Durham Book Festival

Debut Poetry: Paul Batchelor, Frances Leviston, Kathryn Simmonds

Reading, Q&A and book signing (Books will be on sale at the venue)

These three emerging poets have each received a prestigious Eric Gregory Award for writers under 30 and their work has appeared in the country's most respected poetry magazines and newspapers. This year their debut collections will place them in the literary spotlight.

Paul Batchelor's debut is The Sinking Road (Bloodaxe). Paul's poems have appeared in Poetry Review, Poetry London and the Times Literary Supplement. He received an Eric Gregory award in 2003, the Andrew Waterhouse Award in 2004 and a Poetry Business Prize in 2005. His pamphlet, To Photograph a Snow Crystal, was published by Smith/Doorstop in 2006. He is a literary critic for the Times and teaches Creative Writing at Newcastle University. Paul edits www.acknowledgedland.com, which is for and about writers in Northumberland.

'Keenly felt; passionately, precisely and lyrically conveyed.'
    - Simon Armitage

Frances Leviston's debut is Public Dream (Picador) and has been shortlisted for the 2008 T. S. Eliot Prize. Her pamphlet, Lighter, appeared in 2004 and was a Poetry Book Society Pamphlet Choice. Frances received an Eric Gregory Award in 2006, and her poems have been published in the Guardian, Poetry London and the Times Literary Supplement. She lives in Sheffield.

'Whether dealing with nature or relationships, she has the enviable knack of making the dense and complex seem effortless, offering subtle conclusions with an irresistible lightness of touch in language as refreshing as a sorbet.'
    - The Guardian

Kathryn Simmonds's debut is Sunday at the Skin Launderette (Seren) and is a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. Kathryn received an Eric Gregory Award in 2002 and an award from Eastern Arts the following year. Her pamphlet Snug was published by Smith/Doorstop and her poems have appeared in many magazines and anthologies. She won the Poetry London Competition in 2006 and the Wigtown Poetry Competition in 2007. She has also written short stories for Radio 4, and her radio play Poetry for Beginners will be broadcast in 2008. She lives in north London and works as an editor.

'An expansive imagination, a wide formal range, wit and humanity - Sunday at the Skin Launderette is a remarkable debut.'
    - Michael Symmons Roberts

Colpitts Poetry presents Paul Durcan

Reading, Q&A and book signing (Books will be on sale at the venue)

Poet Paul Durcan was born in Dublin, Ireland, on 16 October 1944. He was educated at University College, Cork, where he studied archaeology and medieval history. In 1974 he won the Patrick Kavanagh Award, and published his first collection O Westport in the Light of Asia Minor in 1975. Subsequent collections include The Selected Paul Durcan (1982), Jesus and Angela (1988) and Cries of an Irish Caveman: New Poems (2001), a central theme of which is death and disintegration. His 1985 collection, The Berlin Wall Café, a series of poems about the break-up of his marriage, was a Poetry Book Society choice and is regarded by many critics as his most important work.

He was Poet in Residence at the Frost Place, New Hampshire, in 1985, and Writer in Residence at Trinity College, Dublin, in 1990. He was awarded the Irish American Cultural Institute Poetry Award in 1989 and his collection Daddy, Daddy (1990) won the Whitbread Poetry Award. He was joint winner of the 1995 Heinemann Award. His most recent collections of poetry are The Art of Life (2004), and The Laughter of Mothers (2008).

Exhibition: The Art of Books

Exhibiting Artists: Yvette Hawkins, Stephen Livingstone, Kelly Gardner.

The Art of Books brings together three British artists working with books as a raw material in creating contemporary sculptural, tactile artwork. Using the traditional bound book as a starting point, all three artists manipulate, rethink and rework them into something new and visually exciting.

Ellen Phethean - The Ropes

Reading and Q&A. Ellen Phethean reads from The Ropes: poems to hold on to, an anthology aimed at young people containing thirty-six newly commissioned poems reflecting on life today with an unflinching, wide-ranging eye. Contributors to the anthology include poets, rappers and songwriters as well as guest editor introductions from Sophie Hannah and John Hegley.

What is a Book?

Claire Malcolm, Richard Gameson, Chris Meade and Fiona Gameson.

