Pitch and Pen PREVIEW LITFEST 2018

Saturday 24 March
PITCH AND PEN
4 - 6 pm New Headingley Club, St Michaels Road

Ever wondered whether that idea you have for a novel, or a poetry or short story collection could fly? Would you like the chance to pitch to a team of publishing industry professionals?

You’ve seen Dragons’ Den, so now Headingley Litfest invites you to pitch your ideas in front of an audience and a panel of professional writers and publishers. Not only is this a great chance to see whether your idea is sound, it also gives you a chance to see what the competition is like out there. What makes a great idea stand out from the pile?

The winning pitcher(s) will be invited to submit a synopsis and sample of their work for consideration by either Valley Press based in Scarborough, or Sheffield based And Other Stories. Regardless of whether a publishing contract is offered, feedback will be provided on the submission package.

The panel of judges will be made up of:
Jamie McGarry Publisher/Director - Valley Press
Anna Glendenning Editor - And Other Stories
Alison Taft - Novelist and Editor for Cornerstones Literary Consultancy

£5 to pitch - places to pitch are limited and to apply for a ticket you must please email litfestpitchnpen@gmail.com stating whether you want to pitch poetry/short stories or a novel.
£2 to attend - on the door.

The Mayflower Generation PREVIEW LITFEST 2018

The Mayflower Generation

5pm Saturday 17 March - Free event at The Leeds Library in Commercial Street.

Selected by The Sunday Times as a History Book of the Year 2017

Rebecca Fraser

The voyage of the Mayflower and the founding of Plymouth Colony is one of the seminal events in world history. But the poorly-equipped group of English Puritans who ventured across the Atlantic in the early autumn of 1620 had no sense they would pass into legend. They had eighty casks of butter and two dogs but no cattle for milk, meat, or ploughing. They were ill-prepared for the brutal journey and the new land that few of them could comprehend. But the Mayflower story did not end with these Pilgrims’ arrival on the coast of New England or their first uncertain years as settlers.

Rebecca Fraser traces two generations of one ordinary family and their extraordinary response to the challenges of life in America. Edward Winslow, an apprentice printer born in Worcestershire, fled England and then Holland for a life of religious freedom and opportunity. Despite the intense physical trials of settlement, he found America exotic, enticing, and endlessly interesting. He built a home and a family, and his remarkable friendship with King Massassoit, Chief of the Wampanoags, is part of the legend of Thanksgiving.

Yet, fifty years later, Edward’s son Josiah was commanding the New England militias against Massassoit’s son in King Philip’s War. The Mayflower Generation is an intensely human portrait of the Winslow family written with the pace of an epic. Rebecca Fraser details domestic life in the seventeenth century, the histories of brave and vocal Puritan women and the contradictions between generations as fathers and sons made the painful decisions which determined their future in America.

Reserve your seat with ticket from: http://bit.ly/litfestmayflowergeneration

Sweet Wild Note - Richard Smyth PREVIEW LITFEST 2018

Richard Smyth

Partnership event with Leeds Libraries and Read Regional

Richard Smyth is a writer, researcher and editor based in Bradford. He is a regular contributor to Bird Watching magazine, and reached the final of Mastermind with a specialist subject of British birds. 

In A Sweet, Wild Note, Smyth asks what it is about birdsong that we so love, exploring the myriad ways in which it has influenced literature, music and art, our feelings about the natural world, and our very ideas of what it means to be British.

A Guardian ‘Readers’ Choice’ Best Book of 2017

Wednesday 14 March 2018 

7.30pm HEART Centre, Headingley 

FREE