As this newsletter is being written, Jo Shapcott has been announced as the overall winner of the Costa Prize and NCLA is delighted to congratulate her on this wonderful achievement. There is news of more staff, student and alumni success and a forthcoming events season that has already seen two events moved to larger venues as a result of their popularity (see below). Readings and courses held in collaboration with the Great North Museum: Hancock will be taking place as part of Newcastle University’s Changing Age campaign alongside the museum’s exhibition Coming of Age: The Art and Science of Ageing and some exciting additions have been made to the short courses programme.
Jo Shapcott, Visiting Professor of Poetry at Newcastle University, has won the Costa Prize for her collection, Of Mutability (Faber and Faber, 2010). The judges describe it as ‘a cutting-edge collection about surviving breast cancer but believing that hope, humanity and imagination matter even more.’ She will be judging Mslexia’s next poetry competition.
Professor
Jackie Kay published her new collection of poetry, Fiere (Picador), in January 2011.
Described as a companion volume to her widely acclaimed memoir, Red Dust
Road, the use of the Scots for ‘friend’ or ‘companion’ is particularly
apposite. Readers who loved Red Dust Road will find Fiere equally compelling. And for those who missed Jackie’s short story for
Christmas, you can still read Home-Alone
Christmas.
In
addition to its popular ongoing programme of short courses, NCLA is running
two even shorter courses this season at the Great North Museum: Hancock.
These free family-friendly sessions are just an hour long and encourage all
age groups to enjoy storytelling and poetry writing together
Words of wisdom: Monday 7th February 4-5pm or Tuesday 22nd February 10-11am. Storytelling is at the heart of most conversations. These sessions are designed to prompt story-telling, offering some simple ways to stimulate the dialogue between the generations.
Poetry workshops: Monday 14th February 4-5pm or Thursday 24th February 10-11am. Everyone loves poetry but may not know it because it is often in disguise as nursery rhymes, pop songs or adverts.
To
book, call Melanie Birch on 0191 222 7619 or email melanie.birch@ncl.ac.uk
Blog It is a new course, with sessions every Thursday
from 5th May - 9th June 2011 5pm – 7pm. The course will provide an insight
into the phenomenon of blogging, what makes for good quality blog
content, how to turn a blog into a book and provide students with the
opportunity to set up their own blog and practical week-on-week feedback on
how to improve their writing. Course tutor, Judith O’Reilly, turned her
own blog, wife in the north into a
successful book.
To book a
place call Melanie Birch on 0191 222 7619 or email melanie.birch@ncl.ac.uk
The new year of readings and lectures begins with Lesley Glaister and Jane Rogers on Thursday 3rd February at 7pm in Culture Lab, Newcastle University. This promises to be a very lively evening, with award-winning writers who are also teachers of creative writing. Lesley Glaister was ‘discovered’ by Hilary Mantel and has gone on to win several awards. Her latest novel is Chosen (Tindal Street Press, 2010). Jane Rogers writes for television and radio, as well as publishing novels, and was shortlisted in 2009 for the BBC National Short Story Award.
Tickets (£6/£4) are available online from the shop.
Alternatively, call Melanie Birch on 0191 222 7619 or email melanie.birch@ncl.ac.uk
Jeanette
Winterson is in conversation with Jackie Kay on Thursday 10th February at 7pm in The King’s Hall; Newcastle University, and not in
Culture Lab as advertised in the brochure. Jeanette Winterson writes on her
website: ‘The books are the best of me. When people ask me why I write them I
tell them it’s what I am for. It really is as simple as that.’ Jeanette has
been working on a memoir.
Tickets (£8/£4) are available online from the shop.
Alternatively, call Melanie Birch on 0191 222 7619 or email melanie.birch@ncl.ac.uk
Alan
Brownjohn and Jenny Joseph are reading poetry on Thursday 17th February at 7pm in the Great North Museum: Hancock. Their work has been read
and loved over many years and their appearance as part of the Changing Age
campaign draws attention to the power of their creative drive. Alan Brownjohn published his most recent work, Ludbrooke & Others(Enitharmon
Press), in 2010. Jenny
Joseph’s poem, ‘Warning’, has such mythic status that many of those who
have bought tickets for this event say they are members of the Red Hat
Society. She too published a new collection of poetry in 2010: Nothing
Like Love(Enitharmon Press).
Tickets (£6/£4) are available online from the shop.
Alternatively, call Melanie Birch on 0191 222 7619 or email melanie.birch@ncl.ac.uk
Diana Athill is in
conversation with Jackie Kay on Thursday 3rd March at 7pm, in The
King’s Hall (not in the Great North Museum: Hancock as advertised).
After a life of helping to launch the work of writers such as Philip Roth,
Simone de Beauvoir, Norman Mailer, Jean Rhys and John Updike, Diana Athill
has found fame in her own right as a nonageenarian through her memoirs, her popularity
as a broadcaster and her directness about the experience of moving into a
retirement home.
Tickets (£6/£4) are available online from the shop.
Alternatively, call Melanie Birch on 0191 222 7619 or email melanie.birch@ncl.ac.uk
There will be a First Thursday lunchtime reading on 3rd February at
1pm in the Rita Hayworth room, Percy Building, Newcastle
University. Marilyn Longstaff and Lesley Mountain, alumni of the MA in
Creative Writing, will be reading from their new publications Raiment (Smokestack Books, 2010) and Dance of the Disappointed (Red Squirrel
Press, 2010).
All are welcome and admission is free.
Barbara
Henderson, Creative Writing PhD student, has just won a national beginning
and ending competition with a new
work-in-progress for young adults. Halloween was chosen as the
winner for the Writers Advice Centre competition, judged by Louise Jordan,
author of How to Write for Children and Get Published (Piatkus
Books, 1998). The novel will now be assessed by an
agent. Barbara (who writes under the name Bea Davenport) also has a short
story in the latest Momaya anthology.
John
Challis, MA in Creative Writing student, has won a poetry competition
hosted by IdeasTap in partnership with Clinic.
His poem will be published in Clinic’s
2011 anthology.
Viccy
Adams, Creative Writing student PhD, has published a short story, My
Quota of Joy, in Contrary Magazine.
PhD
Creative Writing students are now carrying out their writing residences at cultural venues in Newcastle and Gateshead.
One of these has already been completed. Stevie Ronnie’s original and
thought-provoking response to the current exhibition at the Hatton, Another
Face: Works from the Arts Council Collection, will start at 6pm on Thursday 3rd February. The gallery
will literally be brought to life through a poetic tour. Tickets are free but
should be booked
in advance.
Cara
Brennan has been selected through The Writing
Squad to work with Simon Armitage on a poetry project for the
Olympics. That will form part of the Imove
project, which is inspired by London 2012.
Professor
Bill Herbert spent two weeks in India on a writer’s retreat, which generated
the blog Dubious
Saints. Eight poets translated one another’s work into more than eleven
languages and Bill’s poem, Forgive the
Flies, was one of these.
As previously reported Nuruddin Farah returns as Leverhulme Fellow in March this year. In addition to the reading already advertised for Thursday 31st March, there will be a rehearsed reading of his play Antigone in Somalia on 28th March at the Northern Stage. More details will appear in the next newsletter.
CK Williams, the noted American poet, will be giving a
lecture and reading on 25th May.
Look out for future editions of this newsletter as the growing popularity NCLA events brings additions to the published programme.