MLF Chapter & Verse
The Manchester Literature Festival Blog
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Review: Terrance Hayes
October 25, 2018
Our Young Digital Reporter Ruth Jones is magnetised by Terrance Hayes’ political poetry. Stepping out of the cold October evening air and into the bustling Manchester Central Library would make anyone excited to hear such an innovative poet’s new collection. The room was packed with people of all ages, buzzing with conversation and the anticipation […]
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Review: Slay in Your Lane: The Black Girl Bible
October 25, 2018
Our Young Digital Reporter, Alice Richardson is inspired by Yomi Adegoke and Elizabeth Uviebiené, authors of Slay in Your Lane. With this year’s Manchester Literature festival paying homage to so many inspirational women, Yomi Adegoke and Elizabeth Uviebiené’s Slay in Your Lane: The Black Girl’s Bible is certainly a must-read body of work. Rivetingly raw […]
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Review: Sasha Dugdale & Nick Laird
October 21, 2018
Young Digital Reporter Urussa Malik enjoys a quietly powerful poetry event. Co-director of the Centre for New Writing, John McAuliffe introduced two writers working closely with the idea of memory and history. Nick Laird has recently published a new collection of poetry, Feel Free, where the idea of being free and not free flew across his […]
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Review: A Celebration of Muriel Spark
October 19, 2018
Young Digital Reporter Zarina Akhtar spends an evening celebrating the contradictions of Muriel Spark. It is on an autumnal Tuesday evening that we find ourselves at the Martin Harris Centre seated for a discussion about Muriel Spark. The audience, holding well-read and loved copies of Spark’s novels, including the The Prime of Jean Brodie, eagerly […]
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Review: Michael Morpurgo: Castlefield Manchester Sermon
October 18, 2018
Our Young Digital Reporter Elizabeth Gibson spends a remarkable and enchanting evening in the company of Michael Morpurgo. I am sure that I am far from the only young adult today whose early reading life was shaped by Michael Morpurgo. His books took me all over the world, and through time, to meet lions and […]
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Review: Beth Underdown
October 18, 2018
Centre for New Writing student Adam Wolstenholme enjoys Beth Underdown’s Quarry Bank ghosts. There were stories to chill the spine and warm the heart at an event to launch the new collection by local novelist Beth Underdown this week. Beth read from Love makes as many at the Anthony Burgess Foundation on Tuesday. Her collection […]
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Review: Carol Ann Duffy, Suzanne Batty & Clare Shaw
October 17, 2018
Our Young Digital Reporter Ben Haynes experiences a range of emotions at an evening of poetry. Poetry has a reputation for being emotional, the Festival’s co-director Cathy Bolton warned the audience beforehand. Clare Shaw, Royal Literary fellow and Northern Writers’ Award recipient, did not disappoint. Her opening poem, with a dedication to Dr Blasey Ford, […]
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Review: 24 Stories
October 17, 2018
Our Young Digital Reporter, Siena Hallewell, learns how laughter and stories can bring hope and strength. Walking in to 24 Stories, my eyes arrived not on the eager audience but the intimate arrangement of four burnt-orange armchairs settled around a cluttered coffee table. Armchairs that would, minutes later, seat Kathy Burke, Mike Gayle, John Mitchinson, […]
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Review: Slay in Your Lane: The Black Girl Bible
October 16, 2018
Centre for New Writing student Christine Walker finds two black women changing the conversation. The Central Library, on St Peter’s Square, Manchester was set to host, as part of the Manchester Literature Festival, a night with the young and well-received authors of Slay In Your Lane: The Black Girl Bible, Yomi Adegoke and Elizabeth Uviebinene. […]
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Review: 24 Stories, take 2
October 16, 2018
Centre for New Writing student Pippin Major is impressed by the unifying nature of stories. There’s a hum of lively chatter in Manchester’s Dancehouse theatre as the crowd awaits the arrival of the four stars of tonight’s event. No doubt it is the star-power of Kathy Burke that has filled most of the seats, and […]