Mid-October, and events across the year, in venues citywide
Doors open at 7p.m. Starts 8.30p.m. The Birdcage. Tickets: £4 online (£5 on the door). A couple of months ago London’s BookSlam came west. They had such fun they’re back again with NIKESH SHUKLA, joined by PATRICK NESS, (bestselling ‘Chaos Walking’, with new ‘The Crane Wife‘) and MATT HAIG, (‘The Radleys‘, ‘The Last Family In [...]
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Granta will be bringing some of Britain’s best new writing talent to Waterstones Bristol for a Q&A evening on 7pm Wed 24 April. Tickets £4, in the Waterstones store in Broadmead. With EVIE WYLD (After the Fire, A Still Small Voice), JOANNA KAVENNA (The Birth of Love) and STEVEN HALL (The Raw Shark Texts). Granta’s Best of [...]
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Well ahead of our main programme in October, the wonderful Southville Centre is preparing to host two special events this Spring and Summer in partnership with The Bristol Festival of Literature. On 8th March 7-8.30pm, Patricia Ferguson, bestselling author of The Midwife’s Daughter, will be taking part in a live Q&A session, as well as [...]
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Massive thanks to all of you who came to events in October 2012 or who helped out, performed or hosted. You were magic and so much brilliant stuff shone so brightly for those nine autumn days. In bars, caves, cafes, ships, museums, bookshops, buses, arts clubs, churches, schools and on the street, two thousand people [...]
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Book Slam is London’s best literary club night, except it’s at Bristol’s ultracool Spike Island this month! To celebrate the launch of their second annual, Too Much Too Young: Book Slam Vol. II, Book Slam is coming to Bristol. With readings from contributors Nikesh Shukla, Emylia Hall and Salena Godden, plus live music from Robin [...]
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A simple £5 (£2.50 concs) gets you access all afternoon 1-5pm at three venues on Stokes Croft and Cheltenham Road. Sample it all, from history to poetry to new writing, audioboooks and bookmaking. Trevor Carter, The Bard of Windmill Hill, is your host at Poetry Central; Ali Reynolds hosts at Launch Pad; Richard Jones hosts [...]
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Insurgent Poems vs. Bristol Ex-Army Poets: It’s hard to exaggerate how excited we are about this Unputdownable Exclusive and festival highlight. From secret Kandahar audiotapes to Kabul mp3s, co-collector and -editor Alex Strick van Linschoten presents Taliban verses gathered in Afghanistan. Translated from Pashtun, these are personal, searing and provocative. Recently homeless Bristol ex-soldiers respond [...]
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Featuring Nikesh Shukla (pic), Tania Hershman, Valerie O’Riordan, Sanjida O’Connell, Miles Chambers & Maria McCann: Our fabulous Festival finale, a cabaret of writers and performers. Imagine a chatshow with head and heart, featuring authors you’ll want to cheer and applaud. With interviews, performance, music, landfill charity canapés and bar, we’ll review the week’s highlights and [...]
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A work of art in its own right, visit the Festival Hub in our pop-up shop and Open Mic venue at The Parlour and soak up photographer Keith Baugh’s fabulous exhibition of Bob Dylan portraits. One of the most influential writers in modern times, in poems, songs and his elliptical novel Tarantula, Dylan provides the [...]
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Bristol’s first and premier literary event for this anniversary: Paul Stephenson OBE, Edson Burton, Miles Chambers, Marvin Rees and, on UK tour, Lillian Allen, (pictured). PLUS the historic launch of the first ever Jamaican New Testament in Patois. Hear our radio ad by Ujima 98 FM: Unputdownable Ujima Ad #2– After the brilliance of Jamaica’s [...]
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SOLD OUT: This very special event, created for book groups and readers across the city – The Bristol Big Book Group – is a chance to read together and meet the Orange Prize winning author Helen Dunmore. The novel to read between now and then is Helen’s acclaimed The Greatcoat written for Hammer, the well-known [...]
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With Richard Beard (National Academy of Writing, pictured) in the chair tonight. PLEASE NOTE WE ARE NOW STARTING the Masterclass @ 7.30 pm – There is so much to fit in, we have to give you an extra 30 minutes! Pt 1: 6.00pm Robert Williams, Stephen May & Christopher Wakling:Three highly acclaimed novelists who have [...]
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Household Worms & The Wind-Up Merchant A rare treat. Stanley Donwood, the Radiohead artist, with readings from his short stories Household Worms, with Ric Jerrom of the Natural Theatre Co, and the amazing gramophone DJ The Wind Up Merchant. Doors open 7.30pm for music from The Wind Up Merchant, reading starts at 8pm. Please arrive [...]
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With Andrew Miller who won the 2012 Costa Award with ‘Pure’, and Clare Clark (pictured) Orange Prize longlisted author of ‘Beautiful Lies’, we are drawn into an atmospheric exploration of how events and characters are reborn from overlooked, but pivotal moments in history. Seriously good authors and lively, engaging speakers ready for you to get [...]
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Brilliant for families and fans. Meet author Gideon Defoe and Aardman’s Peter Lord, with BBC Bristol’s Steve Yabsley. Pirates take over the Harbourside from 1.45pm onwards to tell us who they were, what they did and why. The author and the film-maker arrive by ship to the MShed to show us how they turned a [...]
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At a Sell Out evening, 25 years after launching ‘Consider Phlebas’, one of the UK’s most talented and prolific novelists across the genres uncovered the latest in his bestselling ‘Culture’ series: ‘The Hydrogen Sonata’. How will an ancient civilisation elevate its existence to the richer, more complex Sublime? Sci-fi and general readers were equally gripped. [...]
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Booker Prize shortlisted Michèle Roberts, Orange Prize shortlisted Georgina Harding & BBC Radio 4 Book at Bedtime 15-19 Oct Patricia Ferguson (pictured) are three superb novelists who dig into the past to find truth and atmosphere. Roberts discusses her lyrical new novel Ignorance with Harding whose Painter of Silence carries haunting power and Ferguson whose [...]
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FREE but booking is essential || Ask John Lanchester: “Have we let the bankers win?” The multi-award winning author of ‘Capital’, the standout novel of the banking crisis, and ‘Whoops! Why everyone owes everyone and no one can pay’ has plenty to say about that, and writing, and maybe even Banksy’s identity… Capital tracks the [...]
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Sometimes a novel has the power to create dedicated fans who have been so moved by something new and enduring that they want to share it with the world. The hugely talented James Long achieved this with Ferney, and its remarkable sequel The Lives She Left Behind is launched as part of the festival on [...]
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Literary walk: Adventurers’ Tales Believe it or not, Bristolians have inspired some of the world’s greatest literature. Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver’s Travels, the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Treasure Island all owe something to the city. Mark Steeds of the Long John Silver Trust is your merry host and scholarly guide. Robert Louis Stevenson attributed his [...]
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