Friday 12th - Sunday 21st March 42nd Lancaster Literature Festival
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Friday 12th - Sunday 21st March 42nd Lancaster Literature Festival
Letter from the Chair Hello and welcome to the 42nd Lancaster Literature Festival! After last year’s difficult decision to cancel the majority of the 2020 festival on the eve of the first Covid lockdown, the board have been diligently working away behind the scenes in order to envisage an innovative and rather different type of festival for 2021. We are very proud of this new and exciting programme, we hope that you will be too. This year, all of our events will be online, embracing the possibilities of digital streaming but still with live arts at the heart of the festival. There will also be plenty of opportunities for you to get involved, whether that’s walking the Litfest Red Carpet, submitting your questions or applying to join our new writing workshops! As a charity, Litfest relies on the support of our audiences and sponsors to continue to run. But this year we have taken the decision to make all of the festival’s events be free to access. Alongside our familiar festival favourites (including illustration events, poetry day, storytelling and fiction), at the core of this year’s festival are four new, ambitious projects. Supported by public funding from Arts Council England, we are delighted to present The Litfest Big Read, How We Live Now, How We Live Next and New Writing North West. Whilst Litfest takes on a new form, the festival continues to draw big names in the world of literature including, Matt Haig and Sarah Hall, whilst promoting writers who have recently broken through like Raymond Antrobus, or whose star is on the rise like A.M. Dassu. A year after our 2020 festival was sadly curtailed, we still cannot meet in person, but we can meet through books. We hope you will join us. Julie Bell Chair of Litfest
Litfest Fundraising Drive Litfest is a UK registered charity and is passionate about bringing world-class books, ideas and illustration to the Northwest and making them accessible to all. We are also committed to encouraging new writing and the co-creation of events with our audiences. In this challenging year we will not charge for tickets, but to be able to continue our work in the community in the future, we rely on the generosity of your donations. What could a donation help to enable? For example: £10 could enable Litfest to give two books to a local school £20 could enable one child to take part in the Litfest Big Read 2022 £30 could cover the cost of an online Q&A at Litfest 2022 £50 could enable an emerging writer to attend a future workshop £100 could cover the cost of hiring a room to host a Litfest 2022 event However big or small, your donation plays a part in the festival's future, thank you for supporting us. You can now donate (with Gift Aid where applicable) to Litfest on our website www.litfest.org via our CAF Donation page. Your donation can be a regular or one-off amount. Lancaster Litfest is funded by: Our Media Partners are: Our event partners are the Departments of European Cultures and Languages and English Literature and Creative Writing at Lancaster University, Comma Press, RSPB Leighton Moss, and Lancashire County Library Service. With thanks to the publishers of the books featured in the Litfest programme: Bloomsbury, Canongate, Carcanet, Dedalus Press, Gingko, Hamish Hamilton, MacLehose Press, Old Barn Books, Oneworld, Penguin, Penned in the Margins, Picador, Saraband, Serpents Tail, Tramp Press and Walker Studio.
How to watch Litfest 2021
This year, Litfest is going fully digital!
All of our events will be accessible via the website, on the online streaming platform
Crowdcast (with the exception of the New Writing North West workshops which will be
conducted in a series of Zoom meetings).
Due to current restrictions it is not possible to programme live, in-person events but we
are determined to bring the festival to you instead! We hope to be able to return to live, in
person events in our 2022 festival, whilst still making use of everything we have learned
during this period.
Events will first be live streamed at the times indicated on each event page and in
the festival overview on the back of the programme, then they will be available on
our YouTube Channel for a limited time. The period of time will vary for each event
so please check out website.
Whilst free to access, all our events will be ticketed and therefore it is essential
that you book in advance in order to receive the link to your events.
More information can be found at www.litfest.org
How You Can Get Involved
Whilst you cannot attend our programme of events in person at The Storey, or The Dukes
or any of our other wonderful partner venues this year, you can still be involved in Litfest
2021.
Here are a few ideas on how to be a part of the festival why not:
• Send in questions in advance for the Q&As
• Join the pre-show buzz on the #LitfestRedCarpet on social media by
sharing photos of you dressed to impress
• Join the Litfest Big Read, our new region-wide reading challenge
• Sign up to the Litfest International Fiction Book Club
• Register your interest for our new Litfest Fiction Book Club (exciting
details coming soon!)
• Contribute a poem to our interactive map for Places of Poetry
Northwest
• You could apply to join our fantastic new series of Writing Workshops -
New Writing North West
• Enter our fantastic competition to chance to win a special guided tour of
RSPB Leighton Moss once lockdown ends.
• Join our project to chronicle the North West’s experience of the
pandemic. Just send us a photo and tell us in one sentence ‘What it is
like for you to live now?’ Tag us on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram and
use the hashtag #LitfestHowWeLiveNow.
• And it would help all our work going forward if you were to make a
donation to the Litfest Fundraising drive
And of course … you can come to the festival!
Also, make sure to keep your eye on the Litfest website for exciting extras on our new blog!
