Celebrating 10 YEARS of Writeidea

16-1811-13 NovemberNovember 22018016 East London’s TheThe FREEEast ReadingLondon’s Writeidea FestivalFREE Writeidea Reading FestivalFestival Festival 20182016 www.ideastore.co.uk/writeidea www.towerhamlets.gov.uk/writeidea INTRODUCTION Welcome to the 10th the festival has been steadily anniversary of the WriteIdea growing ever since, with festival! audiences now numbering well over a thousand! When we organised our first Idea Store reading Once again, with over forty festival 10 years ago we events on offer, it’s not going just wanted to celebrate to be easy to decide what to the wonderful pleasure of attend. Our speakers cover reading by organising some a range of themes, genres literary events for Tower and topics such as memoir, Hamlets residents – we never mystery, history, identity, imagined that over the years cookery, politics, poetry and our festival would earn a of course music. There will reputation as an important also be dance performances date in London’s cultural and storytelling with The calendar. Embers Collective and TUUP. The first WriteIdea took place over a week in late A special mention goes to 2009, with a programme the team at Tower Hamlets of eight events. Judging Local History Library & by the number of people Archives who have curated who enthusiastically came their own mini programme along on those dark, cold and will be hosting a stall December evenings, we (on the Saturday only). The could tell there was an festival is also supported appetite for literary events by Brick Lane Books, an that were thought-provoking, independent local bookshop inspiring, funny and, most that will be selling books by of all, inclusive. So we the authors involved, if you repeated the formula the want to own your own copy. following year, we doubled the numbers of events, and Enjoy the festival. For hearing-impaired members of the audience, a number of our events will have live subtitles, also known as speech-to-text transcription (STT) provided by Stage Text www.stagetext.org. Please check www.ideastore.co.uk/writeidea for details.

All the events are FREE. Most events will be very popular and we strongly advise booking a ticket in advance. We allocate more tickets than there is capacity in order to allow for the high number of no- shows that unfortunately happen when events are free of charge. Please arrive early as entry to events is on a first come, first served basis. Book tickets at www.ideastore.co.uk/writeidea

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You can keep up to date with Idea Store events through our website www.ideastore.co.uk

Details in this brochure are correct at the time of print, but the programme may be subject to last minute changes. For the latest information see the Writeidea Festival pages www.ideastore.co.uk/writeidea FESTIVAL LAUNCH

URBAN PLAYGROUND

Ground Floor Foyer 6:00pm

Urban Playground is Morpeth They have also had the School’s large woodwind privilege to work with many and brass ensemble. The amazing musicians such as band, which is made up of Wynton Marsalis, Christian students from years 7 to 13, Scott, Arun Ghosh and the has performed all over the Soul Rebels Brass Bands. world, including New York, Madrid, The Hague and Iceland, as well as at many great festivals in the UK, from the Cultural Olympiads to the BT River of Music. FRIDAY 16 NOVEMBER

MICHAEL ROSEN So They Call You Pisher! A Memoir The family home was filled with stories of relatives in 7:00pm Dance Studio London, the United States and France and of those who had disappeared in Europe. Unlike the children around them, Rosen and his brother grew up dreaming of revolution. Party meetings were held in the front room, until it all changed after a trip to East Germany, when in 1957 his parents decided to Michael is a beloved leave ‘the Party.’ Michael children’s novelist and followed his own journey poet, the author of over of radical self-discovery, 140 books. He is a TV and running away to the radio presenter, blogger Aldermaston March to and columnist and served ban the bomb, writing and as Children’s Laureate performing in experimental from 2007 to 2009. In this political theatre, and humorous and moving getting arrested during the memoir, Michael recalls events of 1968. This is a the first twenty-three years memorable and worthwhile of his life. Born in the read from a principled North London suburbs, man who celebrates the his parents, Harold and funny side of life. Michael Connie, both teachers, is currently Professor of first met in the 1930s as Children’s Literature at teenage Communists Goldsmiths, University of in the Jewish East End. London. SATURDAY PROGRAMME AT A GLANCE

Suresh Singh 1:00pm People’s Palace Project 1:00pm Muhammad Khan 1:00pm Alison Moore 1:00pm Short Story Competition 1:00pm Melanie McGrath 2:30pm Helen Croydon 2:30pm Philippa Stockley 2:30pm Frances Hardinge 2:30pm Edin Suljic 2:30pm Joyce Hampton 4:00pm Kate Young 4:00pm Diana Evans 4:00pm Savita Kalhan 4:00pm W Dance 4:00pm Jay Bernard 5:30pm Elizabeth Haynes 5:30pm Storytelling: The Embers Collective 5:30pm Dina Begum 5:30pm Phil Whitaker 5:30pm The Gentle Author 7:00pm

