Maragret Atwood Coming to Town

Manchester Literature Festival 2009 is to kick-off with a fantastic trailblazer event featuring Margaret Atwood at Manchester Cathedral.

The Booker-winning, Canadian author will be appearing at a unique literary performance with music to launch her new novel The Year of the Flood. Set in the same dystopian world as her previous novel Oryx and Crake, it tells the story of God’s Gardeners – a religion devoted to the preservation of all species. The Gardeners have long predicted the Waterless Flood, which arrives in the form of a global pandemic obliterating most of human life. The survivors are left to battle over an existence amongst themselves and the other gene-spliced life forms now running amok – will the human race make it, and more to the point, should it?

Watch this space for confirmation of other celebrities taking part in this very special event, which is part of a UK tour to support the work of the RSPB & BirdLife International and to raise awareness of species decline.

The event takes place at Manchester Cathedral on Tuesday 1st September, 7.30pm. Tickets priced £8 / £6 concessions are now on sale and can be booked on 0870 428 0785 or online. This is bound to be a very popular event so book now to avoid disappointment.

Rainy City Stories Workshops

Our friends at Rainy City Stories and Commonword have put together a series of writing workshops run by Suzanne Batty. Here's the lowdown:

How do the best writers successfully evoke the unique feeling of a place? How can descriptions and telling details be used to transport the reader to a particular setting? Writer Suzanne Batty will help writers explore new tactics and techniques in a two-hour workshop on writing about place.

Suzanne Batty has published two collections of poems, most recently The Barking Thing (Bloodaxe Books). She is an experienced workshop leader who teaches Creative Writing at Sheffield Hallam University and is co-editor of poetry journal Rain Dog.

The workshop is part of the Rainy City Stories Project (rainycitystories.com), which publishes stories and poems linked to locations in Greater Manchester on an interactive map of the city. Rainy City Stories launched during the 2008 Manchester Literature Festival and continues to inspire new and exciting writing about our city.

This workshop is suitable for all levels of writer. Places are free, but limited to 12 people per session, so early booking is advised. It will be held in four locations across Greater Manchester:

Stockport Art Gallery Saturday June 13, 2-4 pm
To book a place, please ring 0161 474 4453

Bury Fusiliers’ Museum Wednesday June 24, 7-9 pm
To book a place, please ring 01706 823264

Hyde Library, Tameside Thursday June 25, 1-3 pm
To book a place, please ring 0161 342 4450

Standish Library, Wigan Saturday June 27, 10am-12pm
To book a place, please ring 01257 400496


The workshops are supported by AGMA and Arts Council England.

A Small Eternity

If you haven’t already, we recommend you check out the current exhibition at The John Rylands Library on Deansgate - A Small Eternity: The Shape of the Sonnet Through Time. Using sumptuously illuminated books, rare and early printed editions, unique literary manuscripts and writers' letters, the exhibition traces some of the stories told by the sonnet and explores why poets have felt compelled to write them. It contains examples of the work of a diverse range of sonneteers from Petrarch to Vikram Seth, and Wilfred Owen to Lorna Goodison - plus visitors are invited to pen their own sonnet and add it to the display!

There is an additional incentive for visiting when the distinguished critic and scholar Professor Stephen Burt will be giving a lecture on Thursday 26th March at 6.00pm in the Reading Room of the Rylands entitled "Sonnets Past and Present". Professor Michael Schmdit OBE, FRSL, will be introducing him and chairing a Q&A session afterwards. This is a free event and there is no need to book.

For more inforamtion Tel 0161 834 5343 or visit: http://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/

Passing Down Exhibition

An exhibition of The Passing Down project, supported by Manchester Literature Festival and Manchester Science Festival, is now being exhibited at NOWGEN on Grafton Street. The project was conceived by poet Helen Clare to explore how stories and ideas are passed down in families and how people make sense of inheritance in their own lives. During Autumn 2008 Helen worked with a number of community and writing groups, schools and events, including Cultureword, The Monday Night Group, Full Circle Arts, MoSI, Cartwheel Arts, Greater Manchester Science Network, The BA Festival of Science and Salford Libraries. People’s ideas were collated and organised by Helen and the textile artwork was designed and made by artist Lynn Setterington. For more information about the project and exhibition please visit the genesand stories blog

Left Your Heart in Manchester?

