Whitby Literature Festival event: The Meaning of Life, Thursday 6 November 7pm
Here is the latest from the inaugural Whitby Literature Festival, 6-9 November, with details of a one-off event:
The Meaning of Life Thursday 6th November, 7pm
It’s the one question all of us seek an answer to: what is the meaning of life?
Ann Chadwick spoke to author James Bailey on his mission to find it, as he heads to Whitby Lit Fest.
James Bailey had a broken heart.
As a teenager, he was diagnosed with Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, a heart arrhythmia that saw his heart rate go up to 300 beats a minute.
“When you’re 16 or 17, you’re not really thinking about mortality, you’re thinking about your GCSEs.”
He faced an operation that could help fix him: It didn’t work.
“I was kind of told that was it. Then six months later the surgeon was like, ‘oh let’s try a different approach.’”
The first op, he was on a children’s hospital. The second, on the cusp of adulthood, he was put in an adult ward, surrounded by heart patients in their eighties. “It was a strange time. It definitely had a psychological impact on my life.”
Then, ten years ago, he had his heart broken metaphorically after a failed relationship, which triggered a project to help him work out what the heck was the point of it all.
He decided to write to experts – entrepreneurs, artists, adventures, politicians – to ask what they thought the meaning of life is. The answers, he says offer a ‘roadmap to finding your own path.’
Dame Jane Goodall, Dame Hilary Mantel, Cat Stevens, Sir Alan Ayckbourn, Julian Fellowes, and Bindi Irwin were some who wrote back, featuring in the book of letters he’ll be bringing to Whitby.
The psychotherapist, Joshua Fletcher, also wrote back; Joshua will be interviewing James on stage about the stories behind the book, with selected letters read by actors Ace Bhatti and Greta Scaachi on stage.
This one-off event is taking place on Thursday 6th November at 7pm.
We've been hard at work behind the scenes putting together a printed programme which will be available free of charge to all festival visitors.
We've also received lots of entries to our children's writing competition, which is fantastic! A big 'thank you' to all those who've submitted their entries so far. The deadline for entries is 24th October.
No comments:
Post a Comment