Please check on the day for rooms 1:00PM SATURDAY 17 NOVEMBER

SURESH SINGH PEOPLE’S PALACE PROJECT A Modest Living, Memoirs of a Cockney Sikh Stage 3 1:00pm 1:00pm

In the first London Sikh People’s Palace Project’s biography, Suresh Singh tells new student theatre the candid and sometimes company at Queen Mary surprising story of his father University of London Joginder, who came to performs Stage 3, a theatre Spitalfields in 1949. He experience that looks at the sacrificed a life in the Punjab bureaucracy and power of to work in England and send the naturalisation system. money home, yet found A mock citizenship process himself in his element among generates discussion about the mishmash of people migration, discrimination and who inhabited the streets belonging, and challenges around Brick Lane. In the the process of being book, chapters of biography categorised based on race, are complimented with Sikh age and class background. recipes by Jagir Kaur. Suresh The production is strongly Singh will be in conversation linked to young people’s with Stefan Dickers from the sense of belonging and Bishopsgate Institute and will citizenship rights. show photographs from his family collection. 1:00PM SATURDAY 17 NOVEMBER

MUHAMMAD KHAN ALISON MOORE I Am Thunder Missing 1:00pm 1:00pm Image: Sarah Blackie

In 2015, three Bethnal Green schoolgirls fled to Syria to Booker-shortlisted Alison join the self-proclaimed Moore will be talking about Islamic State. her latest novel, Missing, an I Am Thunder is a response absorbing mix of menace to that event, written by and mundanity in a story secondary school teacher of how life goes on—or Muhammad Khan to explore doesn’t —in the wake of the lives of young British tragedy. The protagonist, Muslims. His 15-year-old Jessie, has just been left by protagonist, the unforgettable her husband and suffered Muzna, dreams of being a and witnessed many more writer but is drawn down losses. Will some of what’s a more dangerous path. missing eventually come Islamophobia and terrorism back? On the surface are intrinsic to the plot Missing is seemingly a yet this is an uplifting, simple psychological drama, empowering novel with hope but beneath the surface lurk at its heart – and Muzna’s immensely satisfying hidden search for identity is a depths. universal one. 1:00PM 2:30PM

WRITEIDEA PRIZE: MELANIE MCGRATH SHORT STORY AWARDS Pie and Mash Down the 1:00pm Roman Road a 2:30pm

Join us for an awards Melanie McGrath is the ceremony where the award-winning author winners of our short of the bestselling family story competitions will be memoir Silvertown. Her announced. latest book, Pie and Mash The Writeidea 2018 Short Down the Roman Road, is Story Prize is a competition the non-fiction account of aimed at writers who have more than a century of the never been published before. lives and loves of residents living around one East End The Writeidea ESOL Prize market. is a local short story prize for learners enrolled on Melanie will be discussing Idea Store Learning ESOL her research and revealing (English for Speakers of just a few of the many true- Other Languages) courses. life stories in the book at the festival. 2:30PM SATURDAY 17 NOVEMBER

HELEN CROYDON PHILIPPA STOCKLEY This Girl Ran Black Lily 2:30pm 2:30pm Photo: David Butler

Helen Croydon is an author, journalist and broadcaster. Her latest title This Girl Ran: Tales of a Party Girl Turned Philippa Stockley’s third Triathlete is a memoir about novel Black Lily follows her going from glamorous city critically acclaimed sequel to girl to Team GB triathlete. Les Liaisons Dangereuses, She has written for all UK Murderous Liaisons. Among national newspapers and bustling 17th-century post- several magazines, with Fire of London’s chancers a focus on social trends, and developers, mixed- modern relationships, race Zenobia struggles for gender issues and health independence in a male-led and fitness. You may have world, joining forces with seen her reviewing the immigrant and former slave, papers on BBC News Lily. A powerful mystery lit Channel or Sky News or by black humour. A local, joining topical discussions Stockley loves East London’s on programmes such as murk and history; her next Good Morning Britain, book, on old London houses, Woman’s Hour or Newsnight. comes out 2019. 2:30PM SATURDAY 17 NOVEMBER

FRANCES HARDINGE EDIN SULJIC

A Skinful of Shadows Note on Rose 2:30pm Lab 1a 2:30pm Photo: David Levenson

Edin Suljic, a local poet who Writeidea is delighted to lives in Whitechapel, had his welcome the author of the first poetry collectionNote on Costa Award-winning The Rose published this autumn. Lie Tree to talk about her Edin is an accomplished latest novel A Skinful of writer and artist and member Shadows. of poets’ collective ‘Bards Without Borders’. He is Hear about Frances a long-standing member Hardinge’s extraordinary of Exiled Writers Ink, an writing career, how life has organisation formed to changed since winning promote writers of exiled and the award and her latest immigration background. dark historical tale of a He also has a wealth of mysterious family’s hidden experience to draw from as secrets, and a young girl’s an artist in the UK, originally quest to shape her own from former Yugoslavia, and destiny