For Your Consideration on Wednesday 17th Feb –
Two Free events
THE WORLD PREMIERE OF 'AUSTERITY CAFE - A RHYME OPERA' HELD
IN THE BAR AT ROUGH TRADE NOTTINGHAM.
7pm
FREE – no booking required/no wristband needed.
An experimental fusion of political satire, fractured
melodies and home grown verse, serving up bite-sized chunks of UK sociopolitial
pie. Yannis owns Austerity Café, where he welcomes customers and gives them
floor space to air their views. We get to hear from Karl the protestor, Phil
the long distance lorry driver and George the banker. Poetry open mic slots
available. All parts played by Andy Szpuk, with supporting crew.
All welcome
Or
SUGAR AND SNAILS BY ANNE GOODWIN – A READING/DISCUSSION AT
FIVE LEAVES BOOKSHOP
7-8:30pm,
FREE - Booking recommended, please RSVP to
fiveleaves.bookshopevents@gmail.com or call in to the shop.
In recognition of LGBT month, writer Anne Goodwin will be
reading from and discussing her debut novel Sugar
and Snails. The book takes a sensitive subject matter, handles it with all
the force of a freight train and leaves behind nothing but a truly immersive
reading experience. Taking place in both the present and the past, between the
urban streets of Newcastle and the pyramids of Cairo, the story is one of
startling honesty and emotional connections. It carries comfortably the mantles
of literary and LGBT fiction but, at its heart, is nothing more or less than a
superb piece of modern storytelling.
All welcome. Refreshments available, 15% discount off
purchases made on the night.
After reviewing the 2015 psychological thriller I Came To Find A Girl, NottsLit asked its author Jaq Hazell why she chose Nottingham as a setting. Here is her reply, guest post style:
Rewriting the City and its Dark, Twisted Streets by Jaq Hazell
Why I chose Nottingham as a setting for my novel
Nottingham, UNESCO
City of Literature, has provided the setting for classic novels from the likes
of DH Lawrence and Alan Sillitoe, and continues to inspire today with writers
such as John Harvey, David Belbin and Nicola Monaghan using the city in their
contemporary works. Nottingham is also the main setting for my novel I Came to
Find a Girl.
I Came to Find a Girl
is a psychological thriller about art student Mia and how she meets famous
artist Jack Flood when he’s in the city for the opening of his own exhibition.
Mia goes back to his hotel, accepts a drink, and later wakes up naked with no
idea what has occurred. She fears she may have been filmed for one of Flood’s
future video artworks. Should she go to the police? And what has happened to
her missing friend Jenny? Women are being murdered, and the city seems to have
become a more dangerous place.
Crime occurs
everywhere of course, so why set this novel in Nottingham? The simple answer is
familiarity. It’s where I went to college, studying textile design at
Nottingham Trent in the days when it was a polytechnic. But why write about a
student?
The novel began as a
desire to look at what it’s like to be a young, single woman in an urban
environment – the dark side of The Sex & the City/Bridget Jones lifestyle,
if you like – and the reality that there is a downside to sexual freedom and
that women will always have to watch out.
Thankfully most people
live their entire lives unscathed by serious crime, but there is always the
‘what if’ scenario – that moment in anyone’s past where taking a wrong turn, through
no fault of one’s own, could render a person vulnerable to harm. Moments like
this are also more likely if you’re young and out partying, your better
judgement fuzzed by alcohol, and so that’s why I chose to make my protagonist a
young student, out enjoying her new found freedom in Nottingham’s numerous bars
and clubs.
Nottingham’s lively,
attractive centre is compact, and has a small-town feel, making it the perfect
setting for characters to repeatedly run into each other, even though one of
them would rather not.
There is the legendary
Rock City and the many other clubs and bars that contribute to Nottingham’s
reputation as a great night out, and there is the contrasting sprawl of its
various residential areas that span out from its heart.