JOIN THE CHALLENGE! It might not be possible to meet in person during the festival but we are encouraging everyone to come together to read one of the two most highly praised and enjoyable books published last year and win a free pass to three Litfest events in the next 12 months and your choice of three paperback books. See website for details: www.litfest.org ‘I am delighted that Boy, Everywhere is a Big Litfest Read book. When the pandemic took over our normal lives and all our usual activities stopped, many of us found comfort in exploring the alternative worlds that reading can bring to life. Books havehelped us to understand the world and experience its beauty without having to travel and so it is truly wonderful that, despite the challenges we’ve all faced, Litfest has found a way to share the magic of reading throughout the region and we are all still able to come together online to share a reading experience. I am very much looking forward to it!’ A.M. Dassu ‘Reading isn't important because it helps get you a job. It's important because it gives you room to exist beyond the reality you're given. Reading makes the world better. It is how humans merge. How minds connect. Dreams. Empathy. Understanding. Escape. Reading is love in action.’ Matt Haig Not sure if you want to take up the challenge? Why not come to one of the on-line events and hear the author read from and talk about the book first – and then sign up! Supported by Lancashire County Library Service
Friday 12th March 6:00pm
Festival Launch: A.M. Dassu
The Litfest Big Read (age 11-14)
‘A story that everyone should read, written with empathy,
tenderness and hope’ -Patrice Lawrence, author of Orangeboy
This outstanding first novel chronicles the harrowing journey
taken by Sami and his family from privilege to poverty, across
countries and continents, from a comfortable life in Damascus,
via a smuggler's den in Turkey, to a prison in Manchester. A
story of survival, of family, of bravery and sudden reversals of
fortune. In a world where we are told to see refugees as the
‘other’, this story will remind readers that ‘they’ are also ‘us’.
‘Carefully researched, wholly convincing, it’s a gripping,
uncompromising debut, super-charged with the power of
empathy’ Guardian
The event, including a talk and reading by AM Dassu, and a conversation with Jake Hope,
will be followed by a live online Q&A.
A.M. Dassu is a writer of both fiction and non-fiction. She is
deputy editor of the Society of Children’s Book Writers &
Illustrators’ Words and Pictures magazine and a Director of
Inclusive Minds, a unique organisation for people who are
passionate about inclusion, diversity, equality and accessibility
in children’s literature. She is also one of The Literacy Trust’s
‘Connecting Stories campaign’ authors which aims to help
inspire a love of reading and writing in children and young
people. She has used her publishing advances for Boy,
Everywhere to assist Syrian refugees and has set up a grant to
support an unpublished refugee or immigrant writer.
How to Watch: Online via Crowdcast
Tickets: Free, bookable in advance via www.litfest.org
All donations, whether £5, £20 or £100 welcome at the Litfest website!
Friday 12th March 7:30pm
Festival Launch: Matt Haig
The Litfest Big Read (age 15+)
‘An uplifting, poignant novel about regret, hope and second
chances’ David Nicholls
‘A wonderful story’ Zoe Ball, BBC Radio 2
Nora's life has been going from bad to worse. Then at the
stroke of midnight on her last day on earth she finds herself
transported to a library. There she is given the chance to undo
her regrets and try out each of the other lives she might have
lived. Which raises the ultimate question: with infinite choices,
what is the best way to live?
The Midnight Library is a poignant story about regret, hope
and second chances, and appreciating the one life you have. It
is Matt’s first adult novel since How to Stop Time(2017).
The event, including a talk and reading by Matt Haig, and a conversation with Jake Hope,
will be followed by a live on-line Q&A.
Matt Haig is the number one bestselling author of Reasons
to Stay Alive and Notes on a Nervous Planet and six highly
acclaimed novels for adults, including How to Stop Time, The
Humans and The Radleys. Haig also writes award-winning
books for children, including A Boy Called Christmas, which is
being made into a feature film with an all-star cast. He has
sold more than two million books in the UK and his work has
been translated into over forty languages.
How to Watch: Online via Crowdcast
Tickets: Free, bookable in advance via www.litfest.org
All donations, whether £5, £20 or £100 welcome at the Litfest website!
Saturday 13th March 2:00pm
The Art of Nature:
Jackie Morris & Shaun Tan
This event will feature two fantastic recent recipients of the Kate Greenaway medal for
illustration: Jackie Morris (the winner in 2019 for the The Lost Words, a collaborative
project with author Robert MacFarlane) and Shaun Tan (the 2020 winner for Tales from
the Inner City, a remarkable collection of illustrated short fiction). Both illustrators have
been fascinated with the relationship between humanity and the animal kingdom,
throughout their careers. Jackie and Shaun will discuss their artistic practices and
techniques, the natural world and their prize-winning illustrations with Alison Brumwell,
current Chair of the Youth Libraries Group and Chair of the judging panel for the Kate
Greenaway Medal.
Suitable for ages 10+
Jackie Morris lives in Wales where she writes
and paints. She has two children, a small
pack of dogs and a small pride of cats. Jackie
exhibits her paintings in galleries
nationwide. Her bestselling picture books
include Mrs Noah's Pockets and Lord of the
Forest. Jackie devised the idea and illustrated
the Kate Greenaway Medal winning and
British Book Award winner, The Lost Words.
Shaun Tan is a multi-award-winning artist,
writer and film-maker. His books are well
known for exploring social, political and
historical subjects through dream-like
imagery. Shaun won an Academy Award for
the short animated film The Lost Thing, based
upon one of his much loved books. Shaun was
the winner of the Kate Greenaway Medal
2020 for Tales from the Inner City.
How to Watch: Online via Crowdcast
Tickets: Free, bookable in advance via www.litfest.org
All donations, whether £5, £20 or £100 welcome at the Litfest website!Saturday 13th March 7:30pm
The Lost Spells - Jackie Morris
The Lost Spells, is the highly anticipated companion to
2017’s bestselling The Lost Words, which was described
by the Guardian as a ‘cultural phenomenon’. The winner
of numerous prizes, the first book has spawned a huge
range of creative projects and responses which spans
exhibitions of original artwork, gifting initiatives for
schools and folk music recitals.
