Lowdham's Last Saturday

Lowdham Book Festival – Saturday 29th June

10am – 5pm All Day Book Fair and Café, Village Hall, Main Street, Lowdham

The final Saturday of the Lowdham Book Festival is always one of the highlights of Nottinghamshire’s literary calendar. This year’s is the Festival’s 20^th last Saturday.

Throughout the day the Village Hall hosts a cafe serving hot and cold drinks, salads and panini, cakes and ice cream. The bookfair is spread over the Village Hall, a big marquee behind the Village Hall and assorted gazebos. It features publishers, charities, book trade organisations and booksellers with new and second-hand books. There are displays of old-fashioned letter press printing equipment, and an eclectic mix of talks and readings.

No need to book but turn up early for any event you are particularly keen on to guarantee a seat! Entry is FREE to the bookfair and all events.

Take a look at the order of play:

11am Difficult issues? Not so difficult issues?

Committee Room, Village Hall Troy Jenkinson (The Best Mummy Snails in the Whole Wide World, about children with lesbian parents), and Rose Robbins (Me and My Sister, about having a sibling with autism) discuss writing books about "issues" for younger children.

11am Watson Fothergill - an illustrated talk by Darren Turner Methodist Chapel, Main Street

The Victorian architect Watson Fothergill left a distinctive stamp on Nottingham, making him the most famous local architect of the period. His works can still be seen all over the city.

11am Stephen Booth – Peak District Crime fiction Marquee behind the Village Hall

Stephen makes a welcome return to the Festival, and brings us up to date with murder and mayhem in the Dark Peak. His Cooper and Fry series is now up to 18 books. It's dangerous in Derbyshire!

11am Ruth Charnock on Joni Mitchell  WI Hall, Main Street

In this sound and image-illustrated talk, Ruth Charnock looks at Joni Mitchell’s work as a musician, composer, cultural commentator and antagonist, thinking particularly about Mitchell’s album Blue and its depiction of desire, free love, and the late ’60s, whilst also exploring Mitchell’s wider cultural contributions and significance.

12.30-1.30pm Shoestring Poetry Hour  Committee Room, Village Hall

John Lucas presents Malcom Carson and Paul Binding, stalwarts of the independent publishing scene. Malcolm has three full collections, Breccia, Rangi Changi and other poems, Route Choice and a pamphlet, Cleethorpes Comes to Paris. Paul is a novelist, critic, poet and cultural historian.  He has written on Eudora Welty and Lorca as well as his own poetry.

12.30-1.30pm Bird Therapy with Joe Harkness Methodist Chapel, Main Street

On depression and bird watching - how becoming a bird watcher saved Joe. 'I can't remember the last book I read that I could say with absolute assurance would save lives. But this one will' Chris Packham.

12.30-1.30pm Rules are meant to be broken Marquee behind the Village Hall

Darren Simpson (Scavengers) and Kate Mallinder (Summer of No Regrets) write for teenagers. Kate's novel is about four sixteen-year-old best friends who pledge to live a summer regret-free, taking risks however much it scares them. Darren's character Landfill lives as a scavenger, behind the wall, swimming with turtles and eating fresh gull. But he wants to explore the world outside.

12.30-1.30pm Protest and Power:  the battle for the Labour Party with David Kogan WI Hall, Main Street

Journalist David Kogan's talk can best be described by these quotes about his book: 'If you want to understand Corbyn's long march to take control of Labour this is the only book to read’ (Robert Peston) ‘New insights, vivid interviews, granular, often objectively funny details, combine to build a portrait of the British left that is both honest and dignifying.’ (Zoe Williams Guardian)

2-3pm Lux, historical fiction with Elizabeth Cook Committee Room, Village Hall

King David sings his psalms while King Henry plots. Courtier Thomas Wyatt sees them both, his beloved falcon Lukkes on his arm. Lux is a story of love, fidelity, faith and power. Elizabeth Cook was born in Gibraltar, and spent her childhood in Nigeria and Dorset. She is the author of the novel Achilles, and wrote the libretto for Francis Grier’s The Passion of Jesus of Nazareth, broadcast by the BBC.