Every night out ends
with the need to return home. A bus or tram will only take you so far, and a
cab may be too costly for the young. All women know that even the shortest walk
home can suddenly feel treacherous if there are footsteps behind. I spent three years in Nottingham, firstly in the Meadows area and then in Forest Fields. Walking home late at night was always a concern. My house was in the red light area and cars would sometimes slow by the kerbside, although thankfully apart from the odd proposition nothing untoward happened. But these memories triggered a sense that (like all cities) Nottingham is a place where dark happenings sometimes occur, and that the numerous worm-like streets that spread out from its beating heart could provide the perfect backdrop for a story that is ‘dark, haunting, twisted’ (according to the Telegraph). Nottingham is an attractive, vibrant city and as it continuously evolves, so too will it continue to inspire.
Alan Sillitoe: novelist, short story writer, memoirist,
travel writer, essayist, playwright, satirist, children’s author and poet. Sixty
plus titles over six decades and yet he’s best-known for his debut novel and an
early short story (both made into films). A new anthology, More Raw Material, seeks
to celebrate Sillitoe’s creative diversity.
The anthology takes its title from the author's Raw
Material (1972), an innovative historical novel come family memoir that reflects
on his relatives experience on the Western Front.
More Raw Material matches Sillitoe’s output for diversity
with prose, fiction, non-fiction, illustration and photography filling its
pages. About half of Sillitoe’s books were set in Nottingham and the city
features prominently in the anthology with comparisons between the then and
now. Many of the contributors pay direct homage to Sillitoe and his work -
recounting meetings and influence - others less obviously. Some of the many
highlights are Bryce Wilson’s book vs. the film essay Saturday Night
Loneliness, Michael Eaton’s Letter to Mr Sillitoe, and the poems from Alan
Baker, David Duncombe and David Cooke. There’s even part of Sillitoe’s draft outline
for A Start in Life, as a screen treatment.
Co-edited by Neil Fulwood and David Sillitoe More Raw
Material is a rich feast. The quality Russell Press produced paperback costs £9 (it won’t
be appearing as an ebook) and revenue from sales will go to the Alan Sillitoe Memorial Fund.
“That the raw material of the past consists of ordinary
people is a truism, yet it seems a little more true of Nottingham than anywhere
else. The idiosyncratic and often turbulent nature of its inhabitants produced
a more vivid past than most places.” Alan Sillitoe
Shortlisted for The Virginia Prize for Fiction, and hailed
by The Telegraph as one of the year’s best crime fiction books, Jaq Hazell’s I
Came To Find A Girl happens to be set in Nottingham.
The opening line: "I was happy to hear Flood was dead.
I wasn't as happy as I thought I'd be, but I was happy all the same."
The aforementioned Flood is Jack Flood, bad boy of the
London art world. The protagonist is Mia Jackson, an art student from the
south-coast now living with four fellow students in a Victorian terrace in Forest
Fields. If you’re expecting bad boy Flood and the rather likable young
artist/waitress to follow a turbulent road to unlikely romance you’d be wrong. Flood
is instantly dislikeable, a narcissistic modern artist, but it gets worse: he
has the kind of dangerously crazed and unpredictable personality suited to a psychological thriller, a genre
that embraces this novel.
Flood intends to seek out the ‘real’ Nottingham, ‘where the
people live’, and asks for Forest Fields, St Ann’s, the Meadows and our
'binge-drinking' city centre. His taxi driver warns him, saying ‘there are
shootings there’ and citing Nottingham as a ‘crazy city’. I wouldn’t have been
surprised to have read that horrible shottingham word. But this book isn’t an
underresearched hatchet job on the back of a few negative headlines. Hazell
captures the city well, providing the small town feel and representing the
student experience with authenticity, no doubt helped by her years here
studying textile design. The streets of the Lace Market and Market Square in particular are fondly regaled.
The most haunting crimes are those events where an ordinary victim suffers through no fault of their own, and this applies here. After having a drink with Flood, Mia wakes up face down, naked and confused in his hotel room. She needs to know what’s happened to her and is compelled to watch Flood’s video diaries, wondering if she is going to be the next to appear on screen.
Crime novels are nearly always murder novels. Murder sells. And
murder or murders are afoot here as Nottingham appears to have a serial killer
on the loose. But Mia’s story has a different crime at its core, an
underrepresented one on account of its sensitivity. Publishers know that murders
are rare, and that they won’t find a direct murder victim amongst their
readers, but date-rape… a difficult subject to pitch to publishers that don’t
want to portray this underreported crime. Perhaps they think that people
affected by rape will not want to read about it in the form of a thriller. And
perhaps they’re right. In defence of this book, the date-rape is an important part the
story and the novel explores the downside to the greater sexual freedom brought about by feminism. At no point is its telling gratuitous and the importance of an early
reporting of date-rape is made clear.
