Todmorden Book festival 2023

Joelle Taylor

Book your tickets

Book online at www.todmordenbookfestival.co.uk (a booking fee of 7% plus VAT applies) or at Todmorden Information Centre, 15 Burnley Road, Todmorden, OL14 7BU, 01706 818181.

Under 16s are free. Concessions are available for under 18s, students, over 65s, benefit recipients and people with disabilities.

How to find us by car: Todmorden can be reached from the M62, M1, M6 and M65. From the M62 eastbound, leave at junction 21 and junction 24 westbound. From the M65, leave at junctions 9, 10 or 11.

By train: There are regular train services from Manchester and Leeds. For train information, please visit www.northernrailway.co.uk.

By bus: There are regular bus services from Halifax, Burnley and Rochdale. For bus information, please visit www.wymetro.com.

Tod Tales Soundscapes installation

Come and listen to the voices and sounds of Todmorden as we bring Tod Tales to life.

November 17 onwards

Friday 17 November, 8pm Todmorden Town Hall

Tickets £10 concessions £5

An evening with Mick Herron

One of our most engaging and compelling contemporary writers, Mick Herron is the #1 Sunday Times bestselling author of the Slough House thrillers, which have won the Theakston Old Peculiar Crime Novel of the Year award, two CWA Daggers, been published in over 20 languages, and are the basis of the major TV series Slow Horses starring Gary Oldman. He is also the author of the Zoë Boehm series, and the stand alone novels Reconstruction and This is What Happened.

‘The John le Carre of our generation’ Val McDermid

Chaired by Stephen May

Ghost Signs

Stuart Hennigan

Hags

Victoria Smith

Stu Hennigan is a writer, poet and musician from the north of England. His powerful book Ghost Signsbased on his experiences working as a volunteer driver delivering food parcels to vulnerable communities in Leeds during lockdown - was shortlisted for Best Non-Fiction at the 2022 Books Are My Bag Awards, and Best Political Book By A Non-Parliamentarian at the Parliamentary Book Awards in February 2023’

‘A damning indictment of austerity and the government’s contemptuous response to the pandemic’ the New Statesman

Saturday 18 November, 2.30pm Fielden Hall Tickets £5

Saturday 18 November, 7.30pm Todmorden Community College

Tickets £10 concessions £5

In the last few years middle-aged women have found themselves talked and written about as morally inferior beings: the face of bigotry, entitlement and selfishness, to be ignored, pitied or abused. In Hags, Victoria Smith asks why women are treated with such active disdain. exploring the reasons why this type of misogyny is so very now.

“Could not be more necessary” Rachel Cooke, Observer.

Victoria Smith is a regular contributor to The Critic and other publications, focusing on women’s issues, parenting and mental health.

Just Between Us

A conversation with Adele Parks

Saturday 18 November, 4.30pm St. Mary’s Church

Adele Parks is the author of 22 successful novels including the best-selling Both Of You and One Last Secret. Over 4.75million UK editions of her work have been sold and her books have been translated into 31 different languages. Adele’s Sunday Times Number One bestsellers Lies Lies Lies and Just My Luck were shortlisted for the British Book Awards and have been optioned for development for TV. She is an ambassador of the National Literacy Trust and the Reading Agency. Just Between Us is the title of her latest acclaimed bestseller.

‘Excellent, well-honed, acutely observed.’ Daily Mail

Chair: Kevin Duffy, Bluemoose Books

Chaired by Pam Warhurst

Chair: Jim Parks

Linda Green In Little Stars

This event will be chaired by Steph Booth

Two families divided by hate, A love that will not die. Linda Green’s acclaimed 11th novel is Romeo and Juliet in post-Brexit Yorkshire.

One of Yorkshire’s most popular modern novelists Linda Green’s previous novels have sold more than a million copies between them. Her last book novel, One Moment, was a Radio 2 Book Club selection, and her previous novel, The Last Thing She Told Me, was a Richard & Judy Book Club pick and a Top 20 Sunday Times bestseller. She lives in West Yorkshire with her husband and son.

Poetry for Our Time

Three poets explore what it is to be human at this moment in history

James Byrne

James Byrne is a poet, editor, translator and visual artist. His most recent poetry collections are Places You Leave (Arc Publications, 2022) and Of Breaking Glass (Broken Sleep Books, 2022. ‘Restlessly energetic

Zaffir Kunial

Zaffir Kunial is a recipient of Yale University’s WindhamCampbell Prize. His first poetry collection Us appeared on a number of shortlists including the Costa Poetry Award and the T. S. Eliot Prize. His latest collection England’s Green was the Times poetry book of the year in 2022.

Pippa Little

Pippa Little is a Scots poet settled in Northumberland. Her third collection Time Begins to Hurt came out from Arc in 2022. Her earlier collections were shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Centre Award and the Saltire Poetry Book of the Year Award.

Joelle Taylor in performance

Sunday 19 November, 4.30pm Fielden Hall Tickets

Introduced

£5

John Billingsley

Legends and Folk Tales of Todmorden

Calderdale is rich in folklore, and place legends are a key feature of upper valley lore particularly.. John Billingsley is a local historian with a particular interest in folklore and relationships with place. As writer or editor, he has published ten books, and has been editor of the neo-antiquarian journal Northern Earth for over thirty years.

