Space expert Piers Bizony, will be appearing at this year’s Hay Festival on Tuesday May 26th giving a lecture that “celebrates the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11 with astounding images and and flight logs from the first manned mission to reach the moon.”
Tag: Author Appearances
Amanda Hemingway at the BFSA Open Night
Amanda is to be interviewed by Roz Kaveney at the next BSFA monthly meeting. The event takes place at The Antelope Tavern at 7pm on April 22nd and you’d be a fool not to be there!
For those of you on Facebook, here is the event page.
Iain Sinclair Guardian Feature
There’s a wonderful short film on The Guardian web site in which Ian Sinclair takes us on a fascinating short walk around Hackney.
The piece – which you’ll find by following this link – offers a real flavour of Sinclair’s new book, Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire which is now at number #13 in the hardcover charts, is ranked in the top 250 Amazon sellers and has already been reprinted twice since its Feb 26th release!
Rothko’s Red Reading…
Sue Hubbard will be reading from her recent short story collection Rothko’s Red on March 10th. The event takes place in the hospitality suite of the Hackney Empire and begins at 7.00pm. Entry is £5.00. The event is organised by “Fiction Writers in the Visual Arts”, you can get further details by calling 07967 161 291.
Here’s what The New Statesman had to say about Sue’s collection, published last October by Salt…
‘Each story in this, Hubbard’s first collection of short fiction is nominally centred around art. But what truly links the pieces herein is the themes of longing, loss and melancholy, and a sense that not even an intimate knowledge of the beautiful and the sublime can protect one from the daily tragedies of life.
While several of Hubbard’s protagonists ultimately find redemption, it is always at a cost to themselves; the academic who gets away with cheating on his wife, but not without being fleeced by his mistress; the widow who realises that she is content alone, but only after a disappointing sexual encounter with a man she meets on the internet; the middle-aged divorcee who has an affair with an immigrant you enough to be her son and who she regards with distant amusement.
With Hubbard’s background in art criticism and poetry, it is not surprising that her writing is painterly and vivid. She lingers on colours and textures, edges and scents: Mummy grew tomatoes, red gems, that what she called them… I remember that special smell when she watered them in the early evening after a day of sun.”
The collection is quiet, almost to the point of defiance, but in its understated, delicate descriptions of the mundane, Rothko’s Red has an acute power.‘
Iain Sinclair “probably doesn’t like shopping”…
… according to Olympics minister Tessa Jowell in this article which aired last night on the Channel 4 news.
Stephen Volk on ‘Fantastic Writing’
He’s only been a client for a day or two, but already Stephen Volk is out there flying the flag! Here’s a little something worth putting in your diary…
Stephen Volk is giving a talk on the creating and writing of his award-winning TV drama series Afterlife at ‘Fantastic Writing – science fiction, fantasy and magic: Writing the future, the past and other worlds‘, a one-day event for budding scriptwriters taking place on Saturday 7th March 2009 at De Montfort University’s Leicester City campus.
The day also includes a keynote speech from acclaimed novelist Graham Joyce (The Facts of Life, DOOM), Q&A sessions with guests such as Phil Ford (Sarah Jane Adventures, Dr Who, Torchwood) and James Moran (Dr Who, Torchwood, Spooks), and a presentation on writing for on-line drama.
Tickets for the event are £65 per person including lunch, refreshments and car parking. For more information or to book a place, please contact:
Promotion & Recruitment Centre
Faculty of Humanities
Tel–0116 250 6470
Email – pghums[at]dmu[dot]ac[dot]uk
Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire News
Iain Sinclair’s new book Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire is being released by Hamish Hamilton in late February and Iain has a busy promotional schedule in the run up to publication.
We’re delighted to announce that Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire has been chosen as the BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week and will be broadcast the week commencing February 16th. If you miss it going out, we’ll post links to the “Listen Again” page as soon as they’re available. As well as the Book of the Week, Iain is scheduled to make a number of other radio appearances during the next couple of months including Start the Week on Radio 4, The Verb Live on Radio 3 and Up All Night on Radio 5. Resonance FM are scheduling a number of programmes featuring the book and further radio interviews and features are to be confirmed – details here as we get them.
There’ll be plenty of print coverage for Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire too… the publisher reports that this book has been one of their most requested titles in recent years, so there will be plenty of review coverage. Additionally interviews with Iain are due to appear in The Observer, The Guardian (G2), Time Out, Metro, The London Paper, Scotland on Sunday and The Morning Star. There’ll magazine coverage too – and, of course, the story that grew out of Hackney Library banning Iain’s book launch continues to be newsworthy.
Iain has a number of events, talks, appearances and signings scheduled too in support of the publication of Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire. Below is the list as it currently stands. We’ll try and supply specific details as and when we have them, but we recommend you contact the various venues to confirm the details …
Thursday, 12th February — event at The Wapping Bookshop
Thursday, 19th February — Iain taking part in Cambridge Union debate about the Olympics
Saturday, 21st February — bus tour of Hackney organised by Sketch events team
Monday, 23rd February — event at the Royal Society of Literature
Friday, 27th February — Private view of exhibition about Hackney at the Danielle Arnaud gallery
Saturday, 28th February — event at the LSE Space for Thought Literary weekend
Wednesday, 4th March — event at Pages of Hackney bookshop
Thursday, 5th March — event at Museum of London, Docklands
Wednesday, 11th March — event at the LRB Bookshop
Thursday, 12th March — event at the Stoke Newington Bookshop
Saturday 14th and Sunday 15th of March — screening of films about Hackney curated by Iain at The Rio Cinema, Dalston
Tuesday, 17th March — event in the Purcell Room, South Bank Centre
Thursday, 19th March — event at the Broadway Bookshop
Saturday, 21st March — event on St Augustine’s Tower, Hackney as part of The London Word Festival
Thursday, 26th March — event at The Bishopsgate Institute in association with The Newham Bookshop