Warnings over sex tapes and revenge porn may be topical but
what if consent for such footage was never given in the first place - another
often ignored crime in this contemporary tale.
Mia and her friends seek out the truth behind their friend Jenny’s death whilst Mia has another agenda. Revenge. And Flood is in her sights.
Our creative quarter is an apt setting for Mia’s studies and
socialising. She’s a believable/typical student and displays many of the traits
one associates with ‘creatives’, more so than the professional artist Flood. It’s Mia’s story, 1st person narration, with Flood’s videos
described as they’re watched. The weird world of modern art (and the people
that create, appraise, promote and buy it) is examined in an insightful manner.
Celebrity culture and the public’s obsession with it is evident, whilst tabloids,
fame without talent, and the modern trend for recording mundane aspects of
our lives are all targets.
This is a well-written psychological thriller that isn’t
afraid to break the rules.
There are eight new UNESCO Cities of Literature, with
Bucheon, Durban, Lillehammer, Manchester, Milan, Québec City, Utrecht and
Seattle the latest to be welcomed into the Creative Cities Network. NottsLit takes a look at all twenty-eight UNESCO Cities of
Literature:
Bucheon, South Korea (joined 2017)
There are more than 20 active literary societies and
organizations in Bucheon, including the Bucheon Literary Society. Their literary
festivals tend to be held in honour of their writers, such as the Suju Literary
Festival commemorating Korea's pioneer of new poetry Byun Yeongro (whose pen
name was Suju), Neighbors in Wonmi-dong Festival in honour of Yang Gui-ja, and the
Pearl Buck Festival, in memory of the Nobel laureate who founded an orphanage
for war orphans in Bucheon and wrote a novel about Korea. Known for its
well-organized library network which comprises of 119 libraries, Bucheon is the
only city in Korea with a book sharing system between public and university
libraries. There is also a special library services for the elderly, people
with disabilities, pregnant women and migrants. They also have a Braille library and a
mobile library.
Literary figures associated with the city include Byun
Yeongro, Yang Gui-ja and Mok Il-shin. Durban, South Africa (joined 2017)
Durban was the first city in South Africa - and the first on
the African continent - to apply for UNESCO City of Literature status. They
have ambitious plans for a Durban International Literary Festival, wanting a
truly iconic book festival to harness the city’s many cultures, with Durban known
as the ‘Kingdom of the Zulu’ and ‘Little India’. Their current festivals
include Time of the Writer, Poetry Africa and Articulate Africa Book Fair.
Poetry slams are particularly popular in Durban.
Literary figures associated with the city include the author
Lynn Freed and the poet Mazisi Kunene.
Lillehammer, Norway(joined 2017)
Since 1995 Lillehammer has organised The Norwegian Festival
of Literature, the largest literature festival in the Nordic region, offering
more than 200 events and acquiring an increasingly international profile. The area
has been home to two of Norway’s three winners of the Nobel Prize in
literature, Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (winner 1903) and Sigrid Undset (winner 1928).
A ICORN International City of Refuge, Lillehammer has assumed a particular
responsibility in the struggle for freedom of expression, by offering shelter
for authors who are suffering persecution in their country of origin. Their
Nansen Academy functions as a house of literature and a literature academy,
holding a book week each year and hosting its own creative writing programme.
Their streets offer walking tours through the Norwegian literary canon.
Literary figures associated with the city include Henrik
Ibsen, Sigrid Undset, Knut Hamsun, Jon Fosse and Dag Solstad.
Milan, Italy (joined 2017)
Milan has always been a City of writers and readers. They
have a network of libraries (more than 200, public and private) and bookstores
(over 400), and they host several literary festivals. Milan is considered the
capital of Italian publishing, with 500 publishers and thousands
of professionals working in the field. Many Italian writers have gone to Milan
for its lively literary scene, as Nobel Laureates Montale and Dario Fo did.
