Reading Literature Festival 2016
4th to 13th November
READING’S FIRST LITERATURE FESTIVAL takes place this November. The Festival grew out of Reading Poetry Festival’s three successful years from 2013-15 and brings together many of the most exciting talents in contemporary writing from across the UK and abroad from 4-13 November 2016. The events, taking place across the town, include discussions and readings, interviews with authors, creative writing workshops, film screenings, and a writing competition.
SPOKEN WORD POETRY has proved very popular this year and the Festival’s event with Hollie McNish, Theresa Lola and Dan Simpson has already sold out. To make sure you don’t miss out on the rest of Reading Literature Festival book your tickets at: http://store.rdg.ac/ReadingLiteratureFestivalTickets
FILLING UP RAPIDLY are places on the three Creative Writing Workshops with Conor Carville (poetry), Kate Bassett (drama), and Wendy Meddour (Children’s Fiction) scheduled from 11 – 1 pm on Sunday 13 Nov in the Museum of English Rural Life. Get your ticket now to be assured of a place.
Book now at: http://store.rdg.ac/ReadingLiteratureFestivalTickets
THREE MORE EVENTS with a local Reading emphasis: the re-launch of the university’s Creative Arts Anthology on Tuesday 8 Nov, Room 106 HumSS Building, Whiteknights Campus, which will include readings from the 2016 edition and calls for submissions for 2017 (admission free, but numbers limited); for the celebratory reading from four of the Reading-based Two Rivers Press poets published this year, Kate Behrens, Claire Dyer, Gill Learner, and Mairi MacInnes on Sunday 13 Nov at 2 pm in the Museum of English Rural Life, and for the reading by a group of Reading Performance Poets led by Becci Louise and the Dreading Poetry Slam organizer, Hollyanna Hambrook which takes place the same evening at RISC & Global Café at 8 pm.
Book now at: http://store.rdg.ac/ReadingLiteratureFestivalTickets
FESTIVAL HIGHLIGHTS, where there are still places available, include: the Friday 4 Nov annual Gerald Finzi Lecture and reading by Alice Oswald (free, but with booking required) in L022 the London Road campus at 6:30 pm; An Audience with the critically-acclaimed playwright and screenwriter Penelope Skinner, where The Times theatre critic Kate Bassett will lead a discussion of her work in the Minghella Building, Whiteknights campus, on Wednesday 9 Nov from 6:30 pm; and A Conversation with award-winning satirical novelist Jonathan Coe, where Nicola Wilson will talk to him about his new novel Number 11, in Waterstones, Broad Street, at 7:30 pm on Saturday 12 Nov.
Book now at: http://store.rdg.ac/ReadingLiteratureFestivalTickets
INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES are provided by the Poetry Symposium in the Victoria Gallery, Reading Museum, from 2 pm on Saturday 12 Nov when Steven Matthews will discuss the role of poetry in our global culture with readings by Fleur Adcock (New Zealand), Justyna Bargielska (Poland) and her translator Maria Jastrzębska (Poland/UK), Jamie McKendrick (UK), and Sudeep Sen (India).
Book now at: http://store.rdg.ac/ReadingLiteratureFestivalTickets
THE INTERNATIONAL THEME is set going with a Centenary Celebration of the Italian writer Giorgio Bassani, the De Sica film of whose most famous novel The Garden of the Finzi-Contini (1970) is to be introduced and shown at 7:30 pm on Monday 7 Nov in the Minghella Building. This celebration, with contributions from the Italianists Daniela La Penna and Charles Leavitt, from Jamie McKendrick, who is retranslating all of his fiction for Penguin Books, and Peter Robinson, who has published translations of Bassani’s poetry in magazines and anthologies, takes place from 10:00 am on Saturday in the Museum of English Rural Life.
Book now at: http://store.rdg.ac/ReadingLiteratureFestivalTickets
DIRECTED BY Sam Morrish (@sammorrish86), the first Reading Literature Festival contributes to Reading’s Year of Culture, in collaboration with the Reading in Reading book festival, 28 – 30 October at the Olympia Ballroom – Shehnai, and is a town and university event supported by the University of Reading and its Committee for the Arts, the newly founded Heritage and Creativity Institute, the School of Literature and Languages, and the Department of English Literature.
Contact: litfest@reading.ac.uk
Facebook: /Reading Literature Festival
Twitter @RdgLitFest
Instagram: @readinglitfest
Website: https://readingliteraturefestival.wordpress.com/.
