MLF Chapter & Verse
The Manchester Literature Festival Blog
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Spotlight On: Comma Press
April 7, 2020
Why did you start Comma Press? To mess with the ways artists and cultural products, like books, rise into public consciousness. Too often artists ‘break through’ because aspects of the their personality, self-cultivated image or backstory fit with existing narratives about ‘the artist’; consequently, the art world tends to privilege the already privileged. To re-level […]
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Review: Sandi Toksvig in Conversation
November 19, 2019
Our Young Digital Reporter, Elizabeth Gibson, finds Sandi Toksvig courageous and inspiring. Sandi Toksvig has long been a role model to me; a reliable presence, funny and very kind. I was lucky enough to meet her a few years ago when she gave me a hug and chatted to me about my dreams of being a writer, […]
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Review: Jackie Kay Presents
October 29, 2019
Young Digital Reporter Elizabeth Gibson is inspired by Jackie Kay’s International Literature Showcase choices. Whenever I see Jackie Kay live, she is a lovely, calm presence, with whom it is impossible not to feel immediately close and at ease. As part of the International Literature Showcase, she has selected ten Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic writers working […]
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Review: Resist: Stories of Uprising
October 29, 2019
Young Digital Reporter Eddie Toomer-McAlpine discovers ‘stories to make sense of the chaos’ at Resist: Stories of Uprising. ‘In the age of fake news and post-truth politics, Resist: Stories of Uprising chooses to fight fiction with (well researched, historically accurate) fiction.’ – Ra Page Days after publication, Manchester Literature Festival hosted the launch of Resist: Stories of […]
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Review: Lemn Sissay & Henry Normal
October 29, 2019
Our Young Digital Reporter Laura Swain encounters much laughter and inspiration at Lemn Sissay & Henry Normal. It’s 25 years since the acclaimed writer, producer and poet Henry Normal founded the Manchester Poetry Festival and was joined on stage by a young Lemn Sissay. On 16 October, Henry and Lemn reunited at The Dancehouse for a sold-out […]
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Review: Deborah Levy
October 29, 2019
Our Young Digital Reporter Maygen Senior discovers a flow of ideas at Deborah Levy. Deborah claimed her latest novel was an “easy birth… relatively”. The idea for her book, where Saul Adler, her protagonist, experiences life in 1988 and 2016, developed from watching tourists cross Abbey Road, being playful and re-enacting a part of history, […]
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Review: Dave Haslam
October 29, 2019
Our Young Digital Reporter Camila Florencia Rusailh enjoys a celebration of Keith Haring’s life and work. Late 2018 saw Keith Haring’s resurgence in public attention following the UK’s first major Haring exhibition announced by Tate Liverpool. This year, Dave Haslam’s fully-booked event at the Whitworth Art Gallery combined a talk on his recent book, We the […]
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Review: Hanif Kureishi
October 21, 2019
Our Young Digital Reporter, Joe Moody, discovers a writer considering meaning at Hanif Kureishi in Conversation. Who are you and where are you from? Questions that have plagued the author, playwright and screenwriter, Hanif Kureishi, since his school days and have plunged him deep into existential crisis. Born in Bromely of British/Pakistani parentage, Kureishi was candid about […]
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Review: Emilie Pine & Sinead Gleeson
October 18, 2019
Erin McNamara, student at the Centre for New writing, considers the multiplicity of writing by women. Emilie Pine and Sinéad Gleeson were interviewed by Kate Feld at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation on 13th October. After introductions, Gleeson read from an essay entitled ‘On the Atomic Nature of Trimesters’ from her collection Constellations, and Pine […]
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Review: Booker Prize Shortlist
October 18, 2019
Georgia Way, student at the Centre for New Writing, discovers the suffering of the novelist at our Booker Prize Shortlist event. An evening with three of the Booker Prize nominees – Bernardine Evaristo (Girl, Woman, Other), Lucy Ellmann (Ducks, Newburyport) and Chigozie Obioma (An Orchestra of Minorities) – asked the audience of the Manchester Literature […]