Hillingdon Literary Festival Programme 2018

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HiLF CREDITS Professor Philip Tew – Festival Director Sebastian Jenner – Festival Producer Thomas Ryan – Operations Manager Chloe Cortes – Marketing and Communications Officer

WITH SPECIAL THANKS TO Brunel Arts Fran Beasley – Chief Executive, London Borough of Hillingdon Nigel Cramb – Business Engagement and Partnerships Manager, London Borough of Hillingdon Nancy Rawlings and the Brunel Volunteers Sundeep Sangha – Head of Economic Development, Heathrow Uxbridge College Hillingdon Libraries Andrew Smith, Graeme Shaw, and all at the Antonin Artaud Building Colin Young and the Distribution Centre team at Brunel Kate and the team at Waterstones, Uxbridge Hannah Lowe and Daljit Nagra

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WELCOME From Professor William Leahy Vice-Provost for Students, Staff and Civic Engagement, Brunel University London I am delighted to welcome you to the fourth annual Hillingdon Literary Festival, which each year features high-calibre and internationally acclaimed authors here on the Brunel University London campus.

We take great pride in our links with the local community and believe that we have a distinctive role to play in contributing to the cultural life of the Borough. This festival, first envisioned as a celebration of the varied talent in our English and Creative Writing departments, quickly began to illuminate the breadth of creative talent in our Borough – this has given rise to a series of community creative writing anthologies, freely available to all our attendees.

It is also a real achievement that through the committed support of my colleagues at Brunel, sponsorship from Arts Council England, Heathrow Airport, and our partners at the London Borough of Hillingdon, we are able to make the Festival a free event, while making sure to properly remunerate our authors.

Finally, enormous thanks must go to all those who have contributed to the festival – the network of those who have helped with the organisation and promotion, volunteered for the weekend, and above all to all those coming to enjoy our events.

We hope you revisit an old favourite and discover one of the many new voices that deserve our attention.

Enjoy the festival, and be sure to sign up for our What’s On Guide for news of more exciting public events on campus – such as Brunel Fireworks, Lunchtime Concerts, Film Screenings, and the Public Lecture Series... and lots more!

Very best, Bill

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FESTIVAL FEATURES The Poetry Takeaway

Waterstones

The world’s first purpose built mobile poetry emporium, specialising in the production of free made-to-order poems, delivered and performed to the hungry yet discerning consumer.

We are delighted that the Uxbridge branch of Waterstones, based in the Intu shopping centre, will be hosting our signings and refreshment room.

They will be bringing their typical blend of good service and knowledgeable staff, as well as books featured at the festival, for you to have signed by the authors!

Be sure to find the Poetry Takeaway on Saturday or Sunday and place your order for a poem from one of their talented poet chefs. Everything is made fresh on the premises!

The Poetry Takeaway

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Gypsy Rose Poetry

Culture Bite

Gypsy Rose Poetry is a new adventure in poetry. Created by published poet, poetry tutor and creative producer Charlotte Baldwin, this enchanting poetry experience combines the romantic traditions of travelling shows with a contemporary literary twist.

Join Gypsy Rose Poetry on the Friday evening for a cup of tea, a chat about your life and a trip into a vanishing world. Ten minutes later, you will leave with a unique poetic fortune to keep forever.

HiLF is proud to be a part of the popular Culture Bite festival – also back for its fourth year – boasting more than 90 events and activities for adults, children and families in Hilingdon between Friday 14 September and Sunday 28 October. hillingdon.gov.uk/culturebite

Gypsy Rose Poetry

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SCHEDULE Friday 5th October An Evening with Simon Armitage Room AA001 Armitage’s numerous accolades include Sunday Times Young Author of the Year, the Hay Medal for Poetry and a prestigious Ivor Novello Award for song writing in the BAFTA-winning film about young offenders, Feltham Sings.

He has published a dozen collections of poetry, including Paper Aeroplane: Selected Poems 1989-2014 and his latest The Unaccompanied. His acclaimed modern translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight has sold over 100,000 copies.

Simon Armitage

Armitage is also the author of two novels and three best-selling memoirs, All Points North, Walking Home and Walking Away. His theatre works include The Last Days of Troy, a visceral retelling of the Iliad story, which played at Shakespeare’s Globe. This year he wrote the script for the puppet opera, Hansel and Gretel (A Nightmare in Eight Scenes), which is currently on tour nationally. Armitage received the CBE for services to poetry in 2010.