In fact, writers have come to Milan from all over the world, examples being Byron and Hemingway.
Literary figures associated with the city include the author
Alessandro Manzoni, Carlo Emilio Gadda, Giuseppe Parini and Silvio Pellico.
Utrecht, Netherlands (joined 2017)
The fourth largest city in the Netherlands, Utrecht hosts the
country’s largest poetry festival. Literature is everywhere in the city with Utrecht
University having a particularly important role to play. The University’s
Bachelor’s programme in Literary Studies is the best in the Netherlands. Broese
Boekverkopers is their largest bookstore, and Bijleveld with its beautiful
wooden show windows, is perhaps the oldest. They also have the oldest collectively
run political bookstore in the Netherlands, de Rooie.
Literary figures associated with the city include the
children's author Dick Bruna.
Manchester, UK (joined 2017)
Manchester is home to two of the country’s most highly regarded
writing schools – the Manchester Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan
University, headed by Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy, and the University of
Manchester’s Centre for New Writing. The Manchester Literature Festival, known
for its innovative approach, is one of the most popular literary events in the
UK. Manchester built the UK’s first public lending library. The city has
plans for a libraries festival and a new writers’ hub.
Literary figures associated with the city include Elizabeth
Gaskell and Anthony Burgess.
Québec City, Canada (joined 2017)
The first French-speaking city to become a UNESCO City of
Literature, it’s the capital of the Canadian province of Quebec. Home to The
Literary and Historical Society of Quebec - the first scholarly or learned
society in Canada (founded 1824) - Québec City is has a rich literary life
reflecting the French-speaking, English-speaking, and Indigenous people who
live there. With over 200 authors, 100 organizations, publishers, and
booksellers, there is a strong literary revival in Québec.
Literary figures associated with the city include Anne
Hébert, Alfred Goldsworthy Bailey, Jacques Poulin and Gabrielle Roy.
Seattle, USA (joined 2017)
The Elliott Bay Book Company is the greatest book store in
Seattle, a force in the independent bookselling world for 35 years. It sits
above the Elliott Bay Café, the inspiration for the café in ‘Frasier’. Seattle
is home to Starbucks but it’s their indie coffee houses, such as Bauhaus Books
& Coffee, that regularly feature books and writers. Working writers head to
Richard Hugo House, an urban writer’s retreat that offers many writing
programs. Several British writers have made their homes in Seattle, such as Jonathan
Raban and Michael Dibdin, and it is the home to Amazon. The Seattle Poetry
Festival is their biennial poetry festival.
Literary figures associated with the city include Robert
Dugoni and the two-time Individual World Poetry Slam Champ Buddy Wakefield. Baghdad, Iraq (joined 2015)
Frankenstein in Baghdad - a modern, wartime version of Mary
Shelley’s horror - won the 2014 International Prize for Arabic Fiction, the Arab
world’s equivalent of the Booker Prize, but the city’s literature is under
threat. In 2007 a car bomb exploded on Al-Mutanabbi Street, the centre of
Baghdad’s historic literary district, home of booksellers, printers, and the
Shabandar café (a venue where Iraqi writers and intellectuals have been
gathering for centuries). Once witness to the first literary document, the area
of Ancient Babylon now sees ISIS militants destroying statues of poets. One modern
poet, Mohammed Sadek, aims to create a community for Iraqi writers - similar to
the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa – and hopes to keep
Baghdad's literature connected with the world.
Literary figures associated with the city include Saadi
Yousef, Fadhil Al Azzawi and Salah Al-Hamdani.
Barcelona, Spain (joined 2015)
A publishing powerhouse in two languages – Barcelona is the
largest centre of publishing in the Spanish language and the capital of the
Catalan language – the city has a rich literary heritage in both. For
the celebration of Catalonia's patron day Saint Jordi, Catalans exchange books
and roses with their loved ones. This takes place on April 23rd, the
same day as UNESCO's World Book and Copyright Day.
Literary figures associated with the city include Carlos
Ruiz Zafón, Eduardo Mendoza and Juan Goytisolo.
