Event type: Literature

Liverpool Literary Festival 2023

Discover, connect, and celebrate all things literature at this year’s festival.

Join the University of Liverpool for their annual celebration of some of the country’s finest writers with an unmissable weekend of live events.

Their brilliant lineup include authors, TV personalities and poets for you to enjoy.

Programme of Events

Jonathan Coe and Anthony Quinn in conversation
Friday 6 October, 6pm
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Join the University of Liverpool for the opening event of their Literary Festival which sees bestselling authors Jonathan Coe and Anthony Quinn in conversation with Dr Lucienne Loh, Reader in the University’s Department of English, to talk about their shared interests in time, memory, film, music and art.

Arranged marriages and debut fiction with Dr Amir Khan
Saturday 7 October, 10am
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Following his sell-out event in 2021, where he discussed his fly-on-the-wall account of a GP’s role in the bestseller The Doctor Will See You Now, Amir has now turned his hand to fiction. How (Not) to Have an Arranged Marriage is due to be published this September, so join us to hear excerpts from his forthcoming book alongside a Q&A with the audience.

The John McGahern Annual Book Prize
Saturday 7 October, 11.30am
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Now in its fourth year, the Prize was established by the University’s Institute of Irish Studies to promote new Irish fiction and to celebrate the memory of one of Ireland’s greatest masters of prose fiction, John McGahern (1934-2006).

Locks: Ashleigh Nugent
Saturday 7 October, 1pm
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Ashleigh’s one-man-show won a bursary from Live Theatre, Newcastle and has received rave audience reviews following showings in theatres and prisons throughout the UK. For the past 22 years he has used rap, poetry and literature to help the most vulnerable to develop positive mindsets, empowering prisoners to turn their lives around by taking control of their own thoughts, feelings and actions.

True crime and the writing process with Emma Flint
Saturday 7 October, 2.30pm
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Join us to hear Emma talk about her latest novel Other Women, based on the true story of a love triangle in 1920s London that ended in a horrific murder. The book was selected as a Zoe Ball BBC Radio 2 Book Club pick. Emma will also be talking about her writing process, how she became a writer and the process of finding an agent. This event will be chaired by Dr Melissa Raines from the Department of English.

Hannah Lowe: Writing Arrivals
Saturday 7 October, 4pm
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In this event, poet Hannah Lowe will be reading from her latest book The Kids which won the Costa Poetry Award and Costa Book of the Year in 2021. She will also be talking about the importance of Liverpool as a port city, reflecting on her father’s experience of arriving here from Jamaica on the SS Ormonde.

The Full English with Stuart Maconie
Saturday 7 October, 5.30pm
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Stuart’s latest Sunday Times bestseller The Full English follows in the footsteps of novelist, playwright and social commentator J. B. Priestley’s English Journey. Join us to hear Stuart discuss the timeliness of his travelogue with Dr Matthew Bradley from the Department of English.

Psychology, security…. and the odd criminal heist with Jenny Radcliffe
Saturday 7 October, 7pm
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Jenny Radcliffe, AKA ‘The People Hacker’, is a world-renowned ethical social engineer, con-artist and burglar for hire. She joins us to talk about some of her most memorable assignments and career highlights.

Between the Acts – a performance from a script in progress
Saturday 7 October, 8.30pm
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In this stage adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s final novel, Between the Acts, an ordinary family in contemporary Britain is tasked with performing a pageant of the nation’s history by the mysterious director Miss La Trobe. Funny, frightening, tender, and provocative, their version of our story compels us to think deeply about who we are, what we should remember, and what we choose to forget. It holds a mirror up to possible futures and asks: how will we get there?.

Professor Dame Averil Mansfield: Life in Her Hands
Sunday 8 October, 10am
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University of Liverpool graduate Professor Dame Mansfield is a key figure in the medical world. One of the leading vascular surgeons in the country and the UK’s first ever female Professor of Surgery, she fulfilled a lifelong dream to become a surgeon at a time when just 2 per cent of her colleagues were female.

Q & A with debut novelist Aidan Cottrell-Boyce
Sunday 8 October, 1pm
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Join Liverpool-born Aidan Cottrell-Boyce who will be talking about his debut novel The End of Nightwork with Danny O’Connor, Colm Toíbín Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University’s Department of English.

