MLF Chapter & Verse
The Manchester Literature Festival Blog
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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 […]
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Review: Faber New Poets
October 16, 2018
Centre for New Writing student Suzi Clark enjoys three poets rallying against the system. The International Anthony Burgess foundation saw a great turn out for the Faber New Poets event: a stunning book launch for the work of new voices in poetry, celebrated as part of the Manchester Literature Festival. Unfortunately, only three of the […]
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Review: 24 Stories
October 16, 2018
Centre for New Writing student David Adamson finds hope in stories for Grenfell. When catastrophes such as the Grenfell Tower fire happen, in the aftermath news reports tend to describe them as ‘an unspeakable tragedy’. While that adjective is fitting in regards to the trauma of the affected and the difficulty in describing such horror, […]
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Review: In Search of Mary Shelley
October 14, 2018
Ben Haynes spends a fascinating evening listening to Fiona Sampson talk about Mary Shelley. Fiona Sampson is perhaps the person most qualified to talk about the mother of Gothic Horror and Science Fiction, Mary Shelley. Both share quite the talent with writing, with Fiona having written biographies which have been translated into 30 different languages. […]
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Review: An Afternoon with Lauren Child
October 12, 2018
Charlotte Stevenson is inspired by An Afternoon with Lauren Child. ‘The more you look at things, the more extraordinary they become. An image really can change the world’. These are the words that have reverberated with me the most from the Manchester Literature Festival afternoon with current Children’s Laureate, Lauren Child. To celebrate the recent […]