Archive for the 'Literature' Category

Akala Performs at Toxteth Library

Published by Ian Jackson on July 14, 2010 11:59 in Literature, Music and News. Closed Tags: , , .

Akala-performs-at-Toxteth-Library-1

Four blog posts so far today – Art, Dance, Poetry and now Hip Hop Shakespeare! This library tour is a great idea and rapping Shakespeare is rather cool.

MOBO winning star wows Toxteth teens at library

AWARD-winning hip-hop star Akala played a special, invitation-only evening gig for young people at Toxteth Library.

More than 120 young people from Toxteth-based music and writing groups were invited to attend the 108-year-old library, which has recently undergone a £1.3m makeover including the creation of a new exhibition and performance space.

His performance was part of a tour of libraries across the country this summer. The tour is in partnership with the national charity The Reading Agency and Akala’s Hip-hop Shakespeare Company: it is part of a major drive to fire up young people about reading and transform the way they think about libraries.

Events will take place in libraries across the UK, with the final show taking place at the British Library in London in November.

Continue reading ‘Akala Performs at Toxteth Library’

Published by Ian Jackson on July 14, 2010 11:59 in Literature, Music and News. Closed Tags: , , .

See The Wire’s Sonja Sohn in Liverpool. 22 June 2010

Published by Ian Jackson on June 14, 2010 13:59 in Literature. Closed Tags: , .

Sonja-SohnReWired and Reading
The Wire’s Sonja Sohn (Det. Kima Greggs) visits Liverpool to raise the profile of Merseyside Community Theatre in two special events:
•    A public event: ‘ReWired and Reading: Sonja Sohn In Conversation’ on 22nd June, 7.30pm at Liverpool Philharmonic Hall (Rodewald Suite). Charitable fundraising event for Merseyside Community Theatre (tickets £10).

•    A community event: ‘Shakespeare: It Aint No Thing’ on the evening of 21st June.

Sonja Sohn reads Shakespeare with participants of Merseyside Community Theatre in Croxteth

Sonja Sohn, who played Detective ‘Kima’ Greggs in every series of The Wire, is visiting Liverpool later this month to support The Reader Organisation’s Merseyside Community Theatre project, which culminates in four performances of Romeo and Juliet at Croxteth Fire Station 26th – 28th August.
Jane Davis, Director of The Reader Organisation, met Sonja on a recent trip to Baltimore and found out about ‘ReWired for Change’: helping at-risk young people to build on their courage and success and improve their standard of life.

Continue reading ‘See The Wire’s Sonja Sohn in Liverpool. 22 June 2010′

Published by Ian Jackson on June 14, 2010 13:59 in Literature. Closed Tags: , .

Life’s Better With a Book Readers’ Day

Published by Ian Jackson on May 25, 2010 00:02 in Literature. Closed

Life’s Better With a Book Readers’ Day

… in partnership with The Brindley Arts Centre

Saturday 12th June, 9.30am – 4.00pm

Book lovers read, book lovers speak, book lovers discuss why literature is good for the heart, soul, mind, and body.

On Saturday 12th June 2010 The Reader Organisation brings you its summer Readers’ Day event: ‘Life’s better with a book’, a day for people who believe in the power of literature to heal the individual and make sense of the world.

The Reader Organisation delivers an array of exciting workshops, designed to make you recall with fondness, query with curiosity, and challenge with fervour why your most beloved work of prose or poetry speaks to you the way it does. In celebration of 2010 as the ‘Year of Health and Wellbeing’, and inspired by the ‘five ways to wellbeing’ – connect, be active, take notice, keep learning, and give – we ask you to join us as we explore the ways and wherefores of reading and that age old feel good feeling it can bring.

Join The Reader Organisation’s Jane Davis, Brian Nellist, Angela Macmillan and many others, for a day of interactive workshops that explore the ways that literature can make us feel good. Engage with some familiar favourites in Dickens, Austen and Wordsworth, and discover some new writers, as we unearth why reading and writing occupies a unique role in our lives: helping us to understand self and other; personal experiences past, present, and future; and uncountable unknowns.

“Can hard times really make us stronger?” “Can we recover moments of supreme happiness from times past?” The Reader Organisation staff considers these big questions and more, all inspired by the reading experience.

Tickets: £20, £15 concessions, £12 Leisure Card Holders. A delicious lunch is included in the price.

Workshop Details and Booking Form:http://events.thereader.org.uk/lifes-better-with-a-book-readers-day.html

Published by Ian Jackson on May 25, 2010 00:02 in Literature. Closed

Darcus Howe. Rebel Rant 22 April 2010

Published by Ian Jackson on April 10, 2010 19:51 in Literature and Talks. Closed Tags: , .

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Black Foot on the Backfoot?
Darcus Howe

Thursday 22nd April 2010 at 19.30
The Kuumba Imani Millennium Centre,
34-36 Princes Road
Liverpool L8 1TH

Tickets: £8 & £5 concessions, available from the Philharmonic Hall Box Office
Tel: 0151 709 3789

Online booking click here

The event will be BSL signed and the venue is fully accessible.

Race is back on the agenda with a vengeance.  Darcus Howe, appearing as part of Writing on the Wall’s ‘Rebel Rants’, will argue that despite gains made following the inner city uprisings of the 1980’s and the publication of the Macpherson Report, in many ways Britain has changed for the worse for black communities.

To support his position Darcus charts the return of police stop and search tactics, the drift of young black men into violence, increasing hostility towards immigrants and Muslims, and the establishment’s accommodation of the fascist BNP party.

Continue reading ‘Darcus Howe. Rebel Rant 22 April 2010′

Published by Ian Jackson on April 10, 2010 19:51 in Literature and Talks. Closed Tags: , .