In this not to be missed event, Jackie Morris will discuss
this next stage of her creative partnership with Robert
Macfarlane, the process of creating The Lost Spells and
the importance of our relationship with the natural
world which underpins the book.
Jackie will be in conversation with award winning author
Nicola Davies.
This event is suitable for families, illustration enthusiasts and nature lovers of all ages.
Nicola Davies has been fascinated by animals from the moment she
could walk into the garden watching ants and worms. Nicola has
written over 50 books for children and the School Library
Association awarded her for her outstanding contribution to
information books. Nicola is a passionate advocate for illustration
and was made Professor of Practice by Swansea Univresity in 2019.
How to Watch: Online via Crowdcast
Tickets: Free, bookable in advance via www.litfest.org
All donations, whether £5, £20 or £100 welcome at the Litfest website!Achates Philanthropy is delighted to sponsor
Lancaster Litfest’s 2021 keynote talks series
HOW WE LIVE NEXT
Achates Philanthropy works for and with the cultural sector
to enable resilience with integrity.
www.achates.org.ukOur second major project, ‘How We Live Next’ is a series of five events running throughout the weekend, including four online talks (with Q&A), by leading thinkers, writers, activists, politicians and business people. Sir Michael Marmot, Fatima Ibrahim, James Suzman and Johny Pitts will speak about Health, Environment, Work and Social Justice. The event series will culminate in a panel discussion on Sunday afternoon with a more local focus. This panel will be moderated by A.C. Grayling and will include Robert Barratt (Eden North), Mark Cropper (James Cropper, Bespoke Paper Makers, Burneside), Gina Dowding (Lancaster City Councillor) and Dr Sakthi Karunanithi (Director of Public Health and Well- being for Lancashire). To submit your questions in advance for the Q&A portions of these events please go to www.litfest.org Supported using public funding by Arts Council England and with kind sponsorship from Achates Philanthropy.
Saturday 13th March 11:30am
How We Live Next:
Health - Sir Michael Marmot
The NHS and its staff, on whom we all depend, have taken a
battering during the Coronavirus pandemic. Sir Michael Marmot
is the author of the widely respected Marmot Review (2010),
the recommendations of which have been adopted by three-
quarters of English councils; it was revised last year as Health
Equity in England: The Marmot Review 10 Years On.
He argues that Covid has exposed massive health inequality and
shows that the more deprived the area, the higher the mortality
rate for all causes of death. Rather than a return to ‘normal’, he
argues, we should be aiming to rebuild a fairer society.
The talk will be followed by a conversation and Q&A. Questions can
be submitted in advance at www.litfest.org
Sir Michael Marmot is Professor of Epidemiology and
Public Health at UCL. He chaired the WHO Commission
on The Social Determinants of Health (2005–8); its
recommendations have been adopted by the World
Health Assembly and taken up by many countries.
The recommendations of his influential British
Government report on health inequalities – the Marmot
Review – are now being implemented in three-quarters
of local authorities in England. His books include
The Health Gap (2015).
How to Watch: Online via Crowdcast
Tickets: Free, bookable in advance via www.litfest.org
All donations, whether £5, £20 or £100 welcome at the Litfest website!Saturday 13th March 5:00pm
How We Live Next:
Environment -
Fatima Ibrahim
Faced with the challenge of global warming and consequent climate change, which we
ourselves have caused, humanity is at a fork in the road and needs now to alter course if it
is to avoid disaster. But how is that change to be achieved and what will the consequences
be? Fatima Ibrahim, Co-Executive Director of Green New Deal UK, asks us to consider that
we are facing a global problem that needs an international solution. So if we are not to
return to the ‘old normal’, what might a ‘new normal’ look like?
The talk will be followed by a conversation and Q&A. Questions can be submitted in advance
at www.litfest.org
Fatima Ibrahim is Co-Executive Director of Green New
Deal UK, a climate activist and social justice
campaigner. Much of her work has been spent
campaigning and building solidarity with international
movements. She has worked for global NGO Avaaz, EU
citizens movement WeMove.eu and was one of the
lead organisers of the People’s Climate March. She has
also spent years organising with and supporting the UK
Youth Climate Coalition.
https://www.greennewdealuk.org
How to Watch: Online via Crowdcast
Tickets: Free, bookable in advance via www.litfest.org
All donations, whether £5, £20 or £100 welcome at the Litfest website!Sunday 14th March 11:30am
How We Live Next:
Work - James Suzman
The work we do brings us meaning, moulds our values,
determines our social status and dictates how we spend most of
our time. But this wasn't always the case: for 95% of our species’
history, work held a radically different importance. How, then,
did work become the central organisational principle of our
societies?
‘When I conceived of this book, I argued that it would take
something extraordinary – perhaps a climate change-induced
calamity sometime in the future – to force us to contemplate the
kinds of changes that automation and the environmental costs of
our obsession with work demand of us. Now, confined in my
home like hundreds of millions of others across the globe, I am
beginning to suspect that it may happen a whole lot sooner’
James Suzman
'A fascinating exploration that challenges our basic assumptions of what work means'
Yuval Noah Harari, author of Sapiens
The talk will be followed by a conversation and Q&A. Questions can be submitted in advance
at www.litfest.org
James Suzman is an anthropologist specialising in the
Khoisan peoples of southern Africa. He is the author of
Affluence without Abundance (2017) and is currently the
director of Anthropos Ltd, a think tank that applies
anthropological methods to solving contemporary social
and economic problems.
