Headingley LitFest: September 2016

Friday, 23 September 2016

Plans for the next LitFest

The LitFest committee has now met to talk about what is going to happen in March 2017 - but there will be events in Headingley Library before then in our 'Between the Lines' series:

Keighley author Peter Morrison will be reading from his extraordinary historical novella A Lonely Road, which is set in the year 1214. Robin Hood is dead and has recently been buried in the woods when the story starts...
Headingley Library 7pm Thursday 17 November FREE

Richard Wilcocks, aided by pictures on screen, will be contributing to the bicentenary celebrations of Charlotte Brontë's birth with a talk entitled Charlotte Brontë - terrible teacher, brilliant novelist
Headingley Library 7pm Thursday 8 December FREE

In addition, the LitFest's programme of poetry in schools will take place earlier than before - in November and December 2016.

Helen Mort

Helen Mort will again be delighting the Year 6 pupils at Ireland Wood Primary School. Read about what she did earlier this year:

http://headingleylitfest.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=helen+mort

and listen to her reading Struck on Woman's Hour a few days ago:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p048nrtq

or watch her here speaking about her work:

LITERARY HEADINGLEY

Headingley is just the place for it! Don't expect a big circus with marquees, though: we're not at that stage yet. We're all volunteers as well.

Our venues include the HEART Centre on Bennett Road, the New Headingley Club on St Michael's Road, friendly cafés, historic local cinemas, Headingley Library, people's houses and the historic Leeds Library in Commercial Street, city centre.

Headingley's Literary Links

Headingley has strong connections with many writers:

Arthur Ransome was born in Headingley, J R R Tolkien lived at 5 Holly Bank and also at 2 Darnley Road, West Park when he was reader in English Language at the University of Leeds 1920 - 25, Alan Bennett lived over a butcher's shop opposite the Three Horseshoes, now Royale Dry Cleaners.

Lucy Newlyn has published poetry about her early life in Headingley, George Orwell stayed at 21 Estcourt Avenue with his sister Marjorie and her husband Humphrey 'Humpy' Dakin (with whom he visited the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth), T S Eliot used to visit his mother-in-law in Weetwood Lane, William Fryer Harvey was brought up in Spring Bank, Trevor Griffiths lived just off Victoria Road on Winstanley Terrace, Jon Silkin's first office of STAND magazine was his flat at 144 Otley Road, Sir Geoffrey Hill lived in Shire Oak Road, Peter Redgrove lived in Headingley between 1962 and 1965 when he was Gregory Fellow of Poetry at the University of Leeds, and playwright Kay Mellor still lives near The Hollies in Far Headingley.

Wilson Barrett, the charismatic first manager of the Grand Theatre, Leeds (a prolific playwright as well), lived in Beech Grove Terrace, Woodhouse in the 1870s. His house was a meeting place for many writers, artists and visitors to Leeds - such as W. S. Gilbert, George Grossmith and Atkinson Grimshaw.

Headingley LitFest 2020 was the thirteenth. The fourteenth will take place from March 2021 and will be adapted to the rules of the Covid pandemic. We are now a proud part of the annual Leeds Lit Fest.