Simon Armitage is an award-winning poet who also writes extensively for theatre, television and radio. During the evening, he will read from a range of his work and answer questions from the audience. Simon Armitage was born in Marsden, West Yorkshire. A former probation officer, he is Professor of Poetry at the University of Leeds and was elected Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford in 2015.

simonarmitage.com

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Saturday 6th October – 12pm to 6pm 16 Ways of Writing a Poem – with Mario Petrucci 12pm, Room AA103 This fascinating, hands-on trawl of all the major pathways into new writing is as comprehensive as it is unique. Includes observation, the senses, personal memory, reflection, imagination, other people’s work – indeed, everything from the ‘found poem’ to Larkin’s pickles.

Mario’s wide-ranging experience in the field fuels a groundbreaking masterclass on compositional process, generating a workshop experience of immense variety and enduring value.

Award-winning poet, ecologist and physicist Mario Petrucci has held major poetry residencies at the Imperial War Museum and with BBC Radio 3. He is a workshop tutor of international repute, responsible for several key innovations in poetic theory and practice. His multiaward-winning collections exemplify his distinctive combination of inventiveness and humanity.

Mario Petrucci

mariopetrucci.com

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‘Wizards, Werewolves and Weird Engines’ 1pm, Room AA101

Join us for the special launch of an interdisciplinary anthology of flash fiction and non-fiction writing in the horror, science fiction, and fantasy genres by English and Creative Writing students at Brunel University London.

Our first genre anthology, last year’s ‘Faeries, Fiends and Flying Saucers’ was also the first at Brunel to be published in e-book and print-on-demand publishing. The anthology earned a position in the top three ‘hot new releases in Science Fiction Anthologies’ on Amazon UK. Join us for live readings from the anthology.

Copies of the book will be on sale.

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What Happens Next? – with Amanda White 1pm, Room AA103 A short fiction and scriptwriting workshop with Amanda White looking at innovative and diverse ways to create compelling narratives. Participants engage in creative activities that include the use of natural and manmade objects, as well as images, to inspire a range of viewpoints and voices.

Amanda White is a writer whose passion is poetry; she has had two collections of poetry published by Flambard press. Her poems have appeared on London buses, in numerous anthologies, magazines and newspapers, on touchstones and a wall in Tintagel and in short films.

Amanda White

She has performed her work at festivals and readings including Ledbury Poetry Festival, the Voice Box at the South Bank Centre in London, The Wordsworth Trust and many libraries, cafes and bookshops. Amanda also worked as a literary agent in London and now living in Cornwall combines her writing with her work as an experienced arts practitioner. Amanda has also published two children’s books, writes travel guides for Time Out, edits books (including bestseller Pavement for my Pillow by Chris Kitch, published by Orion) and short films.

Drop-In Industry Clinic Drop-in sessions with our publishing careers coach – Amanda White – are available from 2.30pm, please inquire at the reception desk.

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How (and how not) to self-publish – with F. D. Lee 2pm, Room AA001

F. D. Lee

Faith is a doctor of English literature and a self-published author whose novels have reached the top ten in numerous Amazon categories and has been featured in the Independent. In this 90 minute seminar, Faith will cover various aspects of selfpublishing, including the mistakes she made in the early days.

She will talk you through the various platforms available, formatting your work, tax and copyright information (this is *not* legal advice!), cover design, social media and marketing, as well as pointing you in the direction of various support groups and selfpublishing communities.

This is the third year Faith had provided this popular talk for Hillingdon Literary Festival, and it has been updated for 2018. fdlee.co.uk @faithdlee @fdleeauthor

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Slam Poetry Party 4pm, Room AA001 Rachel Long (poet and founder of the Octavia Poetry Collective for Womxn of Colour) and Wayne Holloway-Smith (Brunel Alumni, prizing winning poet) co-host a slam party with brilliant new writers from the area.

Wayne Holloway-Smith

Rachel Long

Rachel Long

Wayne Holloway-Smith

Wayne Holloway-Smith was born in Wiltshire and lives in London. He received his PhD in English and Creative Writing from Brunel University in 2015.

