We are delighted to announce the lineup for our 2020 Hearth festival which takes place on Saturday, 1st February in the cosy common room of our residential library. This intimate literary festival offers keen writers the opportunity to pick up hints and tips, and ask questions of published authors about their experiences. It also encourages anyone interested in the world of books to find out more about the writing and publishing process.
10.30am - 11.30am: Louise Gray - The Ethical Carnivore
For a full year, writer Louise Gray was an ethical carnivore. In what Patrick Barkham called a ‘humane, adventurous and wonderfully illuminating exploration’, Louise learned to stalk, shoot and fish, befriending countrymen and women and reconnecting with nature. She made squirrel stir-fry and shucked oysters, shot rabbits and hunted red deer. The Ethical Carnivore is a funny, witty and intelligent look at one of the largest issues of our time: eating meat ethically.
Louise Gray is now a freelance writer, after five years as the The Daily Telegraph’s Environmental Correspondent. She specialises in writing about food, farming and climate change, and is passionate about focusing on how individuals can make a real difference through the choices we make. She has written on these issues for The Sunday Times, Scottish Field, the Guardian and The Spectator, and appeared on BBC television and radio. The Ethical Carnivore is her first book.
12pm - 1pm: Patrice Lawrence - Rose, Interrupted
18 months ago, 17-year old Rose and 13-year old Rudder escaped a strict religious sect with their mum. They are still trying to make sense of the world outside – how to make sense of it all with no more rules about clothes, books, films, and music, and no technology ban, as guidance? How to get along without the community and certainty that the sect gave them? It doesn’t help that their mum works all the time, so she can pay the rent on their cramped, smelly, one-bed flat above a kebab shop in Hackney. Being a teenager is hard enough, but it’s even harder in a world you’ve never known…
Patrice Lawrence is an award-winning writer and one of the hottest names in publishing. Her debut YA novel, Orangeboy (2016), announced her writing with a bang, winning the Bookseller YA Prize and the Waterstones Prize for Older Children’s Fiction, as well as being shortlisted for the Costa Children’s Book Award. Patrice went on to write Indigo Donut (2017), which was Book of the Week in The Times, The Sunday Times and The Observer. Both books were nominated for the Carnegie Award, Britain’s most important award for writing for children. Patrice published three novels this year including Diver’s Daughter and Rose, Interrupted – also nominated for the Carnegie Award. Though the books tell tales of young people in very different historical periods, both demonstrate The Guardian’s view that ‘what sets [Patrice’s] writing apart is her skill in getting to the raw heart of her characters’.
1pm - 2pm: Lunch in Food for Thought (included with Morning and Day tickets)
2pm - 3pm: Miranda Kaufmann, Kate Morrison and Patrice Lawrence in conversation - Untold Stories of the Black Tudors
Contemporary understandings of British history are becoming increasingly nuanced, thanks to a series of books exploring the lives of black British citizens. From David Olusoga’s Black and British (2016) to the recent colour-blind casting of Armando Iannucci’s David Copperfield adaptation, the face of Britain looks more varied and interesting than ever. The books of Patrice Lawrence, Miranda Kaufmann and Kate Morrison have significantly altered our understanding of what the Tudor world looked like. Kate’s novel, A Book of Secrets (2019), tells the story of Susan Charlewood, taken from Ghana as a baby and now, as a young girl, hunting for her brother through an Elizabethan underworld. Miranda’s non-fiction Black Tudors: The Untold Story tells exactly that – the untold story of hundreds of Africans living in Tudor England. Patrice’s Diver’s Daughter: A Tudor Story (2019) tells the story of Eve, a young West African girl living with her mother in the Southwark slums of Elizabethan London. Join them as they discuss the practice of writing untold stories.
Miranda Kaufmann is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London, an Honorary Fellow of the University of Liverpool, and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. She read History at Christ Church, Oxford, before working as a freelance historian and journalist. Miranda is also currently lead historian on the Colonial Countryside project which is working with ten National Trust properties, schools, and creative writers, to explore historic links with Caribbean slavery. She now lives in North Wales, where she is writing her next book, Heiresses: Slavery & The Caribbean Marriage Trade.
Patrice Lawrence is an award-winning writer and one of the hottest names in publishing. Her debut YA novel, Orangeboy (YEAR), announced her writing with a bang, winning the Bookseller YA Prize and the Waterstones Prize for Older Children’s Fiction, as well as being shortlisted for the Costa Children’s Book Award. Patrice went on to write Indigo Donut (2017), which was Book of the Week in The Times, The Sunday Times and The Observer. Both books were nominated for the Carnegie Award, Britain’s most important award for writing for children.
Kate Morrison is a British debut novelist. She studied English Literature at New Hall College, Cambridge and worked as a journalist and a press officer, as well as a visiting scholar with the Book, Text, and Place 1500-1700 Research Centre at Bath Spa University. Kate currently lives in West Sussex with her family.
3.30pm - 4.30pm: Jonathan Edwards - The Poetry of Place
Join poet Jonathan Edwards as he reads from his warm, entertaining second collection, Gen, and discusses the importance of place in his poetry. Firmly rooted in the South Wales Valleys, the poems in the collection reflect on what it means to live in this area in the 21st Century. They offer us a world of closely-knit families and night clubs at chucking-out time, crowded retail parks and couples kissing beneath the neon sign of a pub. The collection is as adept at looking at Wales past as at Wales present, reflecting on significant moments in Welsh history such as the tragedy of Aberfan and the drowning of Tryweryn. The poems celebrate natural environments as well as gritty urban settings and this event will also include a selection of poetry films.
Jonathan Edwards's first collection, My Family and Other Superheroes (Seren, 2014), received the Costa Poetry Award and the Wales Book of the Year People's Choice Award. It was shortlisted for the Fenton Aldeburgh First Collection Prize. His second collection, Gen (Seren, 2018), also received the Wales Book of the Year People's Choice Award. His poem about Newport Bridge was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for Best Single Poem 2019, and he has received prizes in the Ledbury Festival International Poetry Competition, the Oxford Brookes International Poetry Competition and the Cardiff International Poetry Competition. He has read his poems on BBC radio and television and at festivals around the world, recorded them for the Poetry Archive and led workshops in schools, universities and prisons. He lives in Crosskeys, South Wales.
5pm - 6pm: Reading and Reflection with all Hearth speakers
From 6pm: Dinner in Food for Thought (included with Afternoon and Day tickets)
Tickets
Day Tickets (including all Hearth events and meals) are priced at £65.
Afternoon Tickets (including the two afternoon talks plus dinner and entry to the panel discussion) are £40.
Morning Tickets (including the two morning talks plus lunch and entry to the panel discussion) are £40.
Individual event tickets are priced at £15.
All tickets include free entry to the evening panel discussion with all four Hearth speakers during which they will reflect on reading and writing and guests are invited to put forward their most testing questions!
To book please book online, call 01244 532350 or email [email protected].
Please note that tickets for this event are e-tickets. Book online and have your tickets emailed directly to you – then save the environment by bringing along your e-ticket on your phone or tablet and have it scanned as you enter the event. If you would prefer to print your ticket, black and white is fine.
A print and collect service is available to those without access to email facilities for a small charge to cover our admin costs. Call 01244 532350 or email [email protected] for more information. Printed tickets will be available to collect from Reception before the event.
Accommodation is available for this festival but is extremely limited. To book please call 01244 532350.
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