Festival taster is flippin’ great
AT PREVIEW OF LITERATURE EVENT
THE ever-popular Huddersfield Literature Festival is celebrating Shrove Tuesday with a preview of next month’s event.
Pancakes and poetry will be the order of the day at the Festival Preview on Tuesday (6pm) at Heritage Quay at the University of Huddersfield.
The annual preview night is where the final festival line-up is announced and guests can pick up copies of the printed programme.
This year will feature a reading by Michael Stewart from a new edition of his poetry collection Couples, a darkly comic sequence of poems that explore the nature of co-dependency.
Michael will then be ‘In Conversation With’ debut author Sairish Hussain.
Born and brought up in Bradford, Sairish studied English Language and Literature at the University of Huddersfield and progressed on to an MA in Creative Writing.
She completed her PhD in 2019, after being awarded the university’s ViceChancellor’s Scholarship.
Sairish will be talking about her debut novel, The Family Tree, a moving multi-generational story of love and family, chosen by Cosmopolitan magazine as ‘One of the best new books by black and POC authors in 2020.’
The preview will also see the premier of a three-minute animated film, created by award-winning Huddersfield company, Fettle Animation, as part of the Festival project: The Creative Mind.
A partnership between the festival and Words in Mind – a Volunteering Kirklees bibliotherapy project – the film explores ideas around creativity and mental wellbeing, with contributions from Kit de Waal, Joanne Harris, Jackie Kay, Lisa Luxx, Nikesh Shukla and Lemn Sissay.
Tickets for the preview are free from www.huddlitfest.org.uk/event/HLF2020Preview.
HLF2020 runs from March 19-29. This year’s line-up includes 2019 Booker Prize-winner Bernardine Evaristo, ‘Queen of Crime’ Val McDermid, poet and festival patron Lemn Sissay, and Strictly professional dancer and best-selling novelist Anton Du Beke.
There will also be other events including: Gentleman Jack: The Real Anne Lister, Being Mr Wickham, Celebrating Toni Morrison, a Moomins puppet show and a Qawalli Night, along with workshops, performance poetry, several free children’s events and a variety of discussion topics.