Dublin, Ireland (joined 2010)
With its astonishing literary heritage and contemporary
writing scene Dublin is a natural city of literature. The city hosts many
festivals such as Dublin Book Festival, Poetry Now, Dublin Writers’ Festival, Bloomsweek and Children’s Book Festival. Attractions include Dublin Writers Museum which features
the lives and works of Dublin’s literary celebrities over the last 300 years.
The city also hosts the world’s richest literary prize for a single work - the
International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.
Literary figures associated with the city include George
Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde and James Joyce.
Dunedin, New Zealand (joined 2014)
Dunedin’s sprawling landscape has inspired poets and writers
since the 19th century. Home to many significant libraries - including New
Zealand’s first free public library (est. 1908) - and book collections Dunedin
also has an impressive publishing heritage. In 2012 the Centre for the Book opened,
a centre of excellence on book history and print culture that investigates new
platforms and models of book publication and distribution. The city hosts
annual festivals that include the Dunedin Writers and Readers Festival, and the
Children’s Storylines Festival.
Literary figures associated with the city include Thomas
Bracken and Janet Frame.
Edinburgh, Scotland (joined 2004)
With its impressive literary heritage and some of the
world’s most exciting contemporary writers, Edinburgh was the first designated
UNESCO City of Literature. Home to literary events such as Edinburgh
International Book Festival, unique book shops and cafes, the city has produced
some of the world’s best loved books and characters including Jekyll and Hyde,
Sherlock Holmes, Peter Pan, Treasure Island and Trainspotting.
Literary figures associated with the city include Ian
Rankin, Robert Louis Stevenson and Irvine Welsh.
Granada, Spain (joined 2014)
Granada has a long history of being home to renowned poets,
writers and intellectuals. This tradition has made the city a reference in
terms of literary production and the management of activities related to the
art of speech. Granada’s public and private institutions, publishing houses and
solid network of bookshops provide spaces and synergies for a vibrant programme
of literature-related activities. Hundreds of literary events are held in the
city every year.
Literary figures associated with the city include Federico
García Lorca and Washington Irving.
Heidelberg, Germany (joined 2014)
With a literary history that spans from the Middle Ages to
the present, Heidelberg has long been a place for writers. Visitors to the city
include Mark Twain, Charles Bukowski and JK Rowling. Its 50 publishing companies
form an important part of the city’s literary industry and many of them add to Heidelberg
reputation as a centre for translation. The Heidelberg Literature Festival contributes
to a city that loves its young readers. Books play an everyday role in school
life with reading programmes topping the curriculum in primary and secondary
schools.
Literary figures associated with the city include Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe, Clemens Brentano, Bettina von Arnim, Friedrich Hölderlin
and Thomas Meinecke.
Iowa City, United States (joined 2008)
With its unique set of influential literary institutions,
which explore new ways to teach and support writers, Iowa City is a place for writers; a haven, a destination, a proving ground, and a nursery. The Iowa Writers' Workshop's creative writing program claims among its graduates winners of virtually every major literary award.
Literary figures associated with the city include Kurt
Vonnegut Jr., Flannery O’Connor, Rita Dove, Robert Hass and John Irving.
Kraków, Poland (joined 2013)
With arguably the highest density of poets in the world it’s
no surprise that Kraków’s poetry soirées and salons – including Poetry Night,
initiated in 2011 – are hugely popular. In 2000 the city became the place of
the famous Meetings of the Poets of the East and the West. It hosts the most
important literary festivals in Poland: the Milosz Festival and the Conrad
Festival, and is the seat of the Book Institute, which promotes Polish
literature and supports national literary programmes.
Literary figures associated with the city include Wislawa
Szymborska, Joseph Conrad Korzeniowski and Stanislaw Wyspianski.
Ljubljana, Slovenia (joined 2015)
Ljubljana was UNESCO’s World Book Capital in 2010.
Slovenians celebrate a cultural day as a national holiday and Ljubljana hosts
a book festival called Holiday of Books. A language and reading culture have
played a crucial role in the Slovenian history as they helped the Slovenians to
preserve their own language and identity. Much assistance is given to students
in written expression and many projects and free-time activities have been
established for children and young people.
Literary figures associated with the city include Primož
Trubar, Janez Vajkard Valvasor and France Prešeren.