Panel discussion and Q&A

Claire Malcolm, Director of New Writing North, leads a discussion on the book, with contributions from Richard Gameson, Head of Medieval & Renaissance Studies at Durham University, Dr Fiona Gameson, an expert on non-print book forms, and Chris Meade, from Future of the Book.

Vane Women

Lindsay Balderson & Collecting Stones Anthology

Reading and book signing (Books will be on sale at the venue)

Vane Women is a writers' collective from the North of England who run a Press and workshops and are performers on the stage as well as on the page. They take their name from Darlington Arts Centre's address at Vane Terrace - their base camp.

They will be reading from two new books:

• Lindsay Balderson, Stripping the Blackthorn
• Collecting Stones anthology

Lindsay Balderson: Born and raised in Darlington, Lindsay Balderson is a true native of the North East, currently dividing her time between Darlington and Newcastle. She has been a member of the Darlington-based writing and performing collective, Vane Women, since 2001, and graduated with an M.A. in Creative Writing from Newcastle University in 2005. Lindsay has a deep interest in the mystical and magical and these often weave spells in her writing. Stripping the Blackthorn is Lindsay's first poetry pamphlet, published by Vane Women Press in Autumn 2008 - a spellbinding concoction of love, torture and reflection.

Collecting Stones: an anthology of poems and stories inspired by Harehope Quarry, with illustrations by John Longstaff.

"A disused lime quarry reclaimed by nature and invested with new human activity contains a deep bed of metaphor. These writings and images are the riches won by working it." Steve Dales

Flambard Press event: Peter Bennet & Anna McKerrow

Reading, Q&A and book signing (Books will be on sale at the venue)

Peter Bennet's new collection unites skilful random rhyme and lightly handled traditional forms with characteristic imaginative power and dark humour. The Glass Swarm confirms Bennet's growing reputation as one of the best and most engaging poets writing today. Peter lives in Northumberland near the Wild Hills o' Wanney, a strangely acoustical landscape which inspired the ballad-writer James Armstrong, and gave the young Kathleen Raine her first sense of another, more essential world.

Anna McKerrow's passionate, emotional and frequently tongue-in-cheek poems explore such themes as love, pain, healing, spirituality and the mysteries of the everyday. She is interested in conceptual art, synaesthesic approaches to creating poetry, and developing the relationship between language, energy, art and spirituality. The Fast Heat of Beauty is her first book. Anna was born in Surrey in 1977 but grew up just outside Bristol, developing an enduring love for the West Country and its various mystical sites.

Mslexia Event

Colette Bryce, Gillian Allnutt, Fiona Ritchie Walker & Valerie Laws

Reading, Q&A and book signing (Books will be on sale at the venue)

Mslexia, the magazine for women who write, will be launching their 2009 Women's Poetry Competition with readings from poets from the North East community including Colette Bryce, Gillian Allnutt, Fiona Ritchie Walker and Valerie Laws.

Keith Armstrong

Characters of Durham: An Historical Cabaret in Words and Music

This cabaret is based on Dr. Keith Armstrong's research and writing on four important characters in Durham's history: the Little Count, Richard Watson, Jamie Allan and Christopher Smart.

The show features narration and poetry in performance by Keith, accompanied by period folk music played by violinist David Biermann from Easington and multi-instrumentalist folk legend Tony Morris from Whitby.

Keith Armstrong was born & bred in Heaton, Newcastle upon Tyne, where he has worked as a community development worker, poet, librarian & publisher. He has been a self-employed writer since 1986 and has just received a doctorate, for his work on Newcastle writer Jack Common, at the Durham University where he received a BA Honours Degree in Sociology in 1995 and Masters Degree in 1998 for his studies on regional culture in the North East of England. He was Year of the Artist 2000 poet-in-residence at Hexham Races, working with painter Kathleen Sisterson.

'Keith is a noted Geordie wordsmith, a bloke whose musings were always radical, though of their place.' (Folk Roots magazine)

ID on Tyne: Nine 'Til Five - Working Women

Readings, Q&A and book signing (Books will be on sale at the venue)

North East writers Sheree Mack, Crista Ermiya, Shirley-Anne Emmerson, Degna Stone, Maggie Tate and Catherine Graham will present a selection of their work.

Sheree Mack is studying a PhD in Creative Writing at Newcastle University, after having completing an MA in Creative Writing at Northumbria University in 2003. She is an active freelance writer within the UK.

