FULL LINE-UP ANNOUNCED FOR CHESTER LITERATURE FESTIVAL - PART TWO

Friday, 8 September 2023 12:58

The full programme has now been revealed for this year’s hotly anticipated Chester Literature Festival. Here's the second part of their programme...

Grace Dent visits Chester Literature Festival on Wednesday, 15 November to talk about her best-selling memoir Hungry.

Hungry is a warm, witty and joyous voyage through the food writer’s life story, told via the gastronomic experiences which have stayed with her the most, from growing up in a Carlisle terrace eating beige food and enjoying treats with her nan to eating haute cuisine in some of the country’s finest restaurants.

It is also about love and loss, about how food plays a central role in our lives – and how a Cadbury’s Fruit and Nut in a hospital vending machine can brighten the toughest situation.

Award-winning, best-selling author and performance poet Sophia Thakur comes to the Garret Theatre on Friday, 17 November Thakur blends soulful music with performance poetry and has inspired audiences across the world from the Glastonbury stage to Ted Talks and television screens.

The Garret Theatre is also the setting for a pair of unmissable writing workshops on Saturday, 18 November with journalists and authors Tabitha Lasley and Caroline Corcoran.

How to Write Your Book will provide practical methods, tips, tricks and ideas to get your words on to the page and into a format that will make agents and editors take notice.

And How to Get Published aims to demystify the publishing industry and help you get your work in front of the right people with practical guidance and tried and tested strategies.

Author Tom Fort talks about his delightful new book Rivets, Trivets and Galvanised Buckets: Life in the Village Hardware Shop in a coffeetime event at the Garret Theatre.

Enjoy a celebration of the quintessential cornerstone of any British village, the shop – in this case a century-old hardware store the Fort family took on with dreams of it becoming the heart of village life.

The second festival weekend also welcomes TV and radio presenter Melanie Sykes who will be ‘in conversation’ with book blogger and YouTube star Simon Savidge on the main stage.

Sykes has been a well-known face on our TV screens and a voice on radio for almost 30 years, delivering humour, honesty and insight.

Her new book Illuminated: Autism & All the Things I’ve Left Unsaid lifts the lid on being a woman in the media in funny, furious and gloriously frank fashion, but also talks about how her autism diagnosis in middle age has supercharged her journey – a story not just of breakdown but also of breakthrough.

On Sunday, 19 November, award-winning historian, writer and broadcaster – and Professor of Public History - David Olusoga will be in conversation with David Watson, talking about his new book Black History for Every Day of the Year.

Olusoga, who studied history at the University of Liverpool, has presented a number of major TV programmes including Civilisations – alongside Mary Beard and Simon Schama, Black and British: A Forgotten History, The World War: Forgotten Soldiers of Empire, Britain’s Forgotten Slave Owners and his captivating, exploratory A House Through Time series.

In 2019 he was made an OBE for services to history and community integration.

Black History for Every Day of the Year, written and illustrated in collaboration with his siblings Yinka and Kemi Olusoga, gives readers a unique and vital celebration of Black history, sweeping across the world and through the ages. Meet well-known figures and unsung heroes, read about famous and lesser-known key cultural moments and discover brilliant information about Black people through history.

That event will be followed by a second ‘in conversation’ on the main Storyhouse stage as Andi Oliver joins Simon Savidge for a fascinating evening’s chat.

The award-winning TV chef and broadcaster enjoys a rich and varied career, with food and music at the forefront. She is host of BBC’s Great British Menu, Channel 4’s Beat the Chef and Food Unwrapped, and Sky Arts’ Live Book Club.

In this exclusive event for Chester Literature Festival, she will discuss The Pepperpot Diaries, her long-awaited first cookbook.

Poet and musician Reece Williams brings his powerful new stage show This Kind of Black (Requiem for Black Boys) to Storyhouse on Tuesday, 21 November.

The coming-of-age tale, set in 1990s Moss Side and commissioned by HOME in Manchester, celebrates a community held together by prayers, warmth and humour while also mourning the tragic loss of young life.

Williams is a towering presence on the northern spoken word and poetry scene. He joined poetry collective Young Identity in 2007, performing across the UK and abroad. He is currently community engagement manager for Manchester UNESCO City of Literature and the regular compere of Open Mic Stand.