Lviv, Ukraine (joined 2015)
Literature written in Lviv has contributed greatly to
Austrian, Ukrainian, Yiddish, and Polish literature for which Lviv’s
contribution is particularly profound. Translation work took place between
these cultures and, in the 19th century, many publishing houses, newspapers and
magazines were established. Every day a book market takes place around the
monument to Ivan Fеdorovych, a 16th century typographer. Lviv is the birthplace
of both the sci-fi writer Stanislaw Lem, most famous for his novel Solaris, and
the author Leopold von Sacher-Massoch writer of Venus In Furs a book that inspired
the term Masochism. Every September Lviv holds a large International Literary
Festival (Litfest).
Literary figures associated with the city include Zbigniew
Herbert, Joseph Roth and Adam Zagajewski.
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia (joined 2008)
Melbourne boasts more bookshops than any other Australian
city, has a vibrant community of writers, novelists, playwrights and poets, a
large number of reading groups – including the Ivanhoe Reading Circle (1920s
onwards) - and the city is home to an array of literary organisations, including
Australian Poetry, Express Media, the Emerging Writers’ Festival, the Melbourne
Writers Festival, the Small Press Network, Wheeler Centre and Writers Victoria.
Literary figures associated with the city include Peter
Carey, Marcus Clarke and Helen Garner.
Montevideo, Uruguay (joined 2015)
The National Library of Uruguay was designed by Luis Crespi
in the neoclassical style and occupies an area of 4,000 square metres with a
current collection of roughly 900,000 volumes. The capital city has a long and
rich literary tradition. In 1900 the city was known as the Athens of the Rio de
la Plata on account of its remarkable group of writers: Carlos Vaz Ferreira,
Julio Herrera y Reissig, Delmira Agustini and Felisberto Hernández.
Literary figures associated with the city include Juan
Carlos Onetti, Delmira Agustini and José Enrique Rodó.
Norwich, England (joined 2012)
The first English City of Literature boasts many literary
firsts. Julian of Norwich penned the first book written by a woman in English
in 1395. The first poem in blank verse was written by Henry Howard in the 16th century. The first English provincial library (in 1608) and newspaper
(in 1701) followed, and Norwich was the first to implement the Public Library Act
of 1850. The UK’s first Creative Writing MA (1970) was established at the
University of East Anglia, from which Ian McEwan was the first graduate. Today,
Writers’ Centre Norwich provides a hub for excellence in literature from around
the world, providing professional development for writers through workshops,
courses, networking and competitions. As for books, The Norfolk and Norwich
Millennium Library has been the most visited public library in the UK, and the
Cathedral library is home to more than 20,000 books dating back to 1474.
Literary figures associated with the city include WG Sebald,
Sir Thomas Browne and Anna Sewell.
Nottingham, England (joined 2015)
A city of rebels and writers, Nottingham has an impressive
literary heritage and a fast growing contemporary writing scene, with local digital and
visual media innovatively embracing the written word. Many projects and
festivals have sprung from the grass roots and the people’s passion for
literature and social justice. Links to many of Nottingham’s groups and activities are listed to
the right (scroll up). As well as having many literary legends, Nottingham's non-fiction writers have also had an astonishing influence on the world, helping to form the theory of evolution, protestant Christianity, a UN Resolution and part of the American constitution.
Literary figures associated with the city include D.H.
Lawrence, Lord Byron and Alan Sillitoe.
Óbidos, Portugal (joined 2015)
The project Óbidos Literary Town is a collaborative
initiative involving a bookstore, a creative writing company, the town hall and
a municipal enterprise of cultural management. This project consists of the
promotion of the culture of writing and reading through the organisation of
festivals, presentations, meetings, representations, projections, concerts,
reading and writing sessions. Óbidos’s International Literature Festival
(Folio) is a prominent event and the city even has a unique literary hotel The
Literary Man Óbidos Hotel.
Prague, Czech Republic (joined 2014)
Prague has about 200 libraries - the largest of which is The
Municipal Library of Prague – including a Central Library of 41 branches and 3
mobile libraries (bibliobuses), a huge institution that manages a collection of
2.35 million volumes, loans more than 7 million books annually and hosts around
5000 programmes and events each year. Prague has many independent libraries and
street libraries across a city that hosts about 130 bookshops, around 60
second-hand bookshops, and approximately 20 literary cafes. Their International
Book Fair and Literary Festival Book World Prague runs about 400 exhibitions
and attracts around 40 000 visitors.