2-3pm Welcome to the Cheap Seats, with Andrew Graves Methodist Chapel, Main Street

This is an illustrated talk on working class film, with a strong Nottingham element, including the films of Shane Meadows, and of Alan Sillitoe's books as well as Kes, To Sir, With Love and many others.

2-3pm "Don't mention the war", with Clare Harvey Marquee behind the Village Hall

Clare is the author of several books set during WWII, some in Nottingham. She will be talking about her research, her development of strong female characters and how to set stories within a war.

2-3pm Epic Continent, with Nicholas Jubber WI Hall, Main Street

Award-winning travel writer Nicholas Jubber journeys across Europe exploring Europe's epic poems, from the Odyssey to Beowulf, the Song of Roland to the Nibelungenlied, and their impact on European identity in these turbulent times. 

3.30-4.30pm Mug without a Handle: Life after Loss of a Long-term Partner with Alison Chippendale Committee Room, Village Hall

Alison will be reading her own poems about dealing with widowhood.

3.30-4.30pm I Went for a Walk, with Gabriel Stewart Methodist Chapel, Main Street

"Just over a year ago I decided I wanted to go for a walk, a rather long one. I had a plan. I'd use my home in London as a base and strike out into the countryside, starting small - short jaunts to Brighton or Norwich, leading up to walking London to Penzance and finishing my year with a walk to Edinburgh. That was the plan. And it couldn't have gone more wrong."

3.30-4.30pm Our Lady of Everything, with Susan Finlay WI Hall, Main Street

Susan's debut novel is set in Nottingham, 2004. It chronicles the lives of Eoin O'Shea's friends and family, and what happens to them when he, a second-generation Northern Irish soldier, is posted by the British army to Iraq.  The Games Workshop, Broadway Cinema, the Post, and Nottingham's Polish church all feature, as does chaos magik and Warhammer.

3.30-4.30pm Milkman and other novels from the North of Ireland, with Deirdre O'Byrne Marquee behind the Village Hall

 Milkman, by Anna Burns, which won the Booker Prize, was set in Belfast during the height of "the Troubles". In this talk Deirdre discusses the book in relation to other novels set in the North at a time when Irish writing has rarely been so popular with British readers.

Saturday extras in the big marquee!

12pm and 4pm (for 20 minutes each time)

Join Clare Stevens and a group of writers from Maggie's, Nottingham reading their own material. Like all our events today, these are free, but there is a Maggie's collecting box!

Maggie’s Stall, Main Marquee

1.30pm and 3pm (for 20 minutes each time)

Join Tuesday Shannon, Pippa Hennessy and Elizabeth Hourston from Soundswrite women's press, reading their poems about Orkney, archaeology and quantum physics (!).

Soundswrite Stall, Main Marquee

The full programme can be read HERE

EY UP DUCK

Nottingham Speakers’ Club Presents

EY UP DUCK!

A Speakers’ Sunday Event
FIVE SPEAKERS on all things Notts - Creativity, Literature, Football, Photography, Rebellion, Architecture, Suffrage, and much more…
On: SUNDAY 30th June 10.45AM – 12.30PM
‎Price: £5.00 (concessions available), Includes Breakfast, Tea/Coffee.
No booking required, turn up on the day. 
At: The CANALHOUSE, Canal Street, Nottingham NG1 7EH
In: The function room, upstairs.

What: The LeftLion editor, ex-Mouthy Poet, and current Writer-in-Residence at NTU, BRIDIE SQUIRES will talk about mental health and creativity, with Nottingham as the narrative thread which ties it all together.

Bridie Squires

Author CAROL LOVEJOY EDWARDS on Struggle and Suffrage in Nottingham, the story of many women across the generations and their struggle for equality. This was not just a struggle for the vote but also for equality in the workplace and even in their own homes. 

