the Ilkley Literature Festival programme

Box Office 01943 816714 www.ilkleyliteraturefestival.org.uk
12.
Saturday 2nd October 2–2.15pm
Manor House Museum
Faces of Poetry Face-to-
Face: Don Paterson
As part of the opening of this prestigious
exhibition, poet Don Paterson comes
face-to-face with his own image as he
gives a unique short reading in front
of celebrated Scottish photographer
Norman McBeath’s portrait.
FREE
13.
Saturday 2nd October 2.30pm
St Margaret’s Hall
A Case of Exploding Talent:
New Writing in Pakistan
Filled with almost 200 million people
speaking nearly 60 languages, brought
into nationhood under the auspices
of a single religion but destabilised by
deep separatist fissures and conflicts
with its neighbours, Pakistan is one
of the most dynamic places in the
world. In this panel discussion, writers
featured in literary magazine Granta’s
Pakistan issue explore the frisson and
fractures of new writing in Pakistan.
£5/3 includes a cup of chai
Sponsored by Granta
14.
Saturday 2nd October 3pm
Ilkley Playhouse Wharfeside
Elsie and Mairi go to War:
Diane Atkinson
They met at a motorcycle club in
1912, a motorcycling divorcee in
bottle-green leathers, and a brilliant
18 year old mechanic.
In 1914, they roared off ‘to do their
bit’, and within a month were driving
ambulances to military hospitals,
where the ‘Angels of Pervyse’ became
celebrities. But, as author and former
Museum of London lecturer Diane
Atkinson reveals, adjusting to
peacetime was as challenging as war.
£5/3
See Event 28 for a glimpse of Ilkley at
the time of WW1.
15.
Saturday 2nd October 3–5pm
Church House
Poetry Surgery
Trouble with one of your poems?
Book yourself in to see the Festival’s
Poetry Doctor, Antony Dunn, for a
30 minute session.
Send your ailing poem and
contact details to: info@
ilkleyliteraturefestival.org.uk or post
to Poetry Surgeries, ILF, Manor House,
Ilkley, LS29 9DT.
£5 First come, first served.
16.
Saturday 2nd October 3.30pm
Ilkley Playhouse Wildman
Don Paterson: Reading
Shakespeare’s Sonnets
Don Paterson, an award-winning
sonneteer and lyric poet in his own
right, offers an illuminating guide to
Shakespeare’s much loved sonnets.
In a series of mesmerising and highly
entertaining commentaries, Paterson
explains the inner workings of the
poems – their hidden structures
and techniques, their narratives
and brilliance – as actors bring the
sonnets to life.
£5/3
17.
Saturday 2nd October 4.30pm
St Margaret’s Hall
Lyndall Gordon: Emily
Dickinson and the Surge
in the Brain
Fellow of St Hilda’s Oxford, acclaimed
biographer and James Tait Black
award winner, Lyndall Gordon
(whose previous subjects include
Mary Wollstonecraft, Virginia
Woolf and Charlotte Brontë) turns
her attention to Emily Dickinson,
dispelling the myth of a quaint,
helpless creature, disappointed in
love. Instead she reveals a fiercely
passionate nature, damaging family
feuds and a closely guarded secret …
£6/4
Supported by the Friends of Ilkley
Literature Festival
Robert McCrum
18.
Saturday 2nd October 4.45pm
Ilkley Playhouse Wharfeside
How English became the
World’s Language: Robert
McCrum
Conversations about Empires
Robert McCrum, former literary
editor of the Observer and for 20
years editor-in-chief of Faber & Faber,
investigates the beginnings of the
English language. How did slavery
affect the way we speak today? Why
does American culture continue to
spread? Linking language, culture,
history and power, McCrum traces
the way English responded to a
changing world and its ever increasing
influence across the globe.
£5/3
19.
Saturday 2nd October 5.15pm
Ilkley Playhouse Wildman
It’s a Long Way
Poems and handmade books from
Mary Thomson.
FREE FRINGE EVENT
See page 45 for full details.
13