How to Watch: Online via Crowdcast
Tickets: Free, bookable in advance via www.litfest.org
All donations, whether £5, £20 or £100 welcome at the Litfest website!Sunday 14th March 2:00pm
How We Live Next:
Social Justice - Johny Pitts
Johny Pitts is the 2020 winner of both the Jhalak Book of the
Year Prize and the Bread and Roses Award for his outstanding
and genre-defying book Afropean. Columnist Owen Jones,
author of Chavs and The Establishment, described it as
‘humane, empathetic, urgent and truly eye-opening’), while
Booker Prize winner Bernadine Evaristo called it
‘groundbreaking’.
What happens when your Dad’s an African-American soul star
and your Mum’s a music-loving girl from working-class
Sheffield? Are your roots on the terraces at a Sheffield
United match, or in the stylings of a Spike Lee film? For Johny
Pitts, whose parents met in the heyday of Northern Soul, how
he navigates his black roots has always been an issue, but this
diverse heritage has attuned him to every aspect of Britain’s
unequal society.
The talk will be followed by a conversation and Q&A. Questions can be submitted
in advance at www.litfest.org
Johny Pitts is a writer, photographer and broadcast journalist.
He has received various awards for his work exploring African-
European identity, including a Decibel Penguin Prize, an ENAR
(European Network Against Racism) award and most recently
the Jhalak Prize for his book Afropean (2019). He is the curator
of the online journal Afropean.com, part of the Guardian’s Africa
Network and was recently named co-presenter, with Elizabeth
Day, of BBC Radio 4’s ‘Open Book’ programme.
How to Watch: Online via Crowdcast
Tickets: Free, bookable in advance via www.litfest.org
All donations, whether £5, £20 or £100 welcome at the Litfest website!Sunday 14th March 5:00pm
How We Live Next:
Panel Discussion with
A.C. Grayling
Following the four talks on Health, Environment, Work and Social Justice, the panel,
including an educator, a manufacturer, a doctor and a politician, will discuss these key
issues and how they might affect us at a local level. After the discussion chaired by A.C.
Grayling, the panellists will answer your questions in a live online Q&A.
Questions can be submitted in advance at www.litfest.org
A.C. Grayling is Master of the New College of the Humanities,
London, where he is also Professor Philosophy. He has contributed to
many leading newspapers and radio and tv programmes and has
twice been a judge of the Booker Prize (2003, 2014). Most recent are
The History of Philosophy (2020) and The Good State: On the
Principles of Democracy (2020).
Professor Robert Barratt, Eden Project Chair of Education and
Engagement at Lancaster University, is the Head of Eden Project Learning.
Gina Dowding is a Lancaster City Councillor, Lancashire County
Councillor and the former Green MEP for the North West.
Mark Cropper is Chairman of James Cropper at Burneside, Kendal and
founder of Ellergreen, a small hydro developer and service provider.
Dr Sakthi Karunanithi MBBS M.D MPH FFPH, has been the Lancashire
Director of Public Health and Well-being since 2013.
How to Watch: Online via Crowdcast
Tickets: Free, bookable in advance via www.litfest.org
All donations, whether £5, £20 or £100 welcome at the Litfest website!Monday 15th March 6:30pm International Fiction Book Club: Andrey Kurkov - Grey Bees The Book Club was launched with Lars Mytting’s The Sixteen Trees of the Somme, for which the author joined us by Zoom from Norway. Since then, the club has discussed a novel each month, often with the author or translator, so we are delighted to welcome Andrey Kurkov, author of the best-selling Death and the Penguin, to discuss his novel, Grey Bees. In the no-man’s-land between loyalist and separatist forces, lies the Ukrainian village of Little Starhorodivka. Thanks to the sporadic violence and constant propaganda of the on- off war only two residents remain: retired safety inspector turned beekeeper Sergey Sergeyich and his school-days ‘frenemy’, Pashka. But now that winter’s over, how is Sergey going to get his bees through the battle lines to feast on the pollen beyond? For more about the book club and for transcriptions of its discussions with authors, translators, editors and critics go to: www.litfest.org Andrey Kurkov is a Ukrainian author who writes in Russian. Before the success of Death and the Penguin (2001), he was a journalist, prison warder, cameraman and screenplay- writer and in his spare time self- published his fiction. Since then he has also become well known as a commentator on Ukraine for the international media. His many books include The Ukraine Diaries (2014) and The Bickford How to Watch: Online via Crowdcast Tickets: Free, bookable in advance via www.litfest.org All donations, whether £5, £20 or £100 welcome at the Litfest website!
