Now in it’s 7th Year the D.H. Lawrence Festival brings togehter a diverse programme of events and activities including reading groups; lectures; events as part of the national Heritage Open Weekend; film screenings, exhibitions; guided walks; workshops and family events.

The full programme will be available from July 2010.

For further information telephone 01773 717353, email culture@broxtowe.gov.uk, visit www.dhlawrenceheritage.org or join the D.H. Lawrence Festival Facebook page.

Join the official ‘Queen of Teen’ and author of the hugely successful Confessions of Georgia Nicolson series as she talks about her new book Withering Tights, the first in a hilarious new series entitled The Misadventures of Tallulah Casey. Laugh your tights off at the (VERY) amateur dramatic antics of Talullah and her bonkers mates…….. boys, snogging and bad acting guaranteed! Louise will be interviewed about her new book and will also answer questions from the audience and be available to sign books after the event.

This event is aimed at young people aged 13 and over.

St Peter’s Church, Oundle. Tickets £5 from 01832 274333.

Join highly respected journalist, author and broadcaster Peter Snow as he speaks about his new book To War with Wellington, a gripping account of a very human story about a remarkable leader and his men.

What made Arthur Duke of Wellington the military genius who was never defeated in battle? In the vivid narrative style that is his trademark, Peter Snow recalls how Wellington evolved from a backward, sensitive schoolboy into the aloof but brilliant commander. He tracks the development of Wellington’s leadership and his relationship with the extraordinary band of men he led from Portugal in 1808 to their final destruction of Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo. Having described his soldiers as ‘the scum of the earth’ Wellington transformed them into the finest fighting force of their time.

Peter Snow was ITN’s Diplomatic and Defence Correspondent from 1966 to 1979, and presented Newsnight from 1980 to 1997. With his Swingometer he has been an indispensible part of election nights, and he is also much loved for his military history television series such as Battlefield Britain, which aired in 2004. Peter won the Judges’ Award for Services to Broadcasting at the Royal Television Society Awards in 1998.

St Peter’s Church, Oundle. Tickets £10 from 01832 274333.

September 24-26 will see New Art Exchange transformed into Lyric Lounge Nottingham – a spell-binding performance space celebrating the power of live literature. Lyric Lounge Nottingham is part of a region-wide series of mini-festivals taking place throughout 2010. Featured artists include Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze, Mellow Baku, Sureshot, Daljit Nagra and John Agard.

Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze
Jamaica born artist Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze is the world’s first female Dub Poet and has performed on every continent, apart from the Antarctic. Her published works ponder social and political issues, as well as her own experience of mental health. Jean is a Bloodaxe poet and the author of seven collections of poetry and fiction. Jean is patron for Lyric Lounge Nottingham. She will be running FREE one-to-ones for local writers on Saturday 25 September, 11am-1pm, and has been a mentor for several commissioned Lyric Lounge artists.

John Agard
John Agard is an poet, playwright and children’s writer who has won over five awards for his work, and his poetry is featured in the UK GCSE syllabus. He has been a BBC Poet in Residence and his books include ‘We Brits’, ‘Alternative Anthem’ and ‘Clever Backbone’. See him headline Blackdrop – a vibrant poetry night – on Friday 24 September, 8-11pm (£5/ £3 Concs.)

Sureshot
Michael Brome aka Sureshot is a poet, rapper and music-loving lyricist. He has performed widely including Jazz Café, Phoenix Arts Centre, De-Montfort Hall, Peepul Centre and Nottingham Playhouse. In 2007 he was a contributing artist to the ‘Freedom Showcase’ a spoken word show for the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade cultural series. The same year he won a Spoken Word Commission in a project initiated by Baroness Lola Young in collaboration with Renaissance One, resulting in a performance at the Queen Elizabeth Hall.

Daljit Nagra
Daljit Nagra was born and raised in West London, then Sheffield, and lives in Willesden where he teaches in a secondary school. His first collection, Look We Have Coming to Dover! won a Forward Prize for Best First Collection and was shortlisted for the Costa Poetry Award. In 2008 he won the South Bank Show / Decibel Award.

