Events

Professional Development Seminars and Workshops for Writers in the Canterbury Area

From April until December a brand new series, Write Directions, will be run – a monthly programme of professional development seminars and workshops featuring expert guest speakers, getting inside various topics relating to writing and publishing today. Professional yet approachable, Write Directions will provide insight, advice and discussion for the area’s emerging writers.

Publishing Demystified

Who chooses which books make it into print, and what’s behind those decisions? Take a tour through the publishing process with professional editor Vanessa Neuling. This seminar will give you insights into how offers are made and negotiated, the editorial process, cover decisions and the role of sales, marketing, publicity and rights.

Vanessa Neuling has worked as a commissioning editor for Random House, acquiring fiction and memoirs and project-managing books from first draft manuscript to bookshop shelf. Before that she was junior editor at Virago, working alongside the publisher on bestselling, prize-winning authors including Sarah Waters, Margaret Atwood and Michèle Roberts. She is now a freelance editor and literary consultant and her regular clients include Random House, Little, Brown and Guardian Books.

www.turning-pages.co.uk

The Write Directions series is kindly hosted by Canterbury Christ Church University Department of English and Language Studies.

Download the Write Directions flyer with highlights of forthcoming events.

Full details of events will also be publicised on a monthly basis in Laureate Line-Up e-bulletins. To be on the mainling list and for any further information please email John Prebble on johnp@canterburyfestival.co.uk.

If you are running a literature event in the Canterbury area and would like it to be promoted here, please email full details to johnp@canterburyfestival.co.uk.

Content is included on the website at the discretion of the Canterbury Laureate scheme organisers.

Previous Events

Kazuo Ishiguro, internationally renowned and Booker Prize winning author, in conversation with Andrew McGuinness of the Laureate Squad.

Canterbury Christ Church University Spring Public Lecture Series 2010

Wednesday 24 March 2010

Canterbury Laureate Patience Agbabi in Performance

Patience Agbabi returned to the University of Kent, where she taught Creative Writing between 2004-05, now as Canterbury Laureate 2009-10, as part of the University's Creative Writing Tuesday Readings. A packed Aphra Theatre enjoyed the first chance in 2010 to witness our Laureate's breath-taking, dynamic poetry in performance in Canterbury.

Patience took us on a journey through previous collections, in particular giving performances from and insights into Bloodshot Monochrome, before premiering a new piece - a new pilgrim in fact from her work-in-progress inspired by The Canterbury Tales. You can read more about the event and about 'Rap, The Son aka The Parson' - even read the poem yourself in case you missed it - on Patience's blog.

Find out more information on the University of Kent Creative Writing Tuesday Readings series.

Canterbury Tells 3 - Music, food, love... A Valentine's Night Celebration

The Canterbury Laureate scheme's bi-monthly showcase was hosted on Sunday 14 February at Coffee and Corks by common room poets, with music from Frances Knight and Paul Zec and a special appearance from Canterbury Laureate Patience Agbabi. You can read more about the event in Vicky Wilson's blog on the Writers' Blogs page.

Unpublished poems read at the open mic are eligible for consideration for the Canterbury Laureate anthology. Email to cornerstonewriters@hotmail.com

Canterbury Tells 2: A focus on fiction, featuring Katherine May and a flash fiction open mic (held on Sunday 8 November 2009).

Write On Time this Canterbury Festival! A writing challenge around and about Canterbury - to produce 'My Canterbury Tale' in a single day! (held on Saturday 24 October 2009)

Little Blue Hut Open Day at Whitstable, following a month's residency by the Laureate Squad (held on Saturday 5 October 2009).

Canterbury Tells 1: Featuring the Laureate Squad, Guest Writers and Open Mic (held on Sunday 13 September 2009)

Pavement Poems: workshop with Vicky Wilson and Gary Studley as part of Herne Bay Festival 2009 (held on Monday 24 August 2009)