Rainy City Stories wants your love. They also want your love stories and poems. In honour of Valentine’s Day, they’re offering a prize for the best Rainy City Love Story received in the next month.

Whether you’re an old romantic or a cynic, you are invited to tell us your tales (real or imagined) of falling in, out, or over love in our city. But don’t restrict yourselves to traditional romances; feel free to make a wide interpretation of “love story”. The winning submission could be about a more abstract kind of love. It could even be an anti-love poem, or a rant against all things loved-up.

The winning piece of writing will be published on the Rainy City Stories website on the eve of Valentine’s Day amid a shower of cupids and lace bows and twinkly-eyed kittens. And the winner will receive a big fat £50 Borders gift voucher.

Entries must be submitted by close of business on Tuesday, February 10. For full details of how to submit your Love Story or any other Rainy City Story, please visit http://www.rainycitystories.com/

November Blog Workshops

Manchester Literature Festival is pleased to present a series of blogging workshops in partnership with Manchester Digital Development Agency and Manchester Libraries. The workshops are led by Kate Feld, director of the Manchester Blog Awards and writer of The Manchizzle blog, and Chris Horkan, a web designer and journalist who writes the Mancubist blog.

BLOG LAB
Saturday 8 November, 1- 3pm
Manchester Digital Development Agency, 117 -119 Portland Street, Manchester M1 6ED
Stuck on posting images in Blogger? Need someone to walk you through switching platforms? Want to pimp your blog up with all the latest cool widgets, or just get some feedback on your new site? Two experienced bloggers will be on hand to help solve your practical blogging problems in these open “surgery” sessions. Some computers available, or bring your own and use our wireless. (Drop in whenever you like during the session, but please let us know you’re coming.) Check manchesterdda.com for more details.

BLOGGING FOR BEGINNERS

Saturday 22 November, 10-12am
Gorton Library, Garratt Way, Gorton, Manchester M18 8HE

Saturday 29 November 10-12am
Crumpsall Library, Abraham Moss Centre, Crescent Road, Crumpsall, Manchester M8 5UF

So you think you’d like to create a blog, but you’re not really sure where to start? In this workshop we’ll take you through the basics, and by the end of it you’ll have your own blog.

All sessions are free, but numbers are limited so please book in advance. To book a place on one of the Workshops or the Blog Lab please ring the Manchester Literature Festival office on 0161 236 5555 or email admin@manchesterliteraturefestival.co.uk (Please let us know when booking if you have any accessibility needs.)

CSI Manchester

Museum of Science and Industry, 26 October 2008

We knew it wasn't an ordinary seminar as soon as we walked in the room. A crime scene body outline lay in the middle of the floor, along with yellow police tape. A quick glance round at the finger print pads, hand held microscopes and soil samples confirmed this.

Aimed at budding crime writers, CSI Manchester was about the scientific methods behind collecting and analysing evidence at crime scenes. The workshop was led by Micro Biologist Dr Rachel Crossley. And you can forget the white coat and spectacles stereotype. Think more of British Melina Kanakaredes (CSI New York). Dr Crossley is a Science and Engineering Ambassador for STEMNET, an organisation which aims to encourage more young people in the UK to go into science, technology, engineering and maths. The workshop we were about to take part in was originally designed for school children.

The event began with a quick presentation covering the basic analysis of fibres, soil, DNA, handwriting, fingerprints and footprints. Perhaps the most interesting part was learning about how DNA is analysed. There's more to this than some crime programmes would have us believe.

After the presentation it was our turn. We were invited to walk around the room and analyse some of the evidence from our crime scene. Hand-held microscopes were used to identify and compare hair and fibres. We compared handwriting samples, searching for similarities in the strokes and we looked at fingerprints and footprints. Of course, we also had a go at taking our own fingerprints. Well, why not? We placed fingers and thumbs carefully on the chemical paper and dabbed them gently onto reactive card and watched, fascinated, as the prints appeared.

It was a fun event and a useful starting point for anyone considering writing about crime. It covered the basics which as Dr Crossley explained, are used everyday in the field. Anyone seriously considering writing about crime would have to go into significantly more detail than this. But it was a useful starting point to whet your appetite.

Further Reading: Crime Science: Methods of Forensic Detection, Joe Nickell and John F Fischer, The University Press of Kentucky (28 Feb 1999)

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Jenny Hudson also blogs at www.indiequarter.com and www.ladylevenshulme.co.uk.