Monday 14 March
Gujerat meets Sicily
Hansa Dabhi talks about her second cookbook and how the Hindu philosophy of food as lifestyle, medicine and joy impacts the running of her all-female multi-award winning vegetarian Gujarati restaurant which opened in 1986 when it was very unusual to have an all vegetarian menu. Many customers found out for the first time how creative it is possible to be with vegetables. Price includes a special Gujarat meets Sicily dinner. Book early with Salvo’s 0113 275 5017
7.30pm Salvo’s Salumeria, Otley Road £19.50
Tuesday 15 March
Close up
A series of short (under 15 minutes each) autobiographical stories which might just be true, depending on the reliability of the memories of the contributors. These include Lis Bertolla, Moira Garland, Richard Lindley (proprietor), Doug Sandle and Richard Wilcocks.
Come early if you want a good seat.
7.30pm Café Lento, North Lane Free
Wednesday 16 March
How to get published
An informative, realistic and entertaining event with Isabel Losada. Drawing on her own experience (during the evening Isabel reads extracts from her rejection letters which is encouraging as the reasons for rejection all contradict each other) Isabel entertains her audience whilst offering her honesty, wisdom, every tip she can think of and much compassion.
About Isabel’s The Battersea Park Road to Enlightenment, press comments included, “Very funny and never cynical” (Ireland on Sunday), “Great fun yet always honest” (Bookseller), “Swift, snappy and engaging” (Sunday Tribune) and “Endearing” (The Independent)
7.30pm Claremont Room, Heart, Bennett Road Refreshments £3/£2
Thursday 17 March
Storm Jameson
Dr Richard Brown talks about Margaret Storm Jameson (1891 - 1986) who wrote 45 novels and much criticism. She was a student at the University of Leeds then went on to teach before becoming a full-time writer. She was a prominent president of the British branch of the International PEN association, and active in helping refugee writers
7pm Headingley Library, North Lane Refreshments £3/£2
Friday 18 March
LitFest Launch
LitFest Launch
Included in the programme are the Word Birds, a flock of women poets who perform UK-wide, taking a bird’s eye view of human relationships and more. Join them on their flights of fancy - and prepare to have your feathers ruffled! Singer-songwriter Robin Fishwick will provide musical interludes. Literary quiz and raffle as well!
7.30pm Shire Oak Room, Heart, Bennett Road Refreshments Free
Saturday 19 March
Thirty-five years of loitering
Ray Brown dabbles in most forms but is best known for his BBC R4 features and as a playwright/director. His work has been staged at major theatres, the Edinburgh Fringe and Wetwang Village Hall. He talks about life as a writer and broadcaster - and much more.
Saturday 19 March
Launch of Sky Burial
This is Genny Rahtz’s first full poetry collection. Genny will be accompanied by Doug Houston who appeared with her in the famous 1982 Rumored City collection edited by Douglas Dunn with a foreword by Phillip Larkin.
Sunday 20 March
At home with yourselves
Audiences are invited to be guests in people’s houses, something which proved very popular in the last LitFest. Limited number of free tickets for each separate event.
Ring the number to book.
Songs about Love and Shipwrecks
Following on from Salvage, a previous project for the LitFest, this is an informal sharing of recent songs and poems by Peter Spafford, performed by Edible Tent.
1 pm Tickets 0113 275 4199 Free
Personally Speaking
Following last year’s successful house event, join Wordsong (Maggie Mash, Lynn Thornton and pianist John Holt) and other local poets, actors and musicians for a lighthearted look at who we are.
2.30 pm Tickets 0113 275 8378 Free
Shark
In Shark, Wes Brown writes with a kind of rhythmic Northern realism, catching the way we think, the way we talk, the way we act round here; he manages to make the North a marvellous place, a place where art can happen, where epic can feel comfortable... Ian McMillan, poet and broadcaster. Wes will read from Shark and answer questions.
Click here to read Jane Verity's interview with him.
Click here to read Jane Verity's interview with him.
5 pm Tickets 0113 225 7397 Free
Monday 21 March
The Beast with Five Fingers
This brilliant and scary film is based on a short story by William Fryer Harvey. The strong cast includes the great Peter Lorre. Come and see it at the oldest cinema in the city. Local historian Janet Douglas has researched his life, looking for clues as to why he became the master of mystery and suspense. These may be found in his autobiography, We Were Seven, an account of a happy childhood in Headingley
7.30pm Introduction by Janet Douglas 8pm Film
Tuesday 22 March
Let Me Speak!
Bridging Words: Bridging WorldsLet Me Speak!
Determined to push horizons and destabilise perceptions this performance is a collaboration between two WEA Creative Writing groups; one in Headingley and one in Osmondthorpe Resource Centre for adults with physical impairments. Funny, moving and often surprising their work was originally performed in the Banqueting Suite in the Civic Hall to much acclaim.
1pm Shire Oak Room, Heart, Bennett Road Refreshments £3/£2 on the door
Robert Swindells
Robert Swindells combines hard-hitting subject matter (homelessness, racial intolerance, nuclear war) with page-turning storytelling in his powerful novels for teenagers. He has won major awards and established himself as one of the most reliable but consistently surprising writers for young people. He will read from his work and answer questions from students at local high schools.
