Book lovers unite! The Belfast Book Festival is back form the 8 – 14 June with a weeks worth of book related and literary festivities.
Mainly based at the Crescent Arts Centre, with some events spread across the city, Belfast will be buzzing with all sorts of goings on from poetry slams to book readings in the festival’s 4th year.
The 2015 Belfast Book Festival features both international stars and homegrown local talent across a wide range of topics. No matter what your favourite genre is, we have something that is going to excite and entertain you. From politics/current affairs to sport; from sci-fi to Irish literary fiction; from music to travel…the list goes on.
You can have a look at the schedule of events here. There are far too many events to name, but here’s a few that we’re looking forward to this year:
Og
gy Boytchev
Oggy Boytchev, the author of ‘Simpson & I’ has spent his career working as a journalist in the most dangerous places on earth. As John Simpson’s producer at the BBC, the pair undertook numerous undercover assignments in countries with hostile regimes.
With astonishing revelations about how stories are discovered and reported, he will talk about the often nail-biting moments behind the camera, as well as the skill and courage it takes to break the news we all watch while safely tucked at home.
Oggy will be illustrating his talk with two short films
Platinum-selling singer songwriter Duke Special and writer/comedian Andrew Doyle discuss their new musical adaptation of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, which will be staged at the Lyric Theatre in Belfast later this year by Youth Music Theatre UK.
This is Duke Special’s first theatrical venture since his acclaimed compositions for Mother Courage and Her Children at the National Theatre in 2009. The writers discuss their methods in adapting Swift’s novel into a musical, and their particular approach to the collaborative process, as well as exclusively previewing some of the new songs.
Gulliver’s Travels is produced by Youth Music Theatre UK in association with Lyric Theatre Belfast and runs from the 30 July – 01 August.
SacrumProfanum combines contemporary music, poetry, video installation and visual art, fieldwork reportage and innovative publication design in a large-scale multimedia performance and exhibition responding to the enigmatic sheela-na-gig stone carvings.
Laurence Dinghy: Building Better Toyboxes
The world of fanfic is much maligned, its authors either pilloried for dedicating untold amounts of their time to stories no one ever reads and hardly anyone cares about, or harangued for when those same stories get adapted into light S&M fare and go on to sell tens of millions of copies.
In “Building Better Toyboxes” Laurence will talk about his take on fanfic, explore why it has a place in the wider writing world as a springboard for those too intimidated to construct their own worlds, and talk about his own journey from fanfic dabbler to published author.
Ireland and the Eurovision
In Ireland and the Eurovision, David Blake Knox goes behind the scenes to deliver the inside story of what really happens behind the power ballads, sequinned costumes and glitter cannons.
The book relives the most iconic moments of the past fifty years; the highs, the lows and the downright embarrassing. This is a must-have for both devoted song contest fans and those for whom the Eurovision remains the ultimate guilty pleasure.
Jason Lewis
What can a crocodile attack, a year at sea in a tiny boat, contracting blood poisoning and malaria, and getting hit by a car and left for dead with two broken legs teach us about global sustainability?
Touted by the The Daily Mail as “the most remarkable adventurer in the world today,” author Jason Lewis draws insights from his historic circumnavigation of the world using only human power – biking, hiking, and inline skating five continents, and kayaking, swimming, rowing, and pedalling a boat across the oceans – to offer choices we can all make to safeguard a healthy planet for future generations.
Tony Walsh: Long Fella
Following a standing ovation at his 2012 performance in Belfast, the Belfast Book Festival is delighted to welcome Tony Walsh, aka Longfella; “one of the UK’s most renowned performance poets.” Based in Manchester and the son of a Cavan man, his trademark mix of intimacy and controversy, comedy and tragedy has been stunning audiences from grass-roots poetry gigs to international literature festivals since 2004. His work has been published in the UK, USA and Russia, commissioned by BBC television and radio, and showcased at prestigious international poetry festivals including Ledbury, Strokestown and StAnza. He has performed at the Palace of Science and Culture in Warsaw; as part of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 50th anniversary celebrations; and as website Poet in Residence for the world-renowned Glastonbury Festival.
Poetry Slam
Purely Poetry presents The Belfast Book Festival Poetry Slam. Open to all poets, we invite you to ‘take the mic’ and enter our annual poetry slam competition. Share your work in front of a live and lively audience, with new readers always welcome.
To enter, just register at the start of the night; names will be drawn out at random, with each poet invited onstage to read by our resident emcee, Colin Dardis. You have three minutes in which to compete, our judges scoring on delivery and poetical quality and deciding who gets through to the next round. There’s three rounds in all, with the outright winner declared Slam Champion 2015!
For the full schedule of events click here, for more information and to book tickets for events click here.
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