Lovejoy-Edwards is the author of Struggle and Suffrage in Nottingham

REBECCA SPARHAM-SIMPSON an illustrated talk on Nottingham’s Buildings and Architecture, from the early settlers through to the designers T.C. Hine, Joseph Else and Watson Fothergill, and the future regeneration of the city.

Rebecca Sparham-Simpson

Hear ‘My Nottingham Journey’, from local poet and author VICTORIA WILLIAMS.

Victoria Williams

With photography – including Nottingham at night - from local artist and Mathematical Physician LAMAR FRANCOIS, who thinks of photography as both an art and science, making new discoveries visually. 

Lamar Francois

And: In 2014 Nottingham was named the first City of Football and, a year later, it became a UNESCO City of Literature, but which title is Nottingham most deserving of? The case will be made for both accolades and then it’s over to you to decide! 

Plus: Breakfast (pastries, cakes, fruit), and unlimited tea and coffee!

All hosted by @NathanTalking

This is the third Nottingham Speakers’ Club public outreach event. Fuel for the body and the mind, come along and learn a few things you may not know about Nottingham.

Nottingham Speakers’ Club is a part of the UK-wide Association of Speakers’ Clubs, a not-for-profit members’ organisation open to all.

Skip Skip Skip

Can you help one of our best and brightest poets take her show to this year’s Edinburgh Fringe?

Leanne Moden had developed her first full-length spoken word show, Skip Skip Skip, and it’s brilliant: an emotion inducing ride of teenage angst, belonging and identity. Combining poetry, storytelling, humour and movement, Skip Skip Skip is an honest, heartfelt performance that deserves to be seen.

“Now, I’m finally ready to take the whole thing up to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. But I need your help!” 

Leanne Moden

A performance poet for nearly a decade, Leanne developed this show from conversations with friends and colleagues about how music shapes our friendships, personalities and lives, especially during those tricky teenage years. She’s now been offered a slot at the PBH Free Fringe, performing at the Banshee Labyrinth, and will be there every day at 7pm, from the 17th to the 25th of August.

To help fund Leanne’s show, or to find out more, please visit her page on gofundme.

Leanne has been telling poems at events across the UK and Europe since 2010, including recent performances at TEDx WOMEN, WOMAD Festival, Sofar Sounds, Bestival on the Isle of Wight and the Fourth Wave Feminist Festival, as well as festivals in Estonia and Spain. She's been a national finalist at the BBC Edinburgh Fringe Slam, the Hammer and Tongue slam, Poetry Rivals, the Camden Roundhouse Slam, the Axis Slam, and the Anti-Slam. It would be great to se her shine in Edinburgh.

Nottwich, Belbin & Macfarlane

Robert Macfarlane gave the NUCoL's Annual Lecture on May 21st, launching the Nottingham leg of Nottwich in style. You can watch it all at the bottom of this post. 

By all accounts Nottingham’s hosting of Nottwich, the annual global gathering of UNESCO City of Literatures, was a great success. The event opened at The Council House with a series of excellent speeches from Sandeep Mahal, Director NUCoL; Councillor David Mellen, Leader City of Nottingham; Edward Peck, Nottingham Trent University’s Vice-Chancellor; Darren Henley OBE, Chief Executive of Arts Council England; Patrick Limb QC, Trustee NUCoL and organiser of ‘The Lost Words’ project for Notts libraries; Professor Shearer West, Vice-Chancellor and President of the University of Nottingham.

Also speaking was David Belbin, Chair of Nottingham UNESCO City of Literature, and he recently reproduced the script of his speech on his new website  

Here it is:

“Thanks to the University of Nottingham for hosting their annual UNESCO lecture here as part of our Nottwich conference. I bid a very warm welcome to every one of the delegates at the Creative Cities of Literature summit, which we’re proud to host. I met many of you in Dublin three years ago & look forward to catching up. And of course, a very warm welcome to Robert Macfarlane, our guest lecturer.

