Harrogate crime writing festival this weekend
If you’re attending the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate over the weekend, keep an eye out for us – we’ll be at the awards ceremony tonight (Friday), cheering on Northern crime writers, including Whitley Bay’s Danielle Ramsay, who’s shortlisted for the 2010 CWA Debut Dagger award for her novel, Lockdown. If you don’t know about the festival, and are either a reader or a writer of crime novels, take a look at the programme at www.harrogate-festival.org.uk/crime.

This year’s festival includes some of the best crime writers of today with Ian Rankin, Christopher Brookmyre, Jeffery Deaver, Joanne Harris, Peter James and Karin Slaughter all attending. North East favourite Val McDermid will also be speaking and hosting some events. We’re reliably informed that tickets are still available for some events, although there aren’t many, so be quick.

Read Regional 2010
We’re taking Read Regional 2010 to the farmers’ markets, continental markets and festivals of the North East over the summer, and there are three coming up in the next fortnight. At all three you can learn more about the eight Read Regional authors, meet a couple of them, and buy books.

Hexham Farmers’ Market: Saturday 24 July, 9am-1.30pm: Hexham Market Place
Hexham Continental Market: Saturday 31 July, 9am-2pm: Hexham Market Place
Stockton International Riverside Festival: Saturday 31 July, 10am-3pm: behind Stockton Central Library, Church Road, Stockton

For a full schedule and lots more information about Read Regional 2010, see www.readregional.com.

Linda France Newcastle launch
Also on the Read Regional calendar is the Newcastle launch of Linda France’s new poetry collection, You Are Her, published by Arc, at Newcastle City Library on Monday 26 July at 6.15pm. This is a free event, and all are welcome. Linda’s collections include The Simultaneous Dress and The Toast of the Kit Cat Club, a biography in verse of 18th century traveller and writer Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and the acclaimed Book of Days, for which she set herself the challenge of writing a renga verse every day for 12 months.

More news about Kate Fox News
Don’t forget that poet and comedian Kate Fox’s show about the news and her relationship with it, Kate Fox News, is previewing at Washington Arts Centre on Saturday 31 July, and at ARC Stockton Arts Centre on Monday 2 August, before heading up to the Gilded Balloon for a run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe from 4-30 August. To follow Kate’s Edinburgh experiences and to receive a daily poem about that day’s news, sign up to her facebook page and follow her on twitter at @Katefoxwriter or #katefoxnews.


In the North East

NW venue looking for touring theatre companies
They Eat Culture would like to invite touring theatre companies based in the North East to get in touch if they’re interested in taking their shows to the North West. Based at The Continental, Preston, They Eat Culture is supported by Lancashire County Council and Preston City Council and develops cultural and creative opportunities in Lancashire. They’ve got a great events space, capacity 100 seated, that’s just about to be black boxed, and kitted out with a new lighting rig and sound desk and are, they say, always looking for good shows, including new writing, and family friendly/children’s theatre. Contact shirley@theyeatculture.org or on 01772 499 207. For more information, see www.theyeatculture.org and www.newcontinental.net.


National opportunities

Liverpool Lennon Poet Competition
The Liverpool Lennon Poet 2010 competition is part of the John Lennon Tribute Season, a two-month cultural programme of events in Liverpool, which will mark 70 years since Lennon’s birth and 30 years since his untimely death. Poets from across the world are encouraged to enter unpublished verses in three categories, which celebrate the life of the music legend. For more information, see www.beatlesstory.com. Deadline for entries: Friday 10 September.

Call for submissions for Revival
Revival Poetry Journal is calling for submissions from local, national and international poets for the next issue which will be published in Limerick in October 2010. Deadline for submissions: 31 August. For more information, see www.revivalpress.com.


Workshops and courses

How to write great copy for the web
Journalist Mike Wilson will share what it takes write great copy for the web and other media in a free three-hour afternoon workshop organised by Northern Film & Media. Find out what makes news, what engages audiences and what buttons to press – and make sure you can get your stories the attention they deserve. Delegates are required to prepare and bring on paper story ideas they want to work up, or to bring stories they’ve already sent out and are prepared to share with the group. The workshop will take place on Wednesday 28 July, 2pm-5pm, at NFM’s Newcastle offices. For more information and to book, go to http://houltsession3.eventbrite.com.

Conference on self-publishing
After the success of last year’s publishing conference at Kingston University, this year’s conference, which runs from 3-4 September, is on the highly topical subject of self-publishing. The approach will be objective and practical, discussing the various options and choices involved. To find out more, see www.kingston.ac.uk/publishingconference. There is a range of prices and a discount for those who book before 6 August.

Writers’ retreat in the Scottish Borders
Writing Unlimited is heading up over the border to Dumfries from 13-17 September, to the heart of Rabbie Burns’ country and the glorious setting of Friars Carse Hotel where Burns was inspired to write many of his best-known works. This retreat is for writers looking for the time and space to make progress with their writing. Cost: £380 per person in spacious, comfortable, single occupancy en suite rooms, 4 nights, DB&B and informal lunch. Contact writingunlimited@hotmail.co.uk for more details and to book.


Miscellany

Get creative in Andalucia
Earlier this year, NWN director Claire visited Casa Acequia, a retreat centre set in a beautiful old olive grove in Algodonales in Andulucia. Run by Karin and Lasse, the centre currently provides creative writing and other arts opportunities in a wonderfully relaxed setting. As well as eight bedrooms for guests set around a private courtyard, the site also has a fantastic meeting room, not to mention a pool, lots of terraces to lounge about on, an organic vegetable garden, and almost best of all, Karin’s amazing cooking.

Writers looking for a place to buckle down for some work can book a room for individual writing time, or attend one of the courses that Caroline Mitchell – who works at Sunderland University and who now lives in Spain – is developing there. It would be a perfect setting for a writers’ group to spend a week or for a staff retreat. You can find out more at www.casa-acequia.se and if you’d like to join a mailing list to find out what might be coming up, contact Caroline at caroline.mitchell@sunderland.ac.uk. A new site that will detail the courses will be launched soon and we’ll let you know about it when it arrives.

Who do you write like?
Who would you most like to write like? And who do you really write like? If you want to find out whose style yours is most reminiscent of, pop a section of your work into the nifty I Write Like website at http://iwl.me. It threw up some interesting surprises when we played around with it in the office – apparently, NWN’s press releases are in the style of Edgar Allan Poe. That said, we’re not sure we entirely trust it. We just tried it with an expletive-laden paragraph from Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting, only to discover that it was apparently written in the style of JK Rowling, which we’re sure would come as a surprise to both parties.

The case for a new colon
By now, regular readers of this newsletter will know that some of us at New Writing North find endless pleasure in punctuation, so we were delighted to come across this splendid article on the ever-expanding use of the colon in modern English. We have been experimenting with our colon usage all week: find out more at www.themillions.com/2010/07/colonoscopy-it%E2%80%99s-time-to-check-your-colons.html.

Bookshelf Porn
http://bookshelfporn.com is one of those does what it says on the tin sites: a collection of all the best bookshelf photos for people who find bookshelves stimulating. And not a Kindle to be seen.


Deadline for the next newsletter

If you have news that you would like to submit for inclusion in the newsletter please contact olivia@newwritingnorth.com. The deadline for receipt of information for the next newsletter is 2 August. The next edition of The Listening Post covering September’s literature events will go out in late August. If you have events that you would like to submit for inclusion, you will need to send information by 20 August to olivia@newwritingnorth.com.

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While every effort has been made to ensure that the information contained in this newsletter is correct at the time of going to press, things do change, frequently at the last minute and very often without our knowledge.