Acting as a welcome and support network to those refugees who come to Lancaster and
Morecambe. We provide destitution grants for Asylum Seekers, we pay for essential travel
to solicitors and police stations and new arrivals receive a Welcome pack
We are made up of a number of individual volunteers as well as various organisations who
support and facilitate our work:
The Bike Project
Churches Together
Claver Hill
CVS
East Meets West
English Classes
Global Link
Global Village Kitchen
Lancaster Quakers
RAIS
Red Rose Refugees
The Sewing Circle
The Tara Centre
St Thomas Church
The Violin group
For more information, or to get involved and volunteer,
please contact: admin@lancaster.cityofsanctuary.org
Donations welcome.
www.lancasterandmorecambe.cityofsanctuary.orgOur third major project ‘New Writing North West’ is a series of workshops in four genres for emerging writers in the Northwest region. The genres are fiction (led by Yvonne Battle-Felton), nature and environment writing (led by Karen Lloyd), poetry (led by Kim Moore) and translation (led by Daniel Hahn). We invite anyone and everyone interested to apply for a place. Please note that a number of spaces in each workshop will be reserved for writers from diverse communities. As part of their submission, depending on their chosen genre, each applicant will need to send in: • 500-700 words of fiction • 6 complete poems • 500 words of translated fiction • 500-700 words of nature and environment writing To Bill Swainson info@litfest.org by 5th March 2021. For full details, information on how to apply and terms and conditions see: www.litfest.org
New Writing North West
Meet the tutors
FICTION
Yvonne Battle-Felton was born in Pennsylvania and raised in New Jersey. In 2017, she won
the Northern Writers’ Award for Fiction and was shortlisted for the Words and Women
Competition and the Sunderland University Waterstones SunStory Award in 2018. Her debut
novel, Remembered (2018), was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. She has a PhD
in Creative Writing from Lancaster University and is Lecturer in Creative Writing and Creative
Industries at Sheffield Hallam University.
NATURE AND ENVIRONMENT
Karen Lloyd is an award-winning writer and environmental activist based in Cumbria. Her
first book, The Gathering Tide: A Journey around the Edgelands of Morecambe Bay (2016)
contains writing on land, landscape and memory. The Blackbird Diaries (2017), winner of The
Lakeland Arts and Literature Award 2018, is an intimate account of the wildlife in Lloyd’s
edge-of-town garden, the South Lakes landscape, the Solway coast and the Hebridean islands
of Mull and Staffa.POETRY
Dr Kim Moore is one of the founders of Kendal Poetry Festival. Her first full-length
collection, The Art of Falling (2015), won the 2016 Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize. She was
one of the judges for the 2018 National Poetry Competition and the 2020 Forward Prizes for
Poetry. She recently completed her doctorate on poetry and everyday sexism at Manchester
Metropolitan University and her second collection, All The Men I Never Married, is due from
in October 2021.
TRANSLATION
Daniel Hahn is a writer, editor and translator. His translations (from Portuguese, Spanish
and French) include fiction from Europe, Africa and the Americas, and non-fiction by
writers ranging from Portuguese Nobel laureate José Saramago to Brazilian footballer
Pelé. His work has won him the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and the International
Dublin Literary Award. A former chair of the Translators Association and the Society of
Authors and national programme director of the British Centre for Literary Translation, he
has also been a judge on the panel for the Man Booker International Prize.Tuesday 16th March 7:30pm
Reading the City:
The Book of Ramallah
The Palestinian city of Ramallah is a place of countless
contradictions; defiant in its resistance against the Israeli
occupation, but frustrated and divided by its own secrets and
conservatism. Characters fall in love, have affairs, poke fun at
the heavy military presence, but also see their aspirations cut
short, their lives eaten into, their morale beaten down by the
daily humiliations of the conflict. Through humour, and
precious moments of intimacy, however, these stories give
us a glimpse of life inside this city of refuge, and provide an
image of hope in an impossible situation.
Maya Abu Al-Hayat is a Beirut-born Palestinian novelist and poet
living in Jerusalem, but working in Ramallah. She has published
two poetry books, numerous children’s stories and three novels,
including her latest No One Knows His Blood Type (2013). She is
the director of the Palestine Writing Workshop, an institution that
seeks to encourage reading in Palestinian communities through
creative writing projects and storytelling with children and
teachers.
Amer Hamad is a poet, short story writer and translator, who
has published his work in numerous magazines and websites,
including Beirut Literature Magazine and the New Arab website.
He was born in Jerusalem in 1992, graduated from Birzeit
University, with a major in Computer Science and is currently
working on his first collection of short stories.
Lindsey Moore is Reader in Postcolonial Literature at Lancaster
University and has published extensively on Arab World literature.
Her most recent book is Narrating Postcolonial Arab Nations
(2017). With Nadia Atia she is currently co-writing Global
Literature and the Arab World.
How to Watch: Online via Crowdcast
Tickets: Free, bookable in advance via www.litfest.org
All donations, whether £5, £20 or £100 welcome at the Litfest website!Wednesday 17th March 7:30pm
Sarah Hall in Conversation
Sarah Hall is one of the most highly
praised novelists writing in Britain today
and has twice been winner of the BBC
Short Story Award. Born in Carlisle, most
of her novels are set in the northwest,
including Haweswater (2002) and The
Wolf Border (2015), while her short stories
have won her wide recognition as a
doyenne of the form. For this event she
will read and discuss her fiction and talk
about her fascination with the short story
form.
‘A timeless, unsettling story rendered in exquisite prose, [Sarah Hall’s] ‘The Grotesques’
yields more with each reading... It is the work of a writer who is not only devotedly
committed to the short story genre but has become a master of it’
Jonathan Freedland, Chair of the Judges, BBC Short Story Award 2020
Sarah Hall was born in Cumbria in 1974. Twice
nominated for the Man Booker prize, she is
the award-winning author of five novels and
three short-story collections – The Beautiful
Indifference, which won the Edge
Hill and Portico prizes, and Madame Zero,
shortlisted for the Edge Hill Prize, and winner
of the East Anglian Book Award, and Sudden
Traveller. She is currently the only author to
be four times shortlisted for the BBC National
Short Story Award, which she won in 2013
with ‘Mrs Fox’ and in 2020 with ‘The
Grotesques’.
