T F Griffin and Douglas Houston - a celebration

Headingley Library 9 June 2017at 7pm                                                                                                                              

A warm and welcoming event - I was impressed by the range of participants who wished to share their appreciation (& love) of the poetry of TG & DH.

I very much enjoyed a well-organised evening. I knew a few people here, I live locally, and the event was a credit to Headingley.

Readers Ruth, Bill, Linda, Jules, Pam, Lynne and Sheila

Beautiful jazz music. Great poetry. Thanks.

Beautiful poems read with love and humour. Smooth jazz too! Excellent.

Des the Miner

Great to hear poetry as always, and I was introduced to two new poets (to me).

Thank you for a splendid evening where we could share the thoughts of two deep thinking men.

Their words so beautifully read & the selection so varied. The evening made perfect by the music!

Pam Scobie and Lynn Houston

An excellent evening of poetry and jazz. Hugely enjoyable!

Excellent event. Great readers, great snacks and drinks.

Very good. Well organised, good choice of poems.

--> Very educational

A A Dhand - our Writer in Residence for 2018

AA Dhand's thrilling sequel GIRL ZERO is due for release on Friday 14th July with what promises to be one of the busiest launches of the year at Bradford Waterstones. Join him in conversation with journalist and BBC radio presenter, Nick Ahad, in this Bradford Literature Festival event. He will launch the paperback version at the Headingley LitFest in March 2018.

Poetry in Headingley Library this month

Two (free) 'Between the Lines' events:

T.F.Griffin

Douglas Houston

T.F. GRIFFIN AND DOUGLAS HOUSTON

A CELEBRATION

FRIDAY 9 JUNE 7pm

A joyful celebration of the lives and works of two much loved poets—the late T.F. Griffin and Douglas Houston. 

Poems, reminiscences, music, and the launch of Doug’s ’Last Poems’—a ‘bitter sweet postscript’ published by Shoestring Press. 

Readings by Pam Scobie and friends. Music by Des the Miner.

SONNET SESSIONS - 

JAMES NASH AND DI SLANEY

WEDNESDAY 21 JUNE 7pm

Di Slaney and James Nash share their worlds of nature, animals and personal history in sonnets laced with wit and wry humour. 

Expect warmth and engagement from these two poets in writing that is direct, funny and unafraid; they offer hard won optimism and honesty in a shaky contemporary world. 

They will share new material and work from their latest collections published by Valley Press

Faber & Faber – Its Designs and History

Emily Gibbons writes

Tony Faber, grandson of Geoffrey Faber who founded Faber & Faber, led this event on the 17^th May. The event was a mixture of the history of Faber & Faber, looking back over its inception as Faber & Gwyer, survival through WWII, recruitment of T.S Eliot, and transition to the paperback format, all the while identifying how the cover designs formed this history. The lecture took us through many brilliant cover design artists such as Margaret Wolpe, who was trained in sculpture by Henry Moore, or even Damien Hirst who designed the cover for Happy Like Murderers.

Tony Faber

One of the most interesting discussions in the lecture was about the unique Faber branding through cover designs. A major figure in the publisher’s design history was Berthold Wolpe, a Jewish refugee from Austria who joined Faber & Faber in 1941 and created the Albertus typeface. This typeface came to be used on a large number of Faber books and served as a recognisable way of branding the publisher without naming them. It was especially interesting to learn that this typeface now adorns the street name signs in Central London. When Pentagram took over after Wolpe’s loss in the mid-70s, Faber & Faber moved on to further distinctive branding methods, such as the ‘box’ design, with all the book’s information in a box on the cover, and then onto the ‘grid’ design . It was so interesting to have these distinctive designs which we all recognise identified and contextualised within Faber and Faber’s history.

One of the most interesting facts to learn was that authors have little say over their cover designs, as Faber & Faber have an Artistic Director who matches the artist and author together, and then the artist essentially has one shot to design the right cover. This resulted in situations where the artist hated the design, such as Lawrence Durrell and his book Justine, but also produced iconic designs that still impact Faber & Faber and any book-lover today, like Anthony Gross’ cover design for William Golding’s Lord of the Flies.

Strix

 
Ian Harker and Andrew Lambeth write:
Submissions are now open for a new Leeds-based poetry and short fiction magazine, Strix. 

Submissions close at midnight on 31 May. We’re looking for three poems (max. 40 lines) or up to 1,000 words of short fiction. There’s no theme, and no limit on genre or style.

The first issue will launch in Leeds on 1 July. It’s co-produced by Andrew Lambeth (who’s a typographer as well as a poet) and the designer Nat McAnuff – it’s going to be entirely print-based, and will revel in its inky-papery-ness. Some prototype issues are pictured.

So do send us something.

Please email us at strixleeds@gmail.com. Word documents would be good, and it would also be a big help if you could include a short 100-word bio, and list the title or titles of the pieces you’re submitting in the body of the email.