Writing on the Wall 2010 Line Up Announced

Published by Ian Jackson on April 4, 2010 20:09 in Literature. Closed Tags: .

Cake-Wow-230This year is the 10th Anniversary of this excellent festival

WoW Festival 2010
Saturday 8th – 22nd May 2010

Pauline Melville…Paul Farley…Julian Daniels…GENERATION X…Kind-a-Blue…In the Red…Blank Pages…Clare Campbell…LEGENDS…China Miéville…APPLES & SUBMARINES…Phil Scraton…Pulp Idol… REBEL RANTS…Bonnie Greer…Richard Milward…Joe Dunthorne…Robert Shearman…IS THIS ENGLAND…Jon Morter…Don Letts…X FACTOR…Phil Hayes…Martin O’Shea…Kevin Sampson…Levi Tafari…The Beat…HIGH HEELS…The DPM Crew…Tindal Street Press…DALEKS…Luke Brown…The Monocles…STREET STYLE…The Cipher…LowKey…LOVE…Gavin Martin…Dean Johnson…ART AND REBELLION…Phil Thornton…Ian Prowse…Paul Du Noyer…Clarissa Pouncer…Marianne Hyatt…Zoe Street Howe…Colin Hall…Anthony Cartwright…Helen Walsh…Stewart Home…David Jacques…Ted Polhemus…Sara McEwan…ANOTHER TIME ANOTHER PLACE…Roddy Doyle…Niall Griffiths…PUB CRAWL…Writing on the Wall celebrating 10 years…NOT TO BE MISSED…

REBEL RANTS – Darcus Howe and Bonnie Greer still to come in our series of Rebel Rants.

An award winning festival that does more than just dares to be different.  Pioneering in its field and unique in its style, a ‘rare beast – a festival fueled by pure, righteous anger’, which has the ‘foresight and guts to hold events in some of our most deprived areas’ and reach ‘audiences that other festivals can’t reach.’

Published by Ian Jackson on April 4, 2010 20:09 in Literature. Closed Tags: .

Lemn Sissay, Levi Tafari at the Bluecoat

Published by Ian Jackson on March 17, 2010 09:37 in Literature. Closed Tags: .

Lemn-Sissay-pic1Lemn Sissay is at the Bluecoat on Saturday 27 March 2010, as part of Migration Songs II all day literature, film and music event.

Lemn (pictured) is a playwright, performer and broadcaster and his one person autobiographical show Why I Don’t Hate White People offers a whirlwind tour of being the child of an unlikely liaison between Ethiopia, Eritrea and Wigan Social Services.

Growing up in rural Lancashire, he didn’t know a black person until he was eighteen and spent most of his adult life searching for his family. He will navigate a journey of mental gymnastics and laughter to discover why he doesn’t hate white people.

The show has been nationally lauded with the Guardian dubbing it ‘magnificent’ and awarding it 5/5.

Also appearing is dub poet and author of the Liverpool Experience Levi Tafari.

Taking place from 2.00-10.30pm, the event, begins with a screening of seminal 1970s reggae film, The Harder They Come, complete with legendary soundtrack by Jimmy Cliff and others. This is followed with a networking session by and for Liverpool’s diverse communities, exploring the legacy of diverse arts in the city since the 1980s, including presentations and films.

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Published by Ian Jackson on March 17, 2010 09:37 in Literature. Closed Tags: .

The Daily Post launches its online literary festival – Live Read

Published by Ian Jackson on February 18, 2010 19:53 in Literature. Closed

Liverpool Daily Post.co.uk – Entertainment – Liverpool Arts – The Daily Post launches its online literary festival – Live Read.

Looks good…

INTERNATIONALLY renowned horror writer Ramsey Campbell will be a star guest of the first online literary festival to be organised by a UK newspaper.

The Wirral-based author, whose work inspired his American counterpart Stephen King, will be one of the big names featured in LiveRead.

Run by the Daily Post from March 15-19, the festival will be a celebration of Liverpool writers and writing – both amateur and professional.

Campbell, 64, will be one of several major names to take part in a live online interview – answering readers’ questions on his books, the writing process and his own reading habits.

“I’m delighted to be involved with the Daily Post’s LiveRead festival,” he says.

“It was always my morning paper, since I’ve lived here all my life.

“I’ve been setting tales of terror in contemporary Liverpool for 45 years now, and I look forward to the feedback from readers.”

LiveRead will also feature a performance by Neil Caple, former Brookside actor and star of Funny Money, currently playing at the Royal Court, and book readings by a range of local authors.

LIVEREAD runs on the Daily Post website from March 15-19. Further details and information on how to get involved at www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liveread

Published by Ian Jackson on February 18, 2010 19:53 in Literature. Closed

WoW 10th Anniversary – Rebel Rants Announced

Published by Ian Jackson on January 14, 2010 20:01 in Literature and Talks. Closed Tags: , .
An impressive list of social commentators (or boring old farts maybe ;) …
WoW 10th Anniversary – Rebel Rants Announced
WoW (Writing on the Wall) celebrates 10 years as a radical, cutting edge festival, by launching ‘Rebel Rants’, a series featuring some of the most high profile, outspoken, controversial writers and campaigners in the UK today, including: Journalist and former independent anti-corruption MP, Martin Bell, Radical Feminist, writer and commentator, Germaine Greer, Radical lawyer, Michael Mansfield QC, activist, broadcaster and columnist, Darcus Howe and writer, critic and social commentator Bonnie Greer.

Democracy Down the Drain?
With Martin Bell & Stuart Wilks-Heeg

Date: 27th January 2010 at the Bluecoat Continue reading ‘WoW 10th Anniversary – Rebel Rants Announced’

Published by Ian Jackson on January 14, 2010 20:01 in Literature and Talks. Closed Tags: , .