Making Orlando Live: Neil Bartlett in conversation with Dr Eleanor Lybeck
Sunday 8 October, 2.30pm
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British novelist, playwright and theatre director Neil Bartlett created the script for the acclaimed staging of Orlando at the Garrick Theatre in London in 2022-3. In this event he’ll be talking to Dr Eleanor Lybeck, Senior Lecturer in Literature at the University’s Institute of Irish Studies and Department of English (herself adapting Woolf’s Between the Acts), about the nuts and bolts of theatrical adaptation, the process of creating that script in particular, about his own very personal relationship with Woolf – and what it’s like to work with actor Emma Corrin, who played the lead in his adaptation. Neil’s recent work includes publishing his fifth novel Address Book, a meditation on queer courage, and creating a live staging of Derek Jarman’s final film Blue with much-loved British actor Russell Tovey.

Illuminated – with Melanie Sykes
Sunday 8 October, 4pm
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Writer, speaker and former TV presenter Melanie Sykes was diagnosed as autistic at the age of 52. In her memoir Illuminated: Autism and all the Things I’ve Left Unsaid she tells her story in full for the first time, discussing how her autism diagnosis has shed new light on her life, and how she believes society needs to completely change its understanding of neurodivergent minds.

Writing the beautiful game: in conversation with former footballer Pat Nevin and author Anthony Quinn
Sunday 8 October, 5.30pm
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For our festival finale, we’re delighted to welcome broadcaster and former Everton, Tranmere and Chelsea FC star, Pat Nevin, who’ll appear alongside Anthony Quinn, author of Klopp, for a lively discussion on the beautiful game. Whether you’re a red, a blue (or any other colour), join us for what promises to be an excellent talk of two halves.

Meet The Author: Flavia Z. Drago

Join New York Times bestselling author and illustrator Flavia Z. Drago (Gustavo, the Shy Ghost Leila, the Perfect Witch) at the magical Storybarn in Calderstones Park.

Flavia is excited to meet young book lovers and share a special reading of her brand-new children’s story Vlad, the Fabulous Vampire.

Tickets £5 per child (includes 1 accompanying adult)
Under 1’s go FREE but need a ticket

Write To Work Bootcamps 25+YRS

Calling all aspiring writers! Want to be part of creative discussions, connect with professional writers and gain access to resources aimed at taking your writing skills to the next level? Sign up for this FREE one-day Write to Work Bootcamps and immerse yourself in a day filled with knowledge, inspiration, and valuable resources.

Sessions include:

* Routes into getting published – including self-publishing as well as traditional
* Script writing for TV – how to get started and accessing opportunities
* Becoming a copy and content writer and pitching for work.

Write to Work is a FREE course for unemployed residents from the Liverpool City Region, looking to gain confidence in their writing skills and meet a creative community.

Sign-Up

Event

The Write to Work Bootcamp will take place at The Women’s Organisation, 54 St James St, Liverpool L1 0AB on Wednesday 27 September 2023. Space limited. Don’t miss this opportunity!

BHM23: Great War To Race Riots Walking...

1919 Race Riots Walking Tour

The highly popular 1919 Race riots walking tour returns for Black History Month, exploring the murder of Charles Wotton and the social and political backdrop of these tragic events.

The race riots of 1919 were a watershed moment for Liverpool’s longstanding black community. On the night of 6th June 1919 unprecedented racial violence erupted in the modern-day Chinatown area that would continue for days as gangs of people, reportedly in the thousands, hunted out “any black man they could find … severely beating and stabbing” them. Black homes and businesses were looted and wrecked as over 700 members of the black community were housed in bridewells for their own protection.

During 1919 such racial violence was mirrored in other port towns and cities across mainland Britain including Glasgow, Cardiff and others. Across the Atlantic Ku Klux Klan activity was at its height and Chicago witnessed race riots in what came to be termed as ‘The Red Summer.’

Using official reports from the time the 1919 walking tour traces the events of the 6th of June 1919 visiting the residences of those involved as well as trailing the tragic last movements of Charles Wootton, a 24-year-old Bermudan sailor and victim of the 1919 riots, who was chased by a mob into the Queens Dock where he was pelted with rocks until he drowned. Not a single person was charged in connection with his death and the coroner’s ruling was ‘death be drowning’. We finish the tour at the site of the murder of Charles Wotton.

Event

Inspired by the hugely successful Great War to Race Riots Archive project and ‘Black Lives and Legacies 1919’ project, our volunteers have researched and mapped a history yet to be recognised in mainstream accounts of our city’s well documented past.

BHM 23: In Conversation With Arun Kund...

For almost a century, liberals viewed racism as rooted in extremist individual beliefs. Figures like Magnus Hirschfeld and Ruth Benedict advocated education to reduce prejudice, birthing today’s liberal anti-racism seen in diversity training and Hollywood activism.