Maggie Tate grew up in Peckham, London, moved to Sunderland in 1978 where she raised two sons while completing an MA in Education at Durham University and working as a lecturer in H.E. Maggie has been involved in writing and critiquing groups since retiring.

Shirley-Anne Emmerson was born in Wallsend in 1970, the daughter of a Nigerian Marine Engineer and a local girl. She was put up for adoption at 5 months old and grew up in a multi racial family. Shirley-Anne has performed her work at the Literary and Philosophical Society and as part of the Middlesborough Winter festival.

Degna Stone was born in the East Midlands in 1974. She visited Newcastle for the summer in 1999 and somehow never managed to go home. She currently lives in Jesmond with her husband and two young daughters. Her first published poems appeared in Sepia Souls, an iD on Tyne anthology.

Storytelling: 'Shaped by the Wind'

An evening of storytelling and music with Storyteller Pascale Konyn and Musician Callum Stewart, with stories of restlessness and transit in search of a sense of place.

Michael O'Neill and Jamie McKendrick

A Reading by Two Award-Winning Poets

Reading/talk, Q&A and book signing (Books will be on sale at the venue)

Michael O'Neill is Professor of English at Durham University. He co-founded and co-edited Poetry Durham from 1982 to 1994. His critical studies include The All-Sustaining Air (OUP, 2007), an exploration of Romantic poetry's influence on poets since 1900. He received an Eric Gregory Award in 1983 for his poetry and a Cholmondeley Award for Poets in 1990. His collection of poems The Stripped Bed was published by Collins Harvill in 1990. Of his latest collection, Wheel (Arc Publications, 2008), Bernard O'Donoghue writes: 'Michael O'Neill's poems often begin by cutting straight to the point. This makes for great vividness and the sense that we are right at the heart of things, allowing the poet to be learned or allusive or private without losing contact with the real. Wheel is a book of sympathy and insight that takes its place in your mind unforgettably'.

Jamie McKendrick was born in Liverpool in 1955 and lives in Oxford. He has published five individual books of poems: The Sirocco Room (OUP 1991), The Kiosk on the Brink (OUP 1993), winner of the Southern Arts Literature Award, The Marble Fly (OUP 1997), a PBS Choice and winner of the Forward Prize 1997, Ink Stone (Faber 2003), shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize and Whitbread Poetry Prize, and Crocodiles & Obelisks (Faber 2007), shortlisted for the Forward Prize. His selected poems, Sky Nails, was published by Faber in 2001. He edited The Faber Book of Twentieth-Century Italian Poems (2004), translated Giorgio Bassani's novel The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (Penguin 2007), shortlisted for the Weidenfeld Prize, and his translation of the poems of Valerio Magrelli is due to be published in 2009 (by Faber and, in the US, by FSG). He writes on literature and art for several newspapers and magazines, and teaches part-time. This reading is organised by the Basil Bunting Centre for Modern Poetry, Durham University

Colpitts Poetry presents: An Evening with Sir Arnold Wesker

Reading, Q&A and book signing (Books will be on sale at the venue).

Arnold Wesker, considered one of the key figures in 20th Century drama, is the author of 42 plays, 4 volumes of short stories, 2 volumes of essays, a book on journalism, a children's book, extensive journalism, poetry and other assorted writings. His plays have been translated into 17 languages, and performed worldwide. 2002 celebrated his 70th birthday and his 45th year as a playwright. 2006 celebrates his knighthood.

Arnold Wesker, knighted for his contribution to modern drama, has a new book out, his first collection of poetry, All Things Tire of Themselves (Flambard). The poems are culled from those written during the half century that he has been writing plays - 42 of them. He will read and talk about his poetry and will also read from his play, Annie Wobbler, which illustrates his view of poetry.

From Sheep to Shelf, with Richard Gameson

From Sheep to Shelf is an illustrated exploration of the process of making, writing, decorating and using books before the invention of printing. As each book was wholly hand-made, every aspect of it - size, shape, colour and decoration - was subject to variation. Thus we have examples that are tiny, gigantic, circular, golden, purple and black, not to mention many that are masterpieces of calligraphy and illumination. While some medieval and renaissance books were made by monks, very many were made by secular professionals - including husband and wife teams - who, far from being anonymous, have left us notes about their labours, lives and loves. The session will include the opportunity to inspect some medieval manuscripts.

Book Fair