Sports Writing Competition

Richard Wilcocks writes:

Last March, the Create a Story Sports Writing Competition was a real success, with tall piles of entries, many of a very high standard. Now we are doing it again, but this time attempting to involve more school students: every single high school in the Leeds area has just been sent letters, entry forms and posters to display and to photocopy, and the same materials have been put online.

The competition was born out of discussions between Leeds Rugby Foundation's Arts Steering Group and Headingley LitFest, which took place in 2008 and which have continued ever since. We get on! Headingley should be known for its sporting connections and much, much more.

The competition is open to all students between the ages of eleven and sixteen. Entries must be received at Headingley Stadium by 26 February. The judges will be the same as last year - myself, Glenn Horsman (Leeds Rugby Learning Centre) and sports writer Phil Caplan.

This is from the entry form:

Your story must be about a fictional sporting event, but you can use your own experiences for inspiration! It can be about any sport at any level. It should be no longer than 500 words if you are 12 years old or less (not including the 100 below) and no longer than 1000 words (not including the 100 below) if you are 13 years old or more.

............


Your story must start using the following paragraphs:

It felt strange to be wearing the new colours, strange but exhilarating. He/she had sweated hard to be chosen to wear them, and now it was the big day, the first chance to show all those loyal supporters what he/she was made of. All the eyes would be on him/her.

The chanting was reaching a climax. It was time to begin.

There will be a presentation on the pitch at half time in the Leeds Rhinos v Hull Kingston Rovers match on Friday 19 March at Headingley Stadium. The winning entry (or extracts from it), together with information on the LitFest, will appear in the match programme.

Leeds Poetry Special Collection

Doug Sandle writes:

Visiting the Leeds Poetry Special Collection last week was a real journey down memory lane. Sifting through copies of various Leeds University student magazines it brought back memories of an exciting period during the early sixties, when Leeds Student Union became a hive of creative and cultural activity. When I arrived in Leeds in 1960 as a student the University Union was dominated by a particular clique around law society and the University motor club and a rather elitist class based attitude.

Whether it was an influx of more students from more varied backgrounds and schooling, the zeitgeist of the dawning spirit of the sixties, (more beatnik at the time than hippy), the influence of radical lecturers such as John Rex and the involvement of the then Gregory Fellows (in art and poetry) a real change took place at the University Union, one which was both politically and culturally fuelled. A manifestation of this was the emergence of several new cultural and political student societies and a number of student produced magazines encouraging student writing, creativity and debate. Mostly typed and duplicated by means of ‘Roneo’ and ‘Gestetner’ reproduction and with cover designs by student artists and illustrators, they would be on sale most days in the lower corridor of the student union.

I was fortunate enough to be involved with several of these magazines at one time or another, including 61 which heralded the sixties era, IKON, which was more formally type set and also featured photographs, MOMA (Magazine of Modern Arts) and Tlaloc, which was devoted to concrete poetry. Not only did the magazines feature student writing but sometimes carried special guest features, for example a pre-publication extract from a book by Herbert Read appeared in IKON. The Leeds Poetry Special Collection features some of these student magazines on its web site http://www.leeds.ac.uk/library/spcoll/leedspoetry/periodicals.htm
as well as documenting the work and lives of the then Gregory Fellows in Poetry, whose influence and reputations extended far beyond the local Leeds literary scene http://www.leeds.ac.uk/library/spcoll/leedspoetry/fellowships.htm

The inclusion of the Leeds Poetry Special collection in the coming 2010 Headingley Lit Fest. is something to look forward to and the initial collaboration promises to lead to a future partnership highlighting the illustrious cultural history of Headingley and its environs.

Beryl Bainbridge on the radio

In response to some recent enquiries relating to Beryl Bainbridge, who was our guest last March, please click HERE to reach a BBC website where you will be able to listen to her, and where you may well find answers to your questions.

Wallowing

We were hippos rediscovering a muddy pool: Doug Sandle and myself visited the Brotherton Library's special collections department yesterday afternoon to look at magazines (mainly poetry) from the Sixties and Seventies. Neatly filed in cardboard boxes were fountain-penned letters, Underwood-typed poems on yellowing paper, carefully Gestetnered publications and distant but still fresh memories.

Archivist Kathryn Jenner (Geoffrey Hill Archive) showed us some of what she is documenting, and as we talked, we splashed about in comfortable nostalgia. Doug remarked on the quality of MOMA and IKON, I remembered that Dave Birtwhistle used to drink and sing in the back room of the Packhorse with Jake Thackray.

Click HERE for link to Brotherton.

All of this led to the fixing of a date - Thursday 18 March 2010 - for a reading of some of the notable poets of those prolific times.

More programme details to follow soon - jigsaw nearly complete.

Darkly brilliant David Peace

The darkly brilliant and remarkably prolific David Peace (pictured here by Naoya Sanuki) has been booked for the final Saturday – 27 March 2010 - after more than a week of events. The novel which led to the film The Damned United was a big word-of-mouth success before the celluloid version, and the Red Riding television plays based on his novels and set in the time of the Yorkshire Ripper clocked up high ratings. David Peace has more recently detonated his explosive mixture of politics, local history, violent crime, humour and horror in the setting of Tokyo, and many commentaries on this and all his writing can be found on the web. Try clicking on one or two of the links on this blog. The 2010 LitFest programme is being firmed up at the moment. There will be another Poetry Slam at Lawnswood after the great success of this year’s, another sports writing competition for schools, an Irish connection, theatre, and plenty of local talent. The general theme will be A Sense of Place. If you want to help, or offer suggestions, or make criticisms, come to our open consultation meeting on Tuesday 22 September at 7.30pm in the New Headingley Club, St Michael’s Road, Headingley. Feel free to click on the comment link below, or send an email (see above right) remembering to put LITFEST in the subject line.

Wandering Abroad - Corinne Silva

This notice follows on from the first of the events of the Headingley LitFest 2009 - on The Hounding of David Oluwale, when Kester Aspden and Ian Duhig spoke (and read) at the Yorkshire College. Scroll down to see the blog entry for it. Some of those who came are likely to want to visit Leeds Art Gallery.

9 October 2009 – end January 2010
Leeds Art Gallery: previews 7 October

David Oluwale came to England from Nigeria as a stowaway in 1949 with dreams of studying to be an engineer in Leeds; twenty years later he was found drowned in the River Aire. Subsequently two police officers were found guilty of assault.

This new film installation by Corinne Silva, which receives its premier at the Gallery, relates to Oluwale’s journey down the river, his final journey, but also narrates a journey through the city, a journey through times of change and transition, resonant with the contemporary development of the city and the experience of migration in our own times.

The story - of migration; prejudice; isolation; and the forming of communities, runs parallel to a story of urban regeneration in a post-industrial city with its concept of ‘readymade’ communities, ‘new developments’ and those left behind in their wake - is told through a collage of sound and image. Interwoven and sometimes contradictory accounts recount the tragic tale of David Oluwale: fragments of memory and experience from other migrants who also chose to settle in Leeds in the 1950s, interspersed amongst a soundtrack of music from the time, recorded in England by musicians from Africa and the Caribbean and played at the dance sessions attended by young West African immigrants striving to create a foothold and a community in what was often a hostile city.

Corinne Silva, born in Leeds, is a photographic artist with degrees from the Universities of Brighton and Nottingham Trent. Past commissions include From War to Windrush, from the Imperial War Museum (2008) and Róisín Bán from Leeds Irish Health and Home (2006), about the Irish Diaspora.

Wandering Abroad, her first moving-image commission, is commissioned by Leeds Art Gallery with support from Arts Council England.