This is the building where, four and a half years ago, we announced that the city would bid to become a UNESCO City of Literature. It was an ambitious thing to do and one that many people – sometimes including me – thought we had little hope of achieving. But we were determined to bring the city together, to celebrate our heritage, yes, but also to acknowledge our diverse, thrilling writing scene. Most of all, we wanted to make things happen.

And here we are, co-hosting what I’ve been told is the city’s biggest International Conference this year, Nottwich. By the way, as a huge admirer of Graham Greene, I’m delighted we agreed to name this conference after the fictional version of Nottingham that Greene created for his novel about our city, A Gun For Sale.

Greene was only here for three months in 1926. He thought of Nottingham as a cultural desert & you know, he had a point. I’ve been here more than forty years. The changes in that time have been staggering. Though I’ll tell you what, we’ve always had good libraries. Twenty-odd years ago, Notts libraries – who’ve always been superb at supporting local writers – managed to find twenty of us from across the county for a photocall in the Victoria Shopping Centre.

That was the only time I ever saw my friends Alan Sillitoe and Stanley Middleton together. I often wonder what the two of them – working class writers from lowly origins – would make of where we are now. By the turn of the century, new writers kept popping up all over. There was a groundswell of poetry, in particular. Did you know we have more poetry publishers, per head, than any comparable city in the world? Credit must also be given to Nottingham Playhouse who fostered the birth of the hugely successful and influential Mouthy Poets, giving them space and support. Under Giles Croft and Stephanie Sirr, they put new emphasis on producing plays by Nottingham-based writers like Andy Barrett, Amanda Whittington and Mufaro Makubika.

In early 2014, one of our playwrights, Stephen Lowe, became President of Bromley House Library. At his suggestion, the library commissioned Pippa Hennessey to look into how they might celebrate Nottingham’s literary heritage. She came up with the idea of bidding to become a UNESCO City of Literature and would become our Project Manager during the bid. That summer we set up a company to manage the bid and, if successful, the designation. Our volunteer board included several writers and representatives from the Writers Studio, Writing East Midlands, the Playhouse, the City Council and, of course, both of our great universities.

We decided to become an educational charity. And we asked for help. After I was elected chair, I called Aly Bowden, director of Edinburgh City of Literature for advice. She told me we needed a shout line that summed us up in no more than six words. As every writer knows, writing short is much harder than writing long. Still, I think we managed to succinctly articulate what has always been and will always be our mission: Building a Better World With Words.

Half of the money to finance our bid came from Arts Council England, whose James Urquhart was an enormous support during this entire process. The other half came, in equal measure, from the city council and our two universities. We’re both grateful for and proud of fostering that three-way partnership, which went on to be the basis for the city’s European Capital of Culture bid – before the embarrassment that is Brexit ruled the UK out of the bidding –  despite being disqualified, we demonstrated that we are an international city, one that, tomorrow, I’ll be proud to tour with our visitors from around the world.

We submitted our UNESCO bid in summer 2015. That December, we learned we’d been successful, becoming one of what were then just fifteen cities of literature. It was and is a success that belonged to the whole city and, in particular, to every one of our writers, many of whom are in this room tonight. Six months later, thanks to our four key partners, from whom you’re about to hear, we were in position to recruit a director. Sandeep Mahal took on her new role whole-heartedly, and she’s done a fantastic job. Not only for us. Sandy now chairs the Creative Cities of Literature network. She’ll make sure that delegates have a very fruitful few days here. We hope you have a great time.

Finally, I’d like to congratulate David Mellen, our next speaker, on his election as our new Council Leader and thank him, for coming here tonight to make his first official speech in his new role.”

(my thanks to David for his permission to use this text)

The final speech of the night was from the internationally acclaimed author, and Nottingham lad,  Robert Macfarlane, whose address, movingly introduced with a video highlighting the impact of the Lost Words project, gave a vivid demonstration of the power of storytelling and how culture and creativity can help a world in deep trouble. 
You can watch it here: