Sun, Moon and Planets: A poetry workshop.

Thursday 21st May 12.00-2.00pm
Friern Barnet Community Library, Friern Barnet Road, N11 3DS

Allen Ashley

Come and join us to write poems or flash fiction on the theme of sun, moon and planets with tutor Allen Ashley. He will be using astronomy, mythology and imagination to inspire you. In the second half of the session you are invited to read your own astronomy themed poem or your favourite by someone else on this subject.

 

Allen will also be reading selections from his book Dreaming Spheres: Poems of the Solar System (PS Publishing, 2014).

 

This workshop is suitable for beginners and experienced writers alike.

 

Cost: just £5 to secure your place at this event. Email Allen for details on: 

allenashley-writer@hotmail.co.uk

Allen Ashley has had 12 books published as either author or editor. The most recent are: Sensorama: Stories of the Senses (Eibonvale Press, 2015) and Dreaming Spheres: Poems of the Solar System - with Sarah Doyle (PS Publishing, 2014). He works as a writing tutor and has five groups running across north London.

 

Follow Allen on Twitter @AllenAshleyUK

 

 

Discover the stories of women who went to war.

Come to Waterstones, 782 High Road, N12 8JY
Friday 22nd May 11.00-12.00 noon.

Meet Duncan Barrett and Nuala Calvi, the authors of The Girls Who Went to War.

Duncan Barrett

Duncan Barrett grew up in London and studied English at Jesus College, Cambridge. In 2010 he edited the First World War memoirs of pacifist saboteur Ronald Skirth, published as The Reluctant Tommy, and in 2014 his book Men of Letters: The Post Office Heroes Who Fought the Great War was nominated for the People’s Book Prize.

Nuala Calvi also grew up in London, and trained as a journalist at London College of Printing. She has written for The Times, The Guardian, The Independent, the BBC and CNN, as well as numerous Time Out guides.

 

Nuala Calvi

In 2012, Duncan and Nuala’s book The Sugar Girls shot into the Sunday Times top-ten, spending eight weeks in the chart and finishing as the second highest history bestseller of the year. It was followed in 2013 by GI Brides, which was both a Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller. Both books are currently in development for television

Twitter: @womensforces

Website: http://www.girlsatwar.com/

Celebrating Local Writers

Join us for the festival's closing event:
Celebrating Local Writers
Cafe Buzz, 783 High Road, N12 8JY
Sunday 24th May at 5.00 - 7.00pm

Jemma Wayne

Jemma Wayne graduated from Cambridge University in 2002. In 2004 she left the Jewish Chronicle to pursue her own projects and six months later saw the publication of her first full-length work, Bare Necessities, published by Piatkus Books. Jemma has since turned her attention to fiction. Her short stories have appeared in a variety of publications including Ether Books, 33 West by Limehouse Books, and Kerouac’s Dog Magazine. Her début novel, After Before, was published by Legend Press in June 2014 and has recently been nominated for this year’s prestigious Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction.

Irenosen Okojie

Irenosen Okojie is a writer and Arts Project Manager. She has worked with the RSC, Apples & Snakes, The Southbank Centre, The Caine Prize and programmed for Duckie for their series of interactive nights. Her work has been featured in The Observer and The Guardian amongst other publications. Her short stories have been published internationally. Her debut novel Butterfly Fish will be published in 2015 by Jacaranda Books. 

Lily Dunn

Lily Dunn is a published author and short story writer. Her first novel, Shadowing the Sun, was published by Portobello Books, and she's currently finishing her second. She is chair of North London Writers and works with the Womentoring Project, which offers mentoring to female writers for free. She is also a keen blogger and can be found here: www.lilydunn.co.uk

Tasha Kavanagh

Tasha Kavanagh lives in Hertfordshire with her family and three cats. She has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia, has worked as an editor on feature films, including The Talented Mr Ripley, Twelve Monkeys and Seven Years in Tibet and has had ten books for children published under her maiden name, Tasha Pym. Things We Have in Common is her first novel.

Zoe Gilbert

Zoe Gilbert’s short stories have appeared in anthologies and journals in the UK and internationally. Her work has won prizes from Lightship, the British Fantasy Society, and most recently she won the Costa Short Story Award 2014. She is currently working on her first folklore-inspired collection of stories, which will form part of her PhD on the short story at the University of Chichester. She lives in London, where she is a member of the North London Writers Group group, and co-hosts the Word Factory short story club.

Evie Miller

Evie Miller was previously a lawyer, she's written two YA novels each of which was long-listed for the Times/Chicken House Children’s Fiction competition. She is a member of the North London Writers Group and is currently finishing an MA in novel writing at City University. The Puppet Master’s Lover is her first novel for adults.

Dennis Evans

Dennis Evans, who is of Welsh parentage, lives in East Finchley where he publishes N2 Poetry Magazine, and is the Tutor for The East Finchley Poetry Writing Workshops. He will be reading from First the Silence, selected and new poems, which was published by Celebration Press & launched last year in East Finchley. It is his 6th collection of poetry. Three of Dennis' poems have recently been published in The Second Genesis, an anthology of contemporary world poetry.

Author event: Jen Campbell with her book about bookshops.

Thursday 21st May 6.00-7.00pm
Friern Barnet Community Library, Friern Barnet Road, N11 3DS.

Jen Campbell

We all love books and what better places are there for books than libraries and bookshops?

Join us at our community run library to meet Jen Campbell, author of The Bookshop Book. Every bookshop has a story and Jen is here to tell them.

She has travelled far and wide to find the best independent bookshops, talking to those who run them and use them. We’re not talking about rooms that are just full of books. We are talking about bookshops in barns, disused factories, converted churches and underground car parks. Bookshops on boats, on buses, and in old run-down train stations. Fold-out bookshops, undercover bookshops, this-is-the-best-place-I’ve-ever-been-to-bookshops.

Hear about Sarah and her Book Barge sailing across the sea to France. Meet Sebastien, in Mongolia, who sells books to herders of the Altai mountains. Visit the bookshop in Canada that’s invented the world’s first antiquarian book vending machine. And that’s just the beginning.

From the oldest bookshop in the world, to the smallest you could imagine, The Bookshop Book examines the history of books and looks at over three hundred weirdly wonderful bookshops across six continents. Jen says The Bookshop Book is a love letter to bookshops all around the world.

Jen's previous books are the Sunday Times bestselling Weird Things People Say in Bookshops series based on the very weird things she has heard while working in a North London antiquarian bookshop and The Bookshop Book which was the official book of Books Are My Bag 2014. She is also an award-winning poet and short story writer.

Follow her on Twitter @aeroplanegirl

This event is followed by The Library Debate.

Meet the author: Antonia Honeywell.

Join us at Church End Library, 24 Hendon Lane, N3 1TR 

on Thursday 21st May at 2.00.pm

Antonia Honeywell

Antonia will be reading from her newly published novel The Ship and talking about its journey from idea to publication.

‘Thrilling, provocative and disturbing. Read it and be challenged.’ (The Times)

'The Ship is tense, engaging and emotionally charged; I devoured this novel.' Helen Dunmore

Antonia will also answer your questions.

For more information about Antonia see www.antoniahoneywell.com

Antonia studied English at Manchester University. She began her career in the Education Department of the Natural History Museum in London, working with school groups and running creative workshops. She went on to train as a teacher and led departments in a range of schools from a single-sex grammar to an Ofsted-failed inner city comprehensive. Her debut novel, The Ship, a haunting dystopian fable for our times, is published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson.

Follow her on Twitter @antonia_writes

Stop Press: Zombies in Finchley.

Wednesday 20th May at 7.00 - 9.00pm
Friern Barnet Community Library,
Friern Barnet Road, N11 3DS

Mike Carey

In a post-apocalyptic era, Finchley and its environs has been taken over by zombies. Here is your chance to meet a few, but your safety is assured with our automatic e-blocker.

Join us for a spectacular evening with Mike Carey reading from his critically acclaimed book, The Girl With All the Gifts, with some dramatic assistance from you, the audience. Later in the programme Mike will be interviewed about his work by John Paul O'Malley. 

Come dressed as a zombie and mix with the real ones or just come as yourself, but as an incentive there will be prizes for the best dressed zombies.

Entry is free but donations are appreciated to help us keep the real zombies under control.

Mike Carey has worked extensively in the field of comic books, completing long and critically acclaimed runs on Lucifer, Hellblazer and X-Men, . His ongoing comic book series for DC Vertigo, The Unwritten, has featured repeatedly in the New York Times' graphic novel bestseller list. His superhero series Suicide Risk, published by BOOM! Studios, has been nominated for two Harvey awards.  He is also the writer of the Felix Castor novels, and (along with his wife Linda and their daughter Louise) of two fantasy novels, The City Of Silk and Steel and The House Of War and Witness, published in the UK by Victor Gollancz.  He writes mainstream thrillers as Adam Blake, and as M.R.Carey is the author of the bestselling novel The Girl With All the Gifts which is shortly to be adapted into a movie.

Follow Mike on Twitter: @michaelcarey191