How to Watch: Online via Crowdcast
Tickets: Free, bookable in advance via www.litfest.org
All donations, whether £5, £20 or £100 welcome at the Litfest website!Thursday 18th March 7:30pm How We Live Now: Film Premiere For our fourth big project and as a counterpoint to our investigation of possible global futures in ‘How We Live Next’, Litfest commissioned a selection of the films exploring ‘How We Live Now’ in Lancaster and the surrounding area. These films will take a look at the lives of members of our local community during a turbulent year. The films explore themes of environmental concern, social justice, health, business, migration, and the arts. Through these brief insights, we explore what modern life is like for six individuals who have had to respond or adapt to one of our nation’s toughest years in recent memory. Join us for the premiere, and walk in the shoes of those who have helped to keep Lancaster and Morecambe alive during 2020. Kyle McKenzie is an emerging Lancaster-based filmmaker and producer, and the director of the ‘How We Live Now’ series of films. Kyle, after completing his undergraduate degree in Film Studies at Lancaster University, has begun work as a freelance videographer in the local area. His work with various community arts and youth organisations gave him ideal experience to be the driving force behind this project that celebrates local voices. How to Watch: Online via Crowdcast Tickets: Free, bookable in advance via www.litfest.org All donations, whether £5, £20 or £100 welcome at the Litfest website!
It would be impossible to adequately convey the complex and varied lives lived each day in the Lancaster and Morecambe district in just six short films. So, now we need your help. Throughout the festival period, from the launch of the programme until March 15th, we are asking members of the public living in the Lancaster and Morecambe district to tell us your stories. Send us a photo and tell us in one sentence ‘What it is like for you to live now?’ Tag us on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram and use the hashtag #LitfestHowWeLiveNow. A selection of the submissions will then be compiled for inclusion in the ‘How We Live Now’ premiere event.
Friday 19th March 7:30pm Talking About Birds: Paul Farley & Tim Birkhead RSPB Leighton Moss nr. Silverdale Two writers who both have had a lifelong fascination with birds – Sheffield University professor Tim Birkhead and prize-winning poet Paul Farley – talk about what got them into bird-watching and why bird’s continue to be central to their work. Tim Birkhead is renowned for his many fascinating and beautifully written books about birds, while leading poet Paul Farley’s latest collection has birds at its heart. The event is supported by the RSPB and will be introduced (with a short film) by Jon Carter, visitor manager at RSPB Leighton Moss bird reserve. Calling all bird watchers aged 11-16! Here’s your chance to win a special guided tour of Leighton Moss once lockdown ends. To enter, please submit a page of writing and a drawing about your favourite bird and tell us about the first time you spotted it, or about an amazing encounter: perhaps when you came face to face with a sparrow or a sparrow hawk, a pigeon or a swan – or any of the amazing birds around us – and what you noticed and what you felt and thought. The winners will need to be accompanied on the day by a parent or guardian. Submissions by email to Bill Swainson at info@litfest.org or by post to the Litfest address
Paul Farley has published five collections of
poetry, most recently The Mizzy. A frequent
presenter on BBC Radio 4’s The Echo
Chamber, he has received numerous awards
including Sunday Times Young Writer of the
Year, the Whitbread Poetry Prize and the
E.M. Forster Award. He lives in Lancaster.
Tim Birkhead’s many books include The
Wisdom of Birds (2008); Bird Sense (2011),
which was the Guardian’s and
the Independent’s Natural History Book of the
Year; and The Most Perfect Thing: Inside and
Outside a Bird’s Egg (2016), winner of the
Zoological Society of London’s Communicating
Zoology Award in 2016. He lives in Sheffield.
Jonathan Carter grew up on Morecambe Bay where he
developed an early interest in the region’s birdlife. He first
visited Leighton Moss as an 11-year-old and fell in love with
the reserve’s vast wetland landscape. He began working for
the RSPB following his return from Canada in 2011. He is
currently Visitor Experience Manager at Leighton Moss.
How to Watch: Online via Crowdcast
Tickets: Free, bookable in advance via www.litfest.org
All donations, whether £5, £20 or £100 welcome at the Litfest website!Saturday 20th March 11:00am
Fiction and Landscape:
James Clarke and Sarah Moss
Two very different voices steeped in locality read from their latest work and discuss the
impact of landscape on fiction.
Welcome to James Clarke’s Hollow in the Land – from its neglected high streets to the iso-
lated wilderness of the surrounding moors, this Lancashire valley bursts with unforgettable
characters, minor intrigues and all the rich strangeness of life in England today.
Welcome, too, to Sarah Moss’s Summerwater – set in the Scottish Highlands and told over
24 hours, this devastating story is a searing exploration of our capacity for both kinship and
cruelty in these divided times.
James Clarke grew up in the Rossendale Valley,
Lancashire. His debut novel The Litten Path was
written while studying at the Manchester Writing
School, and went on to win the Betty Trask Prize.
He lives in Manchester where he is working on his
third novel.
Sarah Moss was born in Glasgow and grew up in
Manchester. After moving between Oxford,
Canterbury, Reykjavik, Cornwall and Coventry, she
now lives in Dublin. She is the author of a prize-
winning memoir and seven novels, the most
recent of which is Summerwater.
