Headingley LitFest: Double Bill: Launch of Valley Press Anthology of Yorkshire Poetry plus Blue Moose Author Anna Chilvers

Saturday, 18 March 2017

Double Bill: Launch of Valley Press Anthology of Yorkshire Poetry plus Blue Moose Author Anna Chilvers

A murmuring of poets

Jamie McGarry - founder of Valley Press Photo Richard Wilcocks

Anna Chilvers Photo Richard Wilcocks

Sally Bavage adds:
Megan Fitzpatrick and Beth Anderson, both students from Leeds University, were brilliant at setting up the evening event in the lounge of the New Headingley Club, involving much moving of furniture to accommodate a packed event. Thank you girls.

Audience Comments

Lovely cosy venue (bar of New Headingley Club) and super rich variety of readings. Lovely to hear so many creative voices, all ages and ranges of experience. Encore!

Excellent, fun and fresh event with good variety, well hosted and organised. Good poetry to boot!

The reading by the poets was excellent, informative and inspiring. Please do more of this.

Well organised, well publicised - quality poems, well read.

Great to see so many local poets, really great! :))

Great to hear so many new voices and a focus on Yorkshire.

Good to be in a community venue. £3 a round is an added bonus!

Excellent.

A really fantastic event. Good range of readers. Anna was great.

Lovely readings and talk and very well organised.

x and Anna Chilvers - really enjoyed her especially the Q and A session - inspiring and enlightening (as a fellow writer!)

No comments:

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.