Mellow Baku
Mellow Baku weaves rich musical prose relating stories of transformation, consciousness and relationships. She is inspired by the messages of conscious Reggae, the ethos of Jazz, and experiences of personal faith. She has worked with many artists including Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze and Michie One, at venues including the Barbican, Jazz Café, North Sea Jazz Festival and New York’s Knitting Factory.

http://www.lyriclounge.co.uk

Nottingham Writers’ Days are a programme of one-day intensive writing workshops, led by award-winning writers from Nottingham Writers’ Studio. Each day will include workshop sessions, writing exercises and peer reviewing, plus individual discussions about your work. The sessions will be held at Nottingham Contemporary Art Gallery from 10.15am-5.30pm, followed by a group dinner at 6pm.* There will be a limit of 12 participants for each workshop.

Cost: £45 NWS Members and Concessions £75 Non-members per event. This will include tuition, tea/coffee on arrival (replenished throughout the day), lunch, and dinner.

For more information and to book, please contact: admin@nottinghamwritersstudio.co.uk

Summer/Autumn Programme 2010

Saturday 10th July 2010
‘From Idea to Screenplay’ with Michael Eaton
Writers who wish to participate in this workshop must have no inhibitions, for they will be required (in the company of folk they have never met before) to develop an idea of their own through various stages: the pitch, the outline, the treatment and, at last, the screenplay. In the history of cinema the genesis of most films has come from a story which already existed, so the focus will be on ‘Adaptation’. Each participant should bring a five minute statement of an idea they would like to turn into a screenplay (of any length). This founding notion might derive from a newspaper article, from another medium, perhaps even from an incident in their own lives. In the morning we will benignly share these tales and in the afternoon we will critically work together to wonder how the principles of narrative structure might be mobilised to turn base metal into dramatic gold.

Saturday 25th September 2010
‘Planning and Developing Your Novel’ with Nicola Monaghan
This course will focus on the issues faced by a novelist producing an extended piece of work. Looking at plot, narrative structure, character and practical approaches to planning your work, the session will involve writing exercises, discussion and analysis of other writers’ work. Ideally participants will have been writing for a while and, to get the most out of the day, will bring ideas about a project to develop during the workshops.

Saturday 23rd October 2010
‘Cross It Out and Start Again: Editing Fiction’ with Jon McGregor
This course will look at the art of editing, where much of the work of writing is really done. We’ll study some before-and-after examples from published writers’ work, and consider some of the aims and challenges of insightful editing, before moving on to wield the mighty red pen over some of our own work. The workshops will concentrate on editing shorter pieces, but we will also cover ways of approaching the overall structure and shape of a novel. Participants should bring a piece of writing with them: either a short story, or a novel extract with associated synopsis/outline. Mighty red pens will be provided.

Workshop Leaders

Michael Eaton, MBE, is a screenwriter who specialises in docudrama. His work includes Shipman, Shoot To Kill and Who Bombed Lockerbie. His fictional work includes Flowers of the Forest and the TV series Signs and Wonders. He has adapted works by George Eliot and Charles Dickens for BBC Radio 4, and is visiting Professor in the School of Creative Writing at Nottingham Trent University.
See Michael Eaton’s entry at http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0247861

Nicola Monaghan has worked as a teacher, a financial analyst and a software guru. She gained an MA in Writing from Nottingham Trent University in 2004. Her first novel, The Killing Jar, won a Betty Trask Award, the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Prize and the Waverton Good Read. She has subsequently published a second novel, Starfishing, and a novella, The Okinawa Dragon. http://www.nicolamonaghan.co.uk

Jon McGregor is the author of the critically acclaimed If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things and So Many Ways To Begin. He is the winner of the Betty Trask Prize and the Somerset Maugham Award, and has twice been longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. He was born in Bermuda in 1976. He grew up in Norfolk and now lives in Nottingham. Even the Dogs is his third novel. http://www.jonmcgregor.com

BOOKING FORM

Please return this booking slip to: Nottingham Writers’ Studio, 49 Stoney Street, Lace Market, Nottingham NG1 1LX with your BOOKING FEE (£45/£75 per day). Cheques are payable to Nottingham Writers’ Studio.

We will confirm your reservation upon receipt of this booking form and fee, and you will be emailed/sent a full itinerary of the day. Places will be offered on a ‘first come’ basis. If the course is full, payment will be returned.
Nottingham Writers’ Days

– please indicate which workshop/s you would like to attend
Saturday 10

th July 2010 ‘From Idea to Screenplay’ with Michael Eaton
Saturday 25

th September 2010 ‘Planning and Developing Your Novel’ with Nicola Monaghan
Saturday 23

rd October 2010 ‘Cross It Out and Start Again: Editing Fiction’ with Jon McGregor
FULL NAME:

ADDRESS:

POST CODE:

TELEPHONE:

EMAIL:

*All participants must be 18 years or over. You are welcome to book more than one event.

