Blake Morrison’s A Discoverie of Witches is a limited edition clothbound hardcover book with just one hundred copies produced. Lancaster Assizes, 1612. Ten people from Pendle in Lancashire were hanged, pronounced guilty of the crime of witchcraft. The poems in this collection give voice to characters involved in the trials: from the accused to the [...] Read more – ‘Blake Morrison – A Discoverie of Witches (Limited Edition)’.
Litfest are pleased to announce the publication of Malkin Child, by Livi Michael. A powerful reimagining of the most famous witch trial in English history, suitable for ages 9+. ‘Malkin Child is an absolutely riveting read, so original and imaginative. It’s a novel about witchcraft that casts its own particularly powerful spell.’ Jacqueline Wilson ‘a [...] Read more – ‘Malkin Child: A Story of Pendle’s Witches’.
WANTED: Story Hunters to work on an exciting new project leading to an exhibition in February 2013. YOUR MISSION: Investigate the hidden histories around sites from Castle to Quayside with the help of a local historian, a photographer and a writer. WHERE: Come along to an initial meeting with project leader Claire Massey at The [...] Read more – ‘Volunteer Story Hunters Wanted’.
Litfest is one of the first groups in the UK to receive a Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) All Our Stories grant. The Castle Park Stories project has been given £10,000 to inspire local residents to uncover the hidden stories in the area around the castle. Castle Park Stories will allow participants to investigate Lancaster’s rich [...] Read more – ‘Castle Park Stories’.
Today saw the beginning of the Litfest events on the campus of Lancaster University – at the Lancaster Institute for Contemporary Arts building. Before John began to read, his slide made up of a portrait of D.H. Lawrence, with a torso and hands sketched beneath (Lawrence holding a potato peeler and potato) was projected onto [...] Read more – ‘An Evening with John Hegley by Matthew Ryan Dunn’.
Social entrepreneur, Jane Binnion, has produced an ebook , Lancashire Super women, celebrating Lancashire women business owners and charity directors. The book contains the stories of 24 women and the challenges that they face as they juggle their many roles. With a guest blog and forward by Rosie Garland The book will to be available [...] Read more – ‘Lancashire Super Woman by Jane Binnion’.
Rosie Garland – Everything Must Go It would seem that Litfest 2012 has taken a dive into the world the occult with Thursday afternoon’s act, the vampire queen herself; Rosie Lugosi. But, as the daytime appearance indicates, Rosie Garland instead pulled off the veil of her fabulously un-dead persona and gave us an insight into [...] Read more – ‘Two Reviews from Freya Gallagher-Jones’.
Gothic Young Adult Fiction “Many Gothic stories are set in houses. It’s where we expect to be our safest, but when we’re not, that’s scary…that’s a good place to set them.” – Cliff McNish “A Gothic plot needs to include a threat: be it of physical, mental or emotional destruction.” – The Panel “Readers are [...] Read more – ‘Two Reviews by Lucy Smith’.
Livi’s Michael’s Malkin Child We all know the story of the Lancashire witches, or do we? There has been a great debate over whether the testimony of young Jennet Device in court was given out of spite or in the belief that she was saving her family. Livi was commissioned to write a children’s novel [...] Read more – ‘Three Reviews by Beth Cortese’.
Litfest has been excellent for satisfying my live poetry fix. Last week I was traversing the streets of Lancaster; this time I was in the decidedly more comfortable setting of the LICA building listening to acclaimed poets Robert Crawford and Gillian Clarke rounding off the all-day poetry shindig. I was unfamiliar with both, but by [...] Read more – ‘Gillian Clarke and Robert Crawford Review: Charlie Alcock’.
Pulled off at Half-time: A review of Writing about Football at Lancaster Litfest First half: Bring Me the Head of Ryan Giggs by Rodge Glass Rodge Glass came out of the tunnel well up for it and looking to do the lads proud, reading from Bring Me the Head of Ryan Giggs, his novel about [...] Read more – ‘Rodge Glass/Alan Bissett Review – Graeme Shimmin’.
I arrived at this event with a decent knowledge of The Stone Roses, the fantastic photographer who took the photographs for, and wrote Set in Stone, Ian Tilton (alongside co-writer Claire Caldwell). What I did not know, though, was what both were like as people. Their book launch tonight definitely revealed them both to be [...] Read more – ‘Wired In Review: Matthew R Dunn’.