Simultaneously, a radical anti-racism emerged in the Global South, linking racism to colonialism and capitalism. Thinkers like C.L.R. James, Claudia Jones, and Frantz Fanon illuminated these connections, a perspective adopted by Martin Luther King.

Today, despite white liberals confronting their whiteness, structural oppression persists, as Arun Kundnani’s work highlights.

This narrative history dissects these anti-racism strands. Neoliberalism’s rise revealed that combating racism necessitates challenging its capitalist roots.

Event

Arun Kundnani has been active in antiracist movements in Britain and the United States for three decades. He is a former editor of the journal Race & Class and was a scholar-in-residence at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the New York Public Library. The Guardian has described him as “one of Britain’s best political writers.” He is the author of What is Antiracism?, The Muslims are Coming!, and The End of Tolerance. He lives in Philadelphia.

Shared Reading Group At The Palm House

Nothing beats being read a story and sharing that experience in a group adds to the enjoyment.

Join local writer John Maguire, as we select and share a story and poem. Read and relax every fortnight in the flourishing Palm House.

Poetry Reading: 100 Years of The Waste...

Head along and join Open Eye Gallery in a collective reading of T.S.Eliot’s The Waste Land. They also welcome musicians who want to play a piece in celebration or response to the poem.

Open Eye Gallery is actively rethinking what a gallery can be. They invite you to get involved in a celebration of voices.

Join them on 17 November to take part in a shared reading of The Waste Land or to read your own poem that is inspired by T.S.Eliot’s modernist masterpiece.

Are you a reader of poetry?

Do you like to read aloud?

Are you part of a community group that would like to celebrate this poem together?

It is 100 years since this seminal work was published. T.S.Eliot’s long poem mixes voices, texts and reflects on themes of language, post-war alienation, death, and loss.

To read the poem follow this link: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47311/the-waste-land

To hear the poem being read by Alec Guinness follow this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hcj4G45F9pw

The celebration will open with readings of poems inspired by The Waste Land as well as music. They will also share a digital display of photography that responds to its themes and ideas.

Wendy Smith, electroacoustic composer, will be making a field recording of The Waste Land rehearsal and event for possible future use in composition or new collaborative work.

To book a reading slot, and for more information about how you can get involved, contact Pauline Rowe: pauline@openeye.org.uk

Storybarn June Welly Walk – Migh...

Sunday 19 June – Mighty Oaks From Little Acorns Grow

We’re heading outdoors to take a closer look at some of the weird and wonderful trees that live in Calderstones Park.

From the 1,000 year old, award-winning Allerton Oak, to tremendously tall trees that travelled here from overseas, we’ll be gazing up towards the sky at the giants that surround us.

Combining the whimsy of our Storybarn with the exciting heritage of Calderstones Park our wonderful Welly Walks are the perfect outdoor adventures for all the family.

Join us as we explore different themes on walks throughout the year, from bugs and bogs, to undiscovered relics!

Walks begin outside the Mansion House and leave at 10am, 11.30am and 2pm. Each walks lasts around one hour and all trails are fully accessible. Best suited for families with children aged 4+ (under 1’s can join for free but will still need a ticket). All our Welly Walks do take place outdoors so please bring appropriate clothing and a bottle of water.

(We have a wet weather contingency too, just in case!)

Sunday School: Light And Darkness In J...

Join us in the Mansion House at Calderstones Park for a day in the company of Shakespeare and his Roman political actors, with the presence of great African American thinker, James Baldwin, alongside as a guiding light.

Julius Caesar, wrote James Baldwin, was the play that made him stop hating Shakespeare:

“I still remember my shock when I finally heard these lines from the murder scene in Julius Caesar. The assassins are washing their hands in Caesar’s blood. Cassius says:

‘Stoop then, and wash. — How many ages hence

Shall this our lofty scene be acted over,

In states unborn and accents yet unknown!’

What I suddenly heard, for the first time, was manifold. It was the voice of lonely, dedicated, deluded Cassius, whose life had never been real for me before — I suddenly seemed to know what this moment meant to him.”

Read (or watch) the play in advance, if you can, but if you can’t, come anyway. We’ll structure the day around a number of key points in the play. No advanced knowledge or experience of Shakespeare is needed at all.

The day will be hosted by Jane Davis, Founder and Director of The Reader, and Ben Davis, her son. They have been reading and watching Shakespeare together for a long time.

As this is an all-day event, we’ll be taking a lunch break – feel free to bring along a packed lunch or The Reader Café will also be open with a delicious menu of hot and cold food and drinks.

Shakespeare’s Globe will be bringing their production of Julius Caesar to Calderstones on Friday 3 and Saturday 4 June. Book tickets online here.