Rommi Smith and the Fruit Tree Project
1pm Shire Oak Room, Heart, Bennett Road Refreshments £3/£2 on the door
Tuesday 22 March
New Shoots
Cadaverine magazine, an online e-zine for young writers, and the King Ink Collective are showcasing a wealth of fresh talent. Eight new writers perform poetry, prose and a little something in between.
7.30pm Shire Oak Room, Heart, Bennett Road Refreshments £3/£2
Wednesday 23 March
Robert Swindells
Robert Swindells combines hard-hitting subject matter (homelessness, racial intolerance, nuclear war) with page-turning storytelling in his powerful novels for teenagers. He has won major awards and established himself as one of the most reliable but consistently surprising writers for young people. He will read from his work and answer questions from students at local high schools.
Wednesday 23 March
Dreams
Leeds Combined Arts presents an evening of poetry, music and dance on the theme of dreams with dancers from the Northern School of Contemporary Dance.
7.30pm Shire Oak Room, Heart, Bennett Road
Enquiries: 0113 269 0356 £4/£3
Thursday 24 March
Lawnswood Slam
Once more, leading performance poet Michelle Scally-Clarke will create a Poetry Slam with Lawnswood students. Last year this was roaringly successful, with hundreds of students, parents and others involved. All-original performance poetry, singing and dancing.
Thursday 24 March
A Literary Dublin: Three Irish Writers
Flann O’Brien, Brendan Behan and Patrick Kavanagh spent their lives and did their work through confusions, some of this self created. In this documentary, Anthony Cronin, the writer and producer, describes the literary period in the late 1950s and early 1960s as an era the importance of which was only recognized when it was over. There will also be an opportunity to meet with Leeds based County Sligo born Eamonn Hamilton who has realised his true literary passion by creating an online secondhand bookshop.
Flann O’Brien, Brendan Behan and Patrick Kavanagh spent their lives and did their work through confusions, some of this self created. In this documentary, Anthony Cronin, the writer and producer, describes the literary period in the late 1950s and early 1960s as an era the importance of which was only recognized when it was over. There will also be an opportunity to meet with Leeds based County Sligo born Eamonn Hamilton who has realised his true literary passion by creating an online secondhand bookshop.
Headingley LitFest in partnership with Irish Arts Foundation.
Friday 25 March
An evening with Persephone Books
An evening with Persephone Books
Persephone Books reprints neglected novels, diaries, short stories and cookery books by women writers such as Dorothy Whipple and Katherine Mansfield. They are all carefully designed with a clear typeface, a dove-grey jacket, a ‘fabric’ endpaper and bookmark, and a preface by writers such as Jilly Cooper, Adam Gopnik, and Jacqueline Wilson. Miki Footman from the company will talk about the origins of Persephone, how books are chosen and some of the authors.
7pm Headingley Library Refreshments £3/£2
Friday 25 March
Cocktail in the Café
Trio Literati present a sparkling confection of poets on the arts - and on other poets. Sophisticated and light with a kick in the tail the performance is served café-style with luscious supper bites accompanied by the LitFest Special - a zingy cocktail created specially for the occasion by Hawker’s Green Café.
Trio Lit has official Sell Out Status from the Edinburgh Fringe 2010.
9.15pm Hawker’s Green Café, Heart, Bennett Road £9
Saturday 26 March
Ben Okri
One of the most acclaimed African writers within the postcolonial tradition will be reading from his work and answering questions at this major event. Often described as a ‘magic realist’, Okri’s novels and poems are written in English but draw heavily on Yoruba myths, stories and culture.
Praised for his experiments with new literary forms, he is probably best known for The Famished Road, which won him the Booker Prize in 1991. In this, African and European literary traditions meet, in a story narrated by Azaro, an abiku or ‘spirit-child’ who moves between the worlds of spirits and human beings, observing the chaotic history of his country. There is plenty in it about corruption - economic and political - in modern Nigeria, and about the devastation brought by war.
4pm Shire Oak Room, Heart, Bennett Road Refreshments £6/£5
Saturday 26 March
Rommi Smith and the Fruit Tree Project
Rommi Smith is a poet and playwright who works to fuse spoken word and music. She is currently Poet in Residence for Keats’ House, former home of the Romantic poet, John Keats. Performing spoken and sung poems from Mornings and Midnights, her chapbook of poems inspired by the lives of Jazz and Blues singers, (a Poetry Book Society Choice), tonight’s performance is a collaboration with The Fruit Tree Project, a contemporary jazz band featuring the compositions of band leader/pianist Dave Evans.
There is a place where the political, the spiritual, the musical and the beautiful come together - and it is here. - Benjamin Zephaniah
7.30pm Shire Oak Room, Heart, Bennett Road Refreshments £6/£5
Sunday 27 March
Food for Thought
Join Lis Bertolla, Doug Sandle and Maria Sandle for the final house event. Poetry, prose and a song or two about food - and maybe the odd drink.
3pm Tickets 0223 2787295 or text 07752521257 Free
Sunday 27 March
An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde
As a run-up to its summer tour of Much Ado - a play about the effects of scandal - Theatre of the Dales presents a fully costumed, script-in- hand performance of one of Wilde’s best social comedies. Witticisms abound - To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance, for example - and wry humour mingles with high drama in this tale of blackmail and political cover-up, which ran for three months to full houses before suddenly being taken off - eclipsed by the real-life drama of its author’s own fall from grace.
7.30pm New Headingley Club, St Michael's Road Refreshments £6/£5