How to Watch: Online via Crowdcast
Tickets: Free, bookable in advance via www.litfest.org
All donations, whether £5, £20 or £100 welcome at the Litfest website!Saturday 20th March 2:00pm
Poetry Day Double Bill 1:
Tara Bergin & Sean O’Brien
We open the Saturday afternoon of our bumper poetry weekend with the first of our
traditional double bills, though there’s nothing traditional at all about either Tara Bergin or
Sean O’Brien. Two very different poets who are concerned with the way our lives are
deeply affected by politics, gender and history.
Tara Bergin was born and grew up in Co.
Dublin, Ireland. She is the author of two poetry
collections, This Is Yarrow (2013) and The Tragic
Death of Eleanor Marx (2017), which was
shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot and Forward Prizes
and chosen as a Best Poetry Book of the year by
The Times and the Irish Times. She lives in the
Yorkshire Dales and lectures part-time at
Newcastle University.
Sean O’Brien was born in London, grew up
in Hull and lives in Newcastle upon Tyne. He
is a poet, critic, editor, translator,
playwright, broadcaster and novelist. His
poetry has won many awards, including the
T.S. Eliot Prize, the Forward Prize and the
E.M. Forster Award. His books include The
Beautiful Librarians(2015), Europa (2018)
and It Says Here (2020), which Kate
Kellaway praised in the Guardian for ‘its
wondrous musicality’. He is Professor of
Creative Writing at Newcastle University.
How to Watch: Online via Crowdcast
Tickets: Free, bookable in advance via www.litfest.org
All donations, whether £5, £20 or £100 welcome at the Litfest website!Saturday 20th March 3:30pm
Poetry Day Double Bill 2:
Paul Farley & Colette Bryce
Our second double bill of the afternoon brings together two poets who grew up in one
distinctive place and have settled in another: poet and broadcaster, Paul Farley, moving
from Knowsley to Lancaster, while Northern Irish poet Colette Bryce, born ‘between the
Creggan and the Bogside/to the sounds of crowds and smashing glass’, now lives in
Newcastle upon Tyne. Each has long since discovered and explored the wider world
beyond that early place.
Paul Farley has published five collections of
poetry, including The Boy from the Chemist
Is Here to See You (1998), Tramp in Flames
(2006) and Selected Poems (2009). His latest
collection is the acclaimed The Mizzy (2020).
A frequent presenter on BBC Radio 4’s The
Echo Chamber, he has received numerous
awards including Sunday Times Young Writer
of the Year, the Whitbread Poetry Prize and
the E.M. Forster Award. He is Professor of
Creative Writing at Lancaster University.
Colette Bryce moved to England in 1988 and
lived in London for some years. She received the
Eric Gregory Award for emerging poets in 1995,
and took up a fellowship at Dundee University
(2002–5). She was subsequently appointed
North East Literary Fellow at the universities of
Newcastle and Durham. She works as a
freelance writer and editor, her books include
The Whole & Rain-Domed Universe (2014) and
The ‘M’ Pages (2020), ‘A brilliant, moving book’
Irish Times.
How to Watch: Online via Crowdcast
Tickets: Free, bookable in advance via www.litfest.org
All donations, whether £5, £20 or £100 welcome at the Litfest website!Saturday 20th March 5:00pm
Poetry Day Double Bill 3:
Raymond Antrobus &
Doireann Ní Ghríofa
Our final double bill presents two poets new to the northwest. Raymond Antrobus is a
founding member of ‘Chill Pill’ and he is also one of the world's first recipients of an MA in
Spoken Word education from Goldsmiths University. ‘His monologues are stunning studies
of voice and substance, and his lyric poems are graceful and finely crafted’ says Kwame
Dawes.
Doireann Ní Ghríofa is an Irish poet and essayist whose first prose work, Ghost in the
Throat (2020), is both an autofiction and a celebration of the eighteenth-century Irish
Gaelic poet Eibhlín Dubh Ní Chonail’s brilliant, angry elegy for her husband, “The Lament
for Art O’Leary”. Her work is intense, passionate and lyrical and each of her books is a
deepening exploration of birth, death, desire and domesticity.
Raymond Antrobus was born in Hackney to an
English mother and Jamaican father. He is the
author of Shapes & Disfigurements (2012), To
Sweeten Bitter (2017) and The Perseverance (2018)
for which, in 2019, he became the first ever poet to
be awarded the Rathbone Folio Prize for the best
work of literature in any genre. His new collection,
All the Names Given, is due from Picador/ Tin House
this year.
Doireann Ní Ghríofa is a poet and essayist and the
author of six critically acclaimed books of poetry
including, Clasp and To Star the Dark. Awards for her
writing include a Lannan Literary Fellowship (USA), the
Ostana Prize (Italy), a Seamus Heaney Fellowship
(Queen’s University), and the Rooney Prize for Irish
Literature. Ghost in the Throat was awarded Book of the
Year at the Irish Book Awards in 2020.
