New Writing North

In association with Sage Gateshead. Performed by Matthew Gundel, Calum Howard, Samantha Morris and Claire Tustin

Why does the literature of the fantastic continue to be so enduringly popular? Why are both child and adult readers so drawn to stories of magic, the supernatural and the strange, set in worlds other than our own? And what might such stories tell us about our everyday lives, and the world around us?

As part of Durham Book Festival’s celebration of 2015’s Big Read, Northern Lights, a panel of researchers from Durham University consider these questions in this podcast. Experts from Literary Studies, History and Theology consider Northern Lights, and other stories of the fantastic.

Completing the trilogy she began with Life Class and continued with Toby’s Room, Booker Prize-winning novelist Pat Barker introduces Noonday, which is both a stand-alone novel and the climax of the trilogy. Writing about the Second World War for the first time, she brings the besieged and haunted city of London during the Blitz into electrifying life.

Each year, our Durham Book Festival Laureate takes part in Durham Book Festival, works with young people in local schools and students at Durham University, and writes an original commission inspired by County Durham.

Here Sinead Morrisey reads from her specially commisioned poem.

Listen to a selection of the shortlisted authors for the 2014 Gordon Burn Prize read extracts from their work at this special event at Durham Book Festival 2014 announcing of the winner of the 2014 award, including winner Paul Kingsnorth, whose extraordinary historical novel The Wake imagined an England in turmoil in the years immediately after the Norman Conquests.

For more information, see http://durhambookfestival.com/programme/event/the-announcement-of-the-gordon-burn-prize/

Every year Durham Book Festival works with Durham University to appoint a leading poet as Festival Laureate. In 2014, Paul Farley fulfilled the role and wrote a new poem especially for the festival. At this exclusive public event, Paul read from his commissioned poem for the first time.

Paul Farley is a multi-award-winning poet, author and broadcaster. He has published four poetry collections with Picador, most recently The Dark Film, which was shortlisted for the 2012 TS EIiot Prize. His book, Edgelands, a non-fiction journey into England’s overlooked wilderness (co-authored with Michael Symmons Roberts) was published in 2011 and received the Royal Society of Literature’s Jerwood Award. Paul Farley is a professor of poetry at Lancaster University.

Introduced by Professor Stephen Regan

Zaffar Kunial won a Northern Writers’ Awards in 2013 and was subsequently selected to be part of the Faber New Poets 2013-14 scheme, alongside Rachael Allen, Will Burns and Declan Ryan.

Backed by an innovative publishing programme and funded by Arts Council England, Faber New Poets aims to identify and support emerging talents at an early stage in their careers. To celebrate the publication of their poetry pamphlets, the four poets read together at Durham Book Festival 2014 at an event presented in association with the Centre for Poetry and Poetics, Durham University.

‘Astrophel and Stella 1: Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show’, by Sir Philip Sidney. Recorded by The Poetry Exchange at Durham Book Festival. To read and listen to more about The Poetry Exchange visit www.thepoetryexchange.co.uk.

In 1951 pitman-turned-novelist Sid Chaplin was commissioned to write The Lakes to Tyneside, one of 13 guides to the UK’s regions to mark the Festival of Britain. In 2014, Michael Chaplin was commissioned by Durham Book Festival to follow in his father’s footsteps, undertaking seven contrasting walks, starting on Holy Island and finishing in Durham.

Michael's book recording his walk is available to buy from the New Writing North website at http://www.shop.newwritingnorth.com/there-is-a-green-hill-d402338.html. There is a Green Hill and Tyne View, Michael Chaplin's exploration of the River Tyne, are both available to buy in the New Writing North shop and make ideal Christmas presents for the North Easterner in your life. Buy both books for the special price of £18.

Mark Benton and Professor Simon James discuss The Wind in the Willows at Durham Book Festival 2014.

The Books for Boys exhibition at Palace Green Library, Durham is open until 11 January 2015. For more information, see https://www.dur.ac.uk/palace.green/whatson/details/?id=21268.

Durham Book Festival is produced by New Writing North for Durham County Council.