Please tell us about any special requirements you may have (including dietary requirements) here:

Aly Stoneman
Coordinator
Nottingham Writers’ Studio
Sutton Place Business Centre
49 Stoney Street
Nottingham
NG1 1LX

0115 9597947

admin@nottinghamwritersstudio.co.uk

http://www.nottinghamwritersstudio.co.uk

Join eminent historian, archaeologist and farmer Francis Pryor as he speaks about his new book The Making of the British Landscape, a fascinating account of Britain from prehistory to the present day as it has been preserved in our fields, farms, roads, buildings, towns and villages, mountains, forests and islands.
Men were hunting reindeer across Northamptonshire long before Britain became an island and human relationships, patterns of trade and commerce, religion, warfare and politics have had an enormous effect on the making of its landscape ever since. From the undulating folds left by the three-field system to the Norfolk Broads, formed when medieval peat pits flooded, from the ceremonial landscapes of Stonehenge to the spread of the railways – evidence of how man’s effect on Britain surrounds us. In The Making of the British Landscape, Francis Pryor explains how these clues interlock to tell the fascinating history of our land and how people have lived on it. Covering both urban and rural landscapes and full of pictures, maps and drawings showing everything from how we can still pick out Bronze Age fields on Bodmin Moor to the defensive landscapes of World War II, The Making of the British Landscape makes us look afresh at our surroundings and really see them for the first time.

Francis Pryor appears frequently on TV’s Time Team and is best known locally for unearthing the Bronze Age settlement at Flag Fen. He is the author of Seahenge, as well as Britain BC and Britain AD, both of which he adapted and presented as Channel 4 series.  He is former president of the Council for British Archaeology and has spent thirty years studying the prehistory of the Fens. He has excavated sites as diverse as Bronze Age farms, field systems and entire Iron Age villages.

St Peter’s Church, Oundle. Tickets £7 (£6 concessions) from 01832 274333.

Nottingham groups have come together to organise a special day of events to celebrate the life and works of Nottingham writer and poet Alan Sillitoe which will take place on Saturday, 2nd October at the Council House in the Old Market Square.

The centrepiece of the celebrations will feature an exhibition and a programme of talks, readings, music and discussions on Alan’s life and work.

This programme will include contributions by crime writer John Harvey, reflections by Alan’s son David Sillitoe and the launch of the Alan Sillitoe short story competition with Nottingham writer Nicola Monaghan.

The official launch of the Alan Sillitoe Statue Fund will form part of the celebrations. The Statue Fund aims to raise money to provide a statue of Alan in Lenton Abbey, the location of Alan’s birth in Manton Crescent.

A special beer to celebrate Alan Sillitoe is being brewed by Castle Rock Brewery and will give Nottingham people the chance to raise a glass in memory of Alan during these celebrations.

Details of the day’s events are available at: www.sillitoe.com

Tickets for the Council House event are priced at £5.00 and are available in advance from The Bookcase on 0115 9663219

Jo Brand, one of Britain’s best-known and best-loved comedians, will be in conversation Peter Florence, the  man behind the Hay Festival, about the second volume of her enthralling life story Can’t Stand Up For Sitting Down.

Following the huge success of Look Back in Hunger, this second volume of Jo Brand’s autobiography is fantastically diverse and laugh-out-loud funny. In the late 80s comedy was the new rock and roll and, now a full-time comedian, Jo’s success on Friday Night Live landed her a primetime TV show of her own. She found herself in demand as an outspoken, funny commentator on life’s foibles and silliness. Jo appeared on Question Time and wrote two national newspaper columns while the tabloids pursued her relentlessly for her outspoken views. Her fan base continued to grow and, defying the red tops’ brash assumption, she married and became a mother. Jo made regular TV appearances on shows such as Countdown, Parkinson, Trinny and Susannah, as well as learning to rally drive and playing the organ at the Royal Albert Hall. An absorbing read, full of hilarious stories and fascinating insight into one of Britain’s most successful comedians.