How to Watch: Online via Crowdcast
Tickets: Free, bookable in advance via www.litfest.org
All donations, whether £5, £20 or £100 welcome at the Litfest website!In 2019 Andrew McRae and Paul Farley launched a public arts project called The Places of Poetry, centred on a digital map of England and Wales which you can still visit it at: https:// www.placesofpoetry.org.uk The Places of Poetry (2020) is the anthology that grew out of this project, and to celebrate it Litfest has created its own digital poetry map of the Northwest! Everyone is invited to submit poems about places in the region, ranging from South Lancashire to the Solway Firth and from Blackpool to the Trough of Bowland. The poems can be your own, or by someone else, they can be ancient or modern, but they must be about a specific place in the region. In our Poetry Day finale we will be celebrating the poetry of place in a very special showcase. Shortly before the event, Paul and Andrew will select six poems and Litfest will invite the authors or proposers o read them at the event itself, or, if you prefer, you can nominate someone to read for you. The map will be live on our website from the release of the programme and you can submit poems until 15th March 2021!
Saturday 20th March 7:30pm
Poetry Day:
Places of Poetry Northwest
Poetry lives in the veins of Britain, its farms and moors, its
motorways and waterways, highlands and beaches, so for the final
event in our poetry day we are proud to celebrate the poetry of
place.
This event will be the finale of our Places of Poetry Northwest
Project. It will feature work from the 2020 anthology Places of Poetry
alongside six poems selected by Andrew and Paul from the public
submissions to Litfest’s poetry map of the North West.
Andrew McRae is Professor of Renaissance Studies in the
Department of English and Dean of Postgraduate
Research and the Exeter Doctoral College. His
publications include God Speed the Plough, Literature,
Satire and the Early Stuart State, and Literature and
Domestic Travel in Early Modern England (2009).
Paul Farley has published five collections of poetry,
including The Boy from the Chemist Is Here to See You
(1998), Tramp in Flames (2006) and Selected Poems (2009).
His latest collection is the acclaimed The Mizzy (2020). A
frequent presenter on BBC Radio 4’s The Echo Chamber, he
has received numerous awards including Sunday
Times Young Writer of the Year, the Whitbread Poetry Prize
and the E.M. Forster Award. He is Professor of Creative
Writing at Lancaster University.
How to Watch: Online via Crowdcast
Tickets: Free, bookable in advance via www.litfest.org
All donations, whether £5, £20 or £100 welcome at the Litfest website!Sunday 21st March 2:00pm Mind The Gap: Emma Rucastle Mind the Gap is an audio story collage, largely based on emails, headlines and ‘to-do’ lists from early-2020 juxtaposed with conversations and communications in early-2021. Using creation-myth elements, it considers where we've been, where we are now and where we might be going, as we journey across the expanse between our pre-pandemic lives and the future... By turns, thought-provoking, challenging, funny and sad, it is a fascinating record of our current moment. Suitable for all ages. Emma Rucastle is a Lancaster-based theatre professional with wide-ranging experience in educational, community and professional theatre. She trained in theatre directing in London and Moscow and works locally and nationally, online and offline, for many organisations, including Lancaster's Dukes Theatre, Shakespeare Schools Foundation and TramShed Inclusive Theatre Company. She is one of the Makers of Lancaster Fun Palace - part of the #funpalaces movement - a free community celebration of Arts and Sciences held annually the first weekend of each October. How to Watch: Online via Crowdcast Tickets: Free, bookable in advance via www.litfest.org All donations, whether £5, £20 or £100 welcome at the Litfest website!
Contact Details & General Information
Telephone: 01524 582394
Litfest
Email: marketing@litfest.org The Storey
Meeting House Lane
litfestLancaster
Lancaster
@Litfest
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# LancasterLitfest
litfest_lancaster www.litfest.org
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Access Information
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version of the brochure please
contact marketing@litfest.org
All details are correct at the time of going to press. We reserve the right to change the programme if circumstances
dictate.
Lancaster & District Festival Ltd, trading as Litfest.
Registered Company No. 1494221. Registered Charity No. 510670.
Programme and Cover Art
by Natalie Sorrell CharlesworthDate Time Event
Friday 12th March 6:00pm The Litfest Big Read: A. M. Dassu
Friday 12th March
7:30pm The Litfest Big Read: Matt Haig
Saturday 13th March 11:30am How We Live Next: Health - Michael Marmot
Saturday 13th March 2:00pm The Art of Nature: Jackie Morris & Shaun Tan
Saturday 13th March 5:00pm How We Live Next: Environment - Fatima Ibrahim
Saturday 13th March 7:30pm The Lost Spells: Jackie Morris
Sunday 14th March 11:30am How We Live Next: Work - James Suzman
Sunday 14th March 2:00pm How We Live Next: Social Justice - Johnny Pitts
Sunday 14th March 5:00pm How We Live Next: Panel Discussion
Litfest International Fiction Book Club:
Monday 15th March 6:30pm
Andrey Kurkov - Grey Bees
Tuesday 16th March 7:30pm Reading the City: The Book of Ramallah
Wednesday 17th March 7:30pm Sarah Hall in Conversation
Thursday 18th March 7:30pm How We Live Now - Film Premiere
Friday 19th March 7:30pm Talking About Birds: Tim Birkhead & Paul Farley
Saturday 20th March 11:00am Fiction and Landscape: James Clarke & Sarah Moss
Saturday 20th March 2:00pm Poetry Day Double Bill 1: Tara Bergin & Sean O’Brien
Saturday 20th March 3:30pm Poetry Day Double Bill 2: Paul Farley & Colette Bryce
Saturday 20th March 5:00pm Poetry Day Double Bill 3: Raymond Antrobus &
Doireann Ní Ghríofa
Saturday 20th March 7:30pm Poetry Day: Places of Poetry Northwest
Sunday 21st March 2:00pm Mind the Gap: Emma RucastleYou can also read