Music for the Many and Peter Sansom

FREE EVENT

An evening of childrens words and music

Wednesday 22 November, 7pm

Todmorden Folklore Centre Tickets £5

Pete Brown Clubland. A convivial conversation

Pete Brown is a British author, journalist, broadcaster and consultant specialising in food and drink, especially the fun parts. Across twelve books, his broad, fresh approach takes in social history, cultural commentary, travel writing, personal discovery and natural history, and his words are always delivered with the warmth and wit you’d expect from a great night down the pub. He was named British Beer Writer of the Year in 2009, 2012, 2016 and 2021, has won three Fortnum & Mason Drink Awards, and in 2020 was named an “Industry Legend” at the Imbibe Hospitality Awards.

Saturday 25 November, 6pm

The Hippodrome

Established in 2018, Music for the Many removes the barriers preventing many of our children, young people and families from accessing instrumental tuition and other musical opportunities. We provide instrumental tuition free of charge on a dazzling array of different instruments to about 150 children in schools in Todmorden and in Halifax. Our current project is to give all our children and young people the amazing and life enriching experience of playing in an orchestra - of being thoroughly immersed in the sounds, emotions, colours and excitement of orchestral music. Working with the marvellous poet, Peter Sansom, this event is a great opportunity for our young people to explore different ways into music. They will create a new performance in response to poetry, building something truly original in Todmorden’s magical Hippodrome Theatre.

Music for the Many is a registered charity no. 1185526. You can support our life-changing work by donating at www.justgiving. com/musicforthemany or by passing on any instruments which children can use. To find out more or to get involved in what we do, please get in touch at music4themany@gmail.com.

Friday 24 November, 6pm

Hippodrome Foyer Tickets £5

Peter has taken poetry into hundreds of schools over thirty years and read to thousands of children -- and got them all writing and performing. He has published many books for grown ups including a Selected Poems, and won the Cholmondeley Award in 2016. His poems for children have appeared in anthologies from Penguin and Hachard and in his own collection The Ice Cream Carpet. He has been company poet for Marks and Spencer and Fellow in Poetry at Leeds and Manchester Universities -- and has written poems for, among other places, Channel 4, The Guardian and Morrison’s. He has four grandchildren who like poems, and he lives with his wife Ann in Sheffield, where they run The Poetry Business, a publishers and writer development agency.

Fiction masterclass with Stephen May

This stimulating session will allow you the chance to experiment, surprise yourself and find your voice. Suitable for both the experienced writer and the shy beginner. Stephen May is the author of six novels including last year’s acclaimed Sell Us The Rope and Life! Death! Prizes! which was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award and the Guardian Not The Booker Prize. He has been shortlisted for Wales Book of the Year and won the Media Wales Reader’s Prize.

Roots and Branches: Growing Stories Ian Douglas

eventsFREEin primary schools

Ian has been telling stories at festivals, schools, libraries and on street corners both nationally and internationally for over 15 years. Originally a street theatre performer, fire breather and stilt walker, Ian has founded two story-based theatre companies. Ian hails from West Yorkshire but now lives with the love of his life on a narrow boat wherever the neighbours are nice.

Ursula Holden-Gill

Saturday 18 November, 10am-12pm

Todmorden Library Tickets £15

Poetry masterclass with Andrew McMillan

“Beyond 100 Queer Poems”: using some of the poems from 100 queer poems, the anthology he curated with Mary Jean Chan in 2022, as a jumping off point- join Andrew McMillan to explore contemporary poems, and have a go at writing our own.

Saturday 18 November, 2pm-4pm Todmorden Library Tickets £15

Short story masterclass with Naomi Booth

Naomi Booth’s first work of fiction, The Lost Art of Sinking, was set in Todmorden and won the Saboteur Award for Best Novella. Naomi’s collection of short stories, Animals at Night (2022) has recently been longlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize and the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award. She teaches Creative Writing and Literature at Durham University.

Tuesday 21 November, 3pm - 5pm Todmorden Library

Tickets £15

Ursula crafts traditional stories with an impish wit and bags of expression that are founded on a life – long love of folklore and fairy tale. However, she also excels and specialises in writing and telling the tales of everyday; real and relevant life affirming stories that boldly confront the challenges bamboozling us all with savvy spirit, streetwise sensitivity and a fist full of urban charm. Despite being a self confessed home-bird, Ursula’s stories have taken her to a range of international theatre and festival stages.

Monday 20 November – Wednesday 22 November

The will to survive

Melvin Burgess has been writing fiction for young people since his first book, The Cry of the Wolf, was published in 1990. His 1996 novel Junk kick started the YA genre, winning the Guardian Childrens’ Fiction Award and the Carnegie Medal. He has won many other awards over the years, including the LA YA Book of the Year Award for Doing It. His latest YA, ‘Three Bullets, was published in 2021.

Todmorden Highevent

Tuesday 22 November Todmorden High School

Pete Kalu’s YA alternative reality novel One Drop (Andersen Press) was published in 2022. His short stories can be found in various anthologies including Collision (comma press 2023), Glimpse (Peepal Tree 2023), and Closure (Peepal Tree 2015). He writes occasional book reviews that can be found at www.peterkalu.com.

Joyous, funny, lovely accounts of life in Todmorden. Fantastic project – a joy. Lovely presentation, great hospitality. I love living here.

Tod Tales

Great to be at a live event

Stand up poetry – who knew loved it!

Roar. Live poetry event

Fascinating talk / knowledgeable and interesting / eye opening talk / brilliant Susanne O’Sullivan. The sleeping beauties.

Lovely way to spend a rainy evening in Tod

Jackie Kay. Bessie Smith. Empress of the Blues.

www.todmordenbookfestival.co.uk