Since beginning her career on the London cabaret circuit, gaining a cult following under the guise of ‘The Sea Monster’, Jo Brand has gone on to establish herself as one of the best female comics in Britain. Although still fondly-remembered for her award-winning Channel 4 series Through the Cakehole, Jo’s more recent television appearances include BBC TV’s QI, The One Show, Parkinson, Question Time, Channel 4’s Countdown, The Paul O’Grady Show and Channel 4’s TV Book Club. On radio, she regularly guest hosts the Jonathan Ross Show on BBC Radio 2. Her hugely successful TV sitcom Getting On has been re-commissioned and the second series is due for transmission on BBC4 in the autumn.

St Peter’s Church, Oundle. Tickets £10 from 01832 274333.

October Residential Creative Writing/ Poetry

For the second year Christopher Sanderson (poet and workshop leader in both Louth and Lincoln) and freelance award-winning poet Paul Sutherland with seven collections and a highly respected workshop leader are running a residential workshop in the beautiful Lincolnshire Wolds, from Monday Oct 18th – Friday 22nd, arriving after 3pm on Monday, departing noon on Friday – at a 4 star accommodation with all modern facilities and with fantastic views in a picturesque and secluded location.

The theme of the workshops will be Change. There will be tutoring, time for writing, free time and time for performing and one to one meetings with the tutors if desired.

Please see our website for more detailed information: www.lincolnshirewritingcentre.co.uk

The Postgraduate Contemporary Women’s Writing Network is delighted to announce that as part of its first networking event, ‘Theory & Practice in Contemporary Women’s Writing’ on 23rd October at the University of Leicester . The acclaimed author, Scarlett Thomas will be hosting an interactive workshop on creative contemporary women’s writing.

Scarlett Thomas, senior lecturer at the University of Kent and author of the novels Bright Young Things, Going Out, PopCo, The End of Mr. Y, and, most recently, Our Tragic Universe will be also be our keynote speaker at the event.

There are a few places remaining for this session. Please register by filling in the attached form and emailing it to events@pgcwwn.org. Prior to 31st August 2010, registration will be £25 (including refreshments, lunch and a wine reception).

The event will also include the following workshops:

Postcolonial & diasporic literature (Prof. Janet Wilson)
Chicklit (Prof. Imelda Whelehan)
Science-/ cyber-fiction (Prof. Lucie Armitt)
Queer theory (Prof. Sally Munt)
Feminist theory (Dr. Stephanie Genz)
Historical fiction (Prof. Diana Wallace)
Publishing on contemporary women’s writing (Prof. Ann Heilmann)
Teaching contemporary women’s writing (Dr. Nicole King)

www.pcgwwn.org

Ciaran Carson, Director of the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry at Queens University Belfast, heads up the poets appearing at the 2010 Derwent Poetry Festival in Matlock Bath, 12th – 14th November. There will be further guest poets in the 2010 festival and the full programme will be posted on the Templar website during August.

Michael Morpurgo will be appearing alongside a cast of actors and musicians in a stage production of The Mozart Question to be jointly presented with Oundle International Festival.

The Mozart Question is a haunting tale of survival against the odds and of a secret that can never be told. When cub reporter Lesley goes to Venice to interview a world-renowned violinist, the journalist is told she can ask Paolo Levi anything about his life and career as a musician, but on no account must she ask the Mozart question. But Paolo himself decides the truth must finally be told. He tells the story of a Nazi concentration camp; a camp where musicians must play Mozart concertos for the enemy; a camp where thousands of Jews are being led to their deaths whiles Paolo’s parents are forced to keep playing, no matter what – playing for their lives. And so the young journalist begins to understand the full horror of war and learn how one group of musicians survived using the only weapon they had: music.

This event is a unique concert of words and music based on Michael Morpurgo’s book and featuring the author alongside actress Alison Reid, soloist Daniel Pioro and The Brooks String Quartet. The evening will be directed by Simon Reade, former Artistic Director of the Bristol Old Vic, and is being jointly presented by the Oundle Festival of Literature and Oundle International Festival.

Michael Morpurgo is a former Children’s Laureate and one of the UK’s best-loved authors. He was awarded an OBE for services to literature in 2006 and is a Patron of the Oundle Festival of Literature.

This event is aimed at adults and children aged 8 and over.

Oundle School Chapel, Milton Road, Oundle. Tickets £12 (£6 under 21s) from 01832 274734.