His poems have appeared in a variety of magazines and anthologies. His pocketbook, Beloved, in case you’ve been wondering was published by Donut Press in 2011. He co-edits the online journal Poems in Which and teaches at the University of Hertfordshire. His first book-length collection, Alarum (Bloodaxe Books, 2017) was a Poetry Book Society Wildcard Choice for Winter 2017, was shortlisted for the Roehampton Poetry Prize 2017 and the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry Prize for First Full Collection 2018.

Rachel Long is a poet and the founder of Octavia – Poetry Collective for Womxn of Colour, which is housed at Southbank Centre, London.

She was shortlisted for Young Poet for Laureate for London in 2014 and awarded a Jerwood/Arvon Foundation mentorship in 2015. Rachel has run poetry workshops for The Poetry School, The Serpentine Galleries and at University of Oxford. She is Assistant Tutor to Jacob Sam La-Rose on the Barbican Young Poets programme 2015-present.

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Classes We provide a variety of weekly classes at Brunel Arts, including the following: Pottery Ceramic Sculpture Painting and Drawing Life Drawing Painting with Oils Guitar Lessons Singing Lessons Choirs Musical Ensembles Creative Writing Special Effects Make-up for film and TV

Classes at the Arts Centre are available for all.

For full listings and costs simply visit our website or grab a copy of our brochure.

To check availability just get in touch by phone, email, or drop in!

Student Concerts We hold regular concerts showcasing the musical talent at Brunel Arts. Our various ensemble classes and Music Award students perform in showcases and concerts throughout the academic year.

All our student concerts are free and open to everyone.

Professional Concerts We have a huge range of professional performances throughout the academic year.

Our Friday Lunchtime Concert series and evening performances regularly feature internationally renowned artists.

Drama We present a range of drama productions including our highly popular annual musical (This year’s being A Little Night Music).

We also host a number of high caliber of professional performances with theatre and dance companies.

A Little Night Music

BEFORE 30 - Live Theatre Show 5.30pm, Room AA001 Homeowner? Parent? Deliveroo driver?

Where should we be at 30? BEFORE 30 explores the reality of the generation gap between life’s milestones. With the average first time buyer not on the property ladder until 35 and the growing trend in the temporary lifestyle of the gig economy, the prospect of ‘adulting’ has never been more intimidating.

Chris is an aspiring chef, delivering food to people who can’t be bothered to cook. His past struggles with depression and anxiety resurface when faced with the prospect of turning 30, constantly comparing himself to his accomplished Grandfather, who seemingly achieved everything so easily.

Back from another successful stint at the Edinburgh Fringe, locally grown talent – Tom Hartwell – offers us a new play that is a window on to turning 30… when every innocent flirtation becomes a prospect for a shared mortgage.

Press for BEFORE 30: ‘A fast-paced, thought provoking and enjoyable show’ – London Theatre 1 ‘ Tom Hartwell is, without a doubt, one of our finest emerging playwrights’ – Mind The Blog.

‘This is a writer who knows his audience’ – Blog of Theatre Things.

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What’s On Guide – Your Local University If you wish to find out more about how you can get involved with the University then register for our What’s on Guide! It is a termly newsletter that gives you invites and news about notable Brunel activities. This includes:

• Exciting events coming up • Part time classes you can take such as languages, pottery or music • Being a participant in ground breaking research • Information about hiring our facilities and equipment • Holiday camps for children And loads more! If you are interested please register via the link below. You don’t have to be a student to reap the benefits of Brunel so take advantage of what the University has to offer you!

Register on our website: brunel.ac.uk/initiatives

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Sunday 7th October Sulaiman S.M.Y. Addonia – Silence is my Mother Tongue 1pm, Room AA101 Sulaiman S.M.Y. Addonia is a novelist who fled Eritrea as a refugee in childhood. He spent his early life in a refugee camp in Sudan following the Om Hajar massacre in 1976, and in his early teens he lived and studied in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. He arrived in London as an underage unaccompanied refugee without a word of English and went on to earn an MA in Development Studies from SOAS and a BSc in Economics from UCL.

Sulaiman S.M.Y. Addonia

The Consequences of Love was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and was translated into more than 20 languages. Sulaiman S.M.Y. Addonia currently lives in Brussels where he has launched a creative writing academy for refugees and asylum seekers.

