MLF Chapter & Verse
The Manchester Literature Festival Blog
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Q&A: Mary Costello
September 23, 2015
Mary Costello is the author of a slim but powerful book of short stories, The China Factory, and now, a similarly compact novel, Academy Street, about an Irishwoman who emigrates to New York, which The Times called ‘an exceptional first novel.’ Her work has drawn comparisons to John Williams and Faulkner; Anne Enright said ‘her […]
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Q&A: Stuart Evers
September 23, 2015
Stuart Evers‘ first short story collection, Ten Stories About Smoking, won the London Book Award and was praised in The Irish Times as ‘touching, true and shocking. Here is a book that not only makes more sense of life, it delights the mind’. His novel, If This is Home, was published in 2012 to great […]
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Q&A: Polly Samson
September 21, 2015
Polly Samson is the author of two short story collections including Sunday Times Fiction Choice of the Year Perfect Lives, and has written lyrics for three bestselling albums. Her new novel The Kindness was inspired by Milton’s Paradise Lost and focuses on a couple who give up all they have to be together. The Independent […]
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Q&A: Benjamin Wood
September 17, 2015
Benjamin Wood is the author of two novels: The Bellwether Revivals, which was shortlisted for the Commonwealth and Costa prizes, and new novel The Ecliptic. A beautifully written and engrossing story that takes us from painters living the bohemian life in 1960s London to an otherworldly settlement of artists and writers in Turkey. It captures […]
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Review: Anthony Horowitz at Central Library
September 14, 2015
Festival Blogger David Hartley sees the much-loved author of books for children, young people and adults launch his new James Bond novel in one of this year’s Preview events. Fresh from a mild media tussle, a cheerful and engaging Anthony Horowitz took to the performance space in Manchester Central Library to talk all things 007. […]
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Review: Steven Pinker, The Sense of Style
September 9, 2015
Festival blogger Jonti Dalal-Small enjoys a candid and illuminating evening with author and Harvard Psychology Professor Steven Pinker, the first of our Preview events for 2015 The last time I saw cognitive theorist Steven Pinker speak, he was in conversation with Rebecca Goldstein, a philosophical novelist. She is also his wife. They formed quite a double-act, […]
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Previewing our 10th Anniversary Festival
August 19, 2015
We’ve been thrilled with the reaction to our 2015 programme, which has just gone on sale this week. This year marks a full decade of MLF, so we had to make it a special one. Our glorious brochures are out now (download one here) or you can peruse our 85 events on our website and […]
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Catching up with our Festival Directors
June 8, 2015
If we’ve gone a bit quiet on the blogging front, it’s because we’re busy at work finalising our tenth anniversary programme. We grabbed a few minutes with Festival Co-Directors Sarah-Jane Roberts and Cathy Bolton to ask them about what the day-to-day work of running the Festival is like, what inspired their love of literature and what we can expect from […]