Literary figures associated with the city include Franz
Kafka, Max Bod and Rainer Maria Rilke.
Reykjavík, Iceland (joined 2011)
The first non-English speaking city to join the Cities of
Literature Network, Reykjavík is obsessed by books - Iceland’s most popular
Christmas gift. One in ten Icelanders will publish a book and over half of its
population participate in cultural events. Biannually the city hosts the Reykjavik
International Literature Festival and the Children’s Literature Festival.Literature is celebrated with the Week of the
Book in April and there are numerous literature walks hosted by the City
Library.
Literary figures associated with the city include Halldór
Laxness, Arnaldur Indridason, Thor Vilhjálmsson and Einar Már Gudmundsson.
Tartu, Estonia (joined 2015)
Estonia’s second city - widely considered the intellectual
capital - is home to the Estonian Literary Museum which holds held a two-day
conference on literature and folklore each December. The museum publishes an
annual almanac which includes articles, primary source texts and research. The
two biggest libraries, the University of Tartu Library and Tartu Public Library
offer rich collections, reading and working space as well as exhibitions and
literary events. The Tartu branch of Estonian Writers’ Union is a thriving association
for authors, critics and translators residing in Tartu and South Estonia.
Literary figures associated with the city include Ene
Mihkelson, Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald, Jaan Kaplinski and Andrus Kivirähk.
Ulyanovsk, Russia (joined 2015)
12 Simbirsk literary Apostles (Ulyanovsk used to be Simbirsk)
is a project devoted to the most significant writers of the region. It’s helped
promote the best examples of Russian and world literature, increased reading
activity and the desire to read. A tour, based around Simbirsk/Ulyanovsk’s literary
heritage, attracted attention to the reading of classical literature in the region.
During the year, every month in all municipalities of the Ulyanovsk region, as
well as its cultural and educational institutions, held a cycle of cultural and
educational events dedicated to the promotion of creativity of certain literary
person.
Literary figures associated with the city include Ivan
Alexandrovich Goncharov, Nikolay Mikhailovich Karamzin and Nikolay Mikhailovich
Yazykov.
Proud of my home county I wanted to help promote its
incredible literary output and the many writing/reading events and groups that
are active here. So I created this blog NottsLit. That was back in 2011.
Last year I was delighted to learn that Nottingham was aiming
to become a UNESCO City of Literature. For too long we had concealed our
achievements, it was about time we celebrated them.
A man could no longer be private and withdrawn. The world
allows no hermits. D. H. Lawrence
Now it’s been announced that the bid has been successful and
the world can learn what we already knew – but kept to ourselves – that
Nottingham is a City of Literature. This permanent accreditation is partly due
to Byron, Lawrence and Sillitoe, writers that shook the establishment, but also
to the many others that have stood on their rebellious shoulders. I
congratulate the hardworking team that put the bid together, and thank them. We
must now build upon this status and actively promote our heritage and thriving writing
scene. Above all the promised economic benefits and tourism boosts I’m most
excited by the pride and inspiration this award can offer to the city’s
youth.
How about marking this announcement with our very own Book
Flood? In Iceland the majority of books are published in October and November,
ready for their national tradition of Jolabokaflod or Christmas Book Flood. Most
Icelanders settle down on Christmas Eve (when their gifts are exchanged) to
read a brand new book. So why not join Reykjavik, one of our fellow Cities of
Literature, in buying books this Christmas, the perfect present from a new City
of Literature resident.
Saturday 12th December 6pm, The Five Challenges of the Indie Author, at Nottingham Writers' Studio
Meet NWS member Gareth Baker as he discusses his experience so far as an indie Author, the challenges he’s faced and his aspirations for the future. He will talk about his successes, failures and lessons learned. There will then be an interview and an opportunity to ask questions. Part of the evening will feature the launch of his second Nottingham based thriller, Never Forgotten. There will be an opportunity to buy one of his thrillers or children’s books if you wish. You will be welcomed with a glass of wine, but please bring your own drinks for the rest of the evening. There will also be snacks and cake.
