2015 we are inviting children and young people to take part in workshops and events as part of our first dedicated Children & Young People Weekend from 25th-27th September. The weekend starts with a special appearance by Nick Arnold on Friday 25th September best known for his ‘Horrible Science’ series of children’s books performing his awe inspiring and explosive live family show at Queen Elizabeth Grammar School. During the weekend you can create comic books with cartoonist and writer Neill Cameron and illustrator John Welding, hone your song writing skills with Andy Craven-Griffiths, learn how to write and perform with performance poet Kate Fox, discover the joy of writing every day with real life diary aficionado and author of ‘The Private Blog of Joe Cowley’, Ben Davis.

If you’ve been bitten by the storytelling bug you can get involved with our Big Rea d and be part of the biggest reading event Wakefield has ever seen! All you have to do is invite your community of friends and family into a venue of your choice to read ‘Dog Loves Drawing’ by Louise Yates at 11am on Saturday 26th September – we can even provide you with the book and a volunteer storyteller, just let us know.

Images: Wakefield to Zambia, Woodland Wanderings at Newmillerdam, The Merry West Collective

Lit Fest Seed Fund

Each year we celebrate a host of events put together by local groups within the Wakefield community. From spoken word performances to film screenings, there’s something to tempt everybody’s literary taste buds. The Lit Fest Seed Fund encourages groups and individuals from across the city and district to get involved with the festival by producing their own events and is funded by Arts Council England’s Grants for the Arts scheme.

This year we’ve got a line up of events at venues all over Wakefield: drop in for a chat with Rugby League Legend, Brian Lockwood at the Red Shed, along with a busy programme of book discussions and free creative writing workshops with critically acclaimed playwright and writer April De Angelis and Wakefield’s own crime fiction author, Neil White; see Black Horse Poets perform at Wakefield Cathedral, celebrate with women writers at Westgate Studios; lounge with coffee, cake and poetry at Mocha Moocho, relax with an evening of oriental music and poetry at Chantry Chapel, and try out your spoken word skills at the Agbrigg and Belle Vue Community Centre. Over at the festival hub, The Orangery, we’ve got readings from local poetry circle Beehive Poets, memoirs of a Doncaster pit nurse, a quiz to test your literary onions, an afternoon of African musical delight as you are transported to Zambia, a fast and furious script scratch night with My Big Phat Writers Group, and a masterclass on getting that novel published – as well as a host of poetry and author events.

We look forward to seeing you at the Lit Fest events over the next few weeks,

The Lit Fest team at Beam.
#WLF15

To book and for more information visit www.wakefieldlitfest.org.uk / 01924 831 114 (Box Office)

View the Wakefield Lit Fest 2015 programme here