New Writing North

In this episode we join two former recipients of the Northern Writers’ Awards, Yvonne Battle-Felton and Laura Steven, in conversation with our Senior Programme Manager for Writing, Awards and Libraries, Will Mackie.

In this episode, we find out just how the Northern Writers’ Awards work, from tips on how best to apply to the impact of winning an award. Yvonne and Laura both explain how crucial the Northern Writers' Awards were to their writing development and how winning helped to further their writing careers. We also cover the value of a good pen name, the importance of diversity in writing, dealing with rejection and how to get the best out of agent-author relationships when you’re about to publish your work.

There’s still time to submit to the 2019 Northern Writers’ Awards, which are open for submissions until midnight on Thursday 7 February. Apply and find out more at northernwritersawards.com.

Ten years ago, the late Gordon Burn took the events of 2007 and during that year wrote and published Born Yesterday: The News as a Novel, an ambitious and experimental novel about the way news is made, and the way the media creates and manipulates the stories we see before us.

In the spirit of this fine literary experiment with fact and fiction, we have commissioned four outstanding writers to produce a piece of work in response to the extraordinary unfolding news cycle of 2017.

Alexei Sayle was the first MC of the Comedy Store and later the Comic Strip. After years of stand-up, television, sitcoms and films, he published his first highly acclaimed collection of short stories, Barcelona Plates, which was followed by two novels. The second volume of Alexei’s memoirs, Thatcher Stole My Trousers, is out now.

During a morning of coffee and cake at Durham Book Festival 2017 with Rachel Joyce, author of the international bestselling The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, she discussed her heart-warming new novel The Music Shop.

Malika Booker reads two poems at the Rich Seams Poetry Gala at Durham Book Festival 2017. Introduction by Andrew McMillan.

In Becoming British, citizenship expert Thom Brooks explores the big questions rarely answered by the politicians, examining the relationship between immigration and citizenship in order to challenge the popular and political myths that surround this topic. Thom Brooks is Professor of Law and Government at Durham University. He is a dual citizen of the UK and United States.

Gulwali Passarlay left his home in Afghanistan when he was twelve years old, enduring a terrifying journey across Europe in the hands of people smugglers. The author of The Lightless Sky, Gulwali has written a piece, especially for Durham Book Festival, about his experiences of arriving and living in the UK as a teenager. Go to http://durhambookfestival.com/commissions to read more.

Each year Durham Book Festival works in partnership with Durham University to invite an acclaimed poet to become the Festival Laureate. In 2017, we welcomed Andrew McMillan to the role. Here, Andrew reads his specially commissioned poem.

Andrew McMillan’s debut collection physical was the first ever poetry collection to win The Guardian First Book Award. The collection also won the Fenton Aldeburgh Award and a Northern Writers’ Award.

Kim Moore reads two poems at the Rich Seams Poetry Gala at Durham Book Festival 2017. Introduction by Andrew McMillan.

Helen Mort performs a new poem written for Durham Book Festival 2016 inspired by the history of boxing in the North East.

There Is a Light that Never Goes Out tells the story of a Durham pit village from the 1950s to the present, and shows how its peoples’ memories, beliefs and ghosts still influence life there today.

Author Richard Benson (The Valley, The Farm) and photographer Keith Pattison spent four months recording stories and conversations with people in Easington Colliery, focusing on the Handys, a well-known local family. In this piece he tells tales of tragedy and heroism, love and loss, and the fight to build a better world. Here, too, are everyday stories of a unique way of life; stories of children growing up in a tight-knit community, of tough men and of the invincible women who sustained the village in the hardest of times.

Told largely in the family’s own voices, There is a Light is unflinchingly honest about life in these world-famous villages, which contributed not only the energy that built Britain, but also important ideas about how communities can work together. Looking at life there since the closure of the local collieries, it asks, what is left of the old history and its spirit, and how much of it influences the places, people and wider region?

We were thrilled to welcome screenwriter and film director Peter Straughan to the festival to talk about the challenges and rewards of adapting well-known novels into film and television scripts. Here, Peter discusses the work involved in taking on the adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall for BBC television and his BAFTA-winning and Academy Award-nominated work adapting John le Carre’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.