Skimming Stones - Poetry Workshop with Amanda White 1pm, Room AA103 An accessible and fun workshop that focuses on the senses through the use of touchstones and abstract word games. This immersive creative process allows the participant to explore their responses and ideas, individually and as a group, leading towards the creation of short poems.

Hillingdon Life-Writing Workshop 2.30pm, Room AA103 A workshop inspired by Brunel’s Special Collections Burnett archive of working class life-writing, this session – facilitated by Katie Flanagan, our Special Collections Librarian – will explore what writing about the self can mean for ourselves and for the community.

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Debut Novelist and their Stories 2.30pm, Room AA101 Rhiannon L. Cosslett, Helen Cullen, and Emma Flint are three of the most exciting debut novelists working across genres today. Join them for a conversation about their work and hear about their paths to success.

Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a columnist, feature writer and editor for the Guardian newspaper. In 2012 she cofounded The Vagenda, a feminist blog which was published in book form by Vintage. In 2014 Rhiannon was shortlisted for a press award for young journalist of the year.

As a freelancer she has written for publications as wide ranging as Elle, Stylist, the New Statesman, The Independent and Time. She has extensive radio experience, having appeared on Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour and the Today programme. She was born in Islington, grew up in Wales, spent time living in France and Italy, and has now returned to her birthplace. The Tyranny of Lost Things is her first novel.

Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett

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Helen Cullen

Emma Flint

Helen Cullen

Emma Flint

Helen Cullen is an Irish writer living in London. She worked at RTE (Ireland’s national broadcaster) for seven years before moving to London in 2010.

Emma Flint grew up in Newcastle and graduated from the University of St Andrews with an MA in English Language and Literature. She later completed a novel-writing course at the Faber Academy. Since childhood, she has read true-crime stories, developing an encyclopaedic knowledge of real-life murder cases. She lives in London.

The first draft of Helen’s first novel was written while completing the Guardian/ UEA novel writing programme under the mentorship of Michèle Roberts. Helen holds an M.A. Theatre Studies from UCD and is currently completing an M.A. English Literature at Brunel University London. The Lost Letters of William Woolf is her first novel.

Little Deaths is her first novel.

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Will Self – Living Between Fact and Fiction 4pm, Room AA001 We are delighted to welcome back Brunel’s Professor of Contemporary Thought – Will Self – for a foray into the relationship between Fact and Fiction in writing, and in to the life and mind of the writer himself.

Will Self is the author of many novels and non-fiction, including Great Apes, The Book of Dave, How the Dead Live, which was shortlisted for the Whitbread Novel of the Year 2002, The Butt, winner of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction 2008, Umbrella, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2012, and Shark.

Will Self

A regular broadcaster on television and radio and contributor to numerous newspapers and magazines, Will Self lives in London and is Professor of Contemporary Thought at Brunel University London, where he is much loved for his ‘Psychogeographic’ explorations and his teaching on the relationship between the individual psyche and the built environment.

Festival Anthology Party 5.30pm, Room AA001 We’ll draw a close to this year’s festival by announcing the £250 winner of our Outer Limits : Hidden Lives creative writing competition and hear excerpts from this dazzling free anthology of local writing, on top of a complimentary drinks reception!

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Hillingdon Literary Festival Schedule Friday 5 October 18:30

An Evening with Simon Armitage [Room AA001]

Saturday 6 October 12:00

16 Ways of Writing a Poem [Room AA103]

13:00

Wizards, Werewolves and Weird Engines [Room AA101]

13:00

What Happens Next? with Amanda White [Room AA103]

14:00

How (and how not to) self-publish a novel with F.D. Lee [Room AA001]

16:00

Slam Poetry Party [Room AA001]

17:30

BEFORE 30 [Room AA001]

Sunday 7 October 13:00

Sulaiman S.M.Y. Addonia – Silence is my Mother Tongue [Room AA101]

13:00

Skimming Stones, Poetry Workshop with Amanda White [Room AA103]

14:30

Hillingdon Life Writing Workshop [Room AA103]

14:30

Debut Novelist and their Stories [Room AA001]

16:00

Will Self – Living Between Fact and Fiction [Room AA001]

17:30

Festival Anthology Party [Room AA001]

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