The Language of Footprints introduces three new prose pieces commissioned for Litfest 2012 from emerging North West writers. Through the short story and creative non-fiction forms the writers have explored three very different Lancashire landscapes, each visiting layers of memory tied to places and considering the ways the landscapes we inhabit shape who we become. [...] Read more – ‘Flax 030’.
And our final Litfest Undressed see’s teenage reading advocates, Behind the Cover, talk to us about who they are, just before they head to the streets of Lancaster for their performances tomorrow. We’re sad to ask this for the last time. Please tell us a bit about your role and your involvement with Litfest? Behind [...] Read more – ‘Litfest Undressed – Behind the Cover’.
Only ten days until the festival and it’s all go go go in the Litfest office. This week we have festival coordinator, Nici West, taking to the stage for Litfest Undressed. Hi Nici. Tell us a bit about your involvement with Litfest? I joined Litfest in May 2012 to be Events and Marketing Officer and [...] Read more – ‘Litfest Undressed with Nici West’.
Sat 13th October 10.00am Behind the Cover Sat 13th October 12.00pm Litflash Lunchtime Mon 15th October 7.00pm Wired In – Set in Stone Weds 17th October 1.00pm Gothic Lunch – Dracula Weds 17th October 6.00pm Mystery Launch Weds 17th October 7.30pm Gothic Young Adult Fiction Thurs 18th October 1.00pm Rosie Garland Thurs 18th October 6.00pm [...] Read more – ‘Festival Calendar’.
This week we’re very excited to interview the lovely Emma Rucastle, who will be stepping up to the challenge to coordinate the Mystery Launch event with only 48 hours notice and £33 to spend. The circumstances for this challenge recreate what it is like for arts organisations in the current climate and we challenge Emma [...] Read more – ‘Litfest Undressed with Emma Rucastle’.
Hello all. Four weeks and counting! Here to share her thoughts on all things Litfest is the Marketing Officer, Maria Major. Hello Maria and welcome to number four of Litfest Undressed. Please tell us a bit about your role and your involvement with Litfest. I’m responsible for marketing at Litfest – making sure that the [...] Read more – ‘Litfest Undressed with Maria Major’.
Week three of Litfest Undressed and we’d like to welcome Litfest’s Admin Manager to the stage, Jonathan Bean. Explain a bit about your role and your involvement with Litfest: Litfest 2012 will be my 10th Festival since joing the team in 2003. My role is essentially Administrative, so I look after the Litfest Bookshop, Manage [...] Read more – ‘Litfest Undressed with Jonathan Bean’.
Brave number two to take to the Litfest Undressed stage is Litfest’s editor and writer in her own right, Claire Massey. Please put your hands together as Claire shares her thoughts on fantasy festival guests and her love of luminous words. Hello Claire. Please tell us a bit about your role and your involvement with [...] Read more – ‘Litfest Undressed with Claire Massey.’.
You may not be aware, but it is now eight weeks until the start of Lancaster Literature Festival 2012. To celebrate the build up to this year’s festival, every Friday we will be interviewing someone Litfest sized in this feature, Litfest Undressed. Please put your hands together for the first brave contendor, Mr Andy Darby, Artistic Director of Litfest, [...] Read more – ‘Litfest Undressed.’.
Would you like to be part of Lancaster Litfest 2012? Through our publishing imprint Flax, we have two exciting opportunities for writers and other creatives to get involved: Flax Landscapes As part of Litfest 2012, we’re commissioning three writers to create work informed and inspired by the Lancashire landscape. These are paid commissions for work [...] Read more – ‘Flax calls for submissions’.
The Litfest site has been hacked and we are now rebuilding the site from scratch. There was no sensitive data involved but several years of work will now need to be checked through to ensure it is clean and safe from malware. We will be back up and running as soon as we can. In [...] Read more – ‘Hacked Site’.
The Litfest site has been hacked and we are now rebuilding the site from scratch. There was no sensitive data involved but several years of work will now need to be checked through to ensure it is clean and safe from malware. We will be back up and running as soon as we can. In [...] Read more – ‘Temporary Site’.
Litfest (www.litfest.org) is looking to appoint a P/T Marketing & Events Officer for a period of 6 months. Candidates should have some events management/administration experience and be able to work 2 days per week, including some evenings and weekends. The day-to-day work will involve taking the lead on the planning, coordinating and marketing of Litfest [...] Read more – ‘Litfest seek Marketing & Events Officer (p/t)’.
