An Domhan eile

And here's another addition:

Using their unique Celtic blend of poetry, music and song Lucht Focail (the award winning Irish writers’ group) explores Irish myth and legend. This will be at The Bowery on the corner of Shaw Lane on the evening of Saturday 21 March. It's in association with Irish History Month 2009. The title An Domhan eile means The Other Earth or The Other World.

Gurning in the library

Latest addition to the LitFest programme - for the morning of Saturday 21 March - are The Blahs. They are based at the West Park Centre in Spen Lane, which is near enough to Headingley. This is what they say about themselves:

We are a group of theatre makers who are on a quest to find stories which resonate and have meaning for us and our audiences. We know that the longer we live with a story the more it can reveal about ourselves and the world. By taking our time to explore stories with our audience we have come to understand how to engage with children and adolescents.

Their show, for five and six year-olds, will be in Headingley library. Title is When the Wind Changed……

Blahs director Pavla Beier sends the following on it:

We will make this story up with the children by tapping into their natural ability and desire to make faces, a skill which is known to professionals like us as GURNING. We will make up the story together step by step or gurn by gurn:

> a face to frighten your own reflection
> a face which is all smiles
> a face which has never been seen in these parts before

But the story really begins when the wind starts to blow, the one that sweeps through the City about this time of year, the one that can stick your face if you happen to be gurning at the time. What happens to our person whose face is stuck? We will make that bit up with the children using participative drama techniques.

Two performances, 10.30 - 11am and 11.30 - 12. Maximum number in each session twenty.

Below, the performers:

Headingley Life Calendar

Thanks to Headingley Life - in particular, to Carole Carey-Campbell, for putting in the key weekends (crucial weekends? crux weekends? focus weekends?) for the Headingley LitFest. So, if you flip through this handsome beast of a calendar, you will be able to poke your finger at our name printed on March 21 and March 28.

At the moment, amongst others, we have Ian Clayton down for the first date and Beryl Bainbridge for the second.

Magazine Week at Borders

This Thursday - October 2 - issue 42 of The North will be launched in the Leeds branch of Borders as part of Magazine Week. There will be a day of writers' workshops and poetry readings. We're telling you this because if you are reading this, having come to the blog to find out about local happenings, you're sure to be interested. Borders is just down the road a little from Headingley, after all.

Peter and Ann Sansom, editors of The North- and directors of The Poetry Business- will be running two writing workshops during the day - just bring a pen - and there’ll be entertaining short readings in the evening. The workshops are at 12.30-1.30pm and 5.30-6.30pm. The readings by brilliant North poets Rosie Blagg, Kath McKay and Ed Reiss are at 7 - 8pm. There will also be magazine readings from the floor, so bring a poem or back issue of the North to read from.

Free entry and free wine - and, in line with the nationwide Borders magazine promotion, copies of the magazine will be 'Buy one get one half price'.

Click HERE for Poetry Business or ring 0114 3464038 if you want to know the fine details.

OR, look at what Rony Robinson from Radio Sheffield said about it all by clicking HERE.

Bringing it all back home

Richard Wilcocks writes:

Latest news is that Ian Clayton has been signed up for a talk and a workshop on Saturday 21 March 2009.  Ian is usually described as a "writer and broadcaster", but he is surely a lot more than just that. I think of him as a terrific raconteur after hearing him holding forth on the Luddites and reading from various chapters in Charlotte Brontë's Shirley in a hotel restaurant in Gomersal a couple of years ago. He created a fair amount of sympathy in his audience for those machine-breakers of a couple of centuries ago, often crudely depicted as mindless thugs, and spoke movingly  about his Featherstone childhood too.

He didn't read all that much out of Shirley, a good thing because he is at his best when simply holding forth. The book he will deal with next March is Bringing It All Back Home (Route Publishing, 2007 (Hardback) ISBN 978-1901927337 (Paperback) ISBN 978-1901927351). It is all about popular music, so it is quite likely that some popular musicians will be around at the same time Ian is talking.

It is also quite likely that the venue for all this (and a preliminary workshop) will be the Banqueting Suite at Headingley Stadium, and that an as yet unspecified sports personality will be on the bill as well.

Thanks to Mary Francis for contacting Ian.

Below, Ian and his book cover:

Celebrations

The wines went down well after being expertly tasted at the Bowery, Bassa Bassa was thrilling at the Supporters Club and the sun shone down on the annual al fresco barbecue at the New Headingley Club. Partners were happily taken during the ceilidh and most Headingley restaurants offered set meals for a tenner. Last Sunday came the finale, accompanied by fine weather: hundreds milled about in the Cardigan Triangle (mainly Chapel Lane), sat around eating home-made courgette cakes in an impromptu cafe in a back garden and tramped into each other's houses to look at works of art.

It was Celebrate Headingley - a superb eighth one. And although the Headingley LitFest was not on everyone's lips, because it is next year, in March, it was certainly talked about. "There's a real thirst for that sort of thing," I was told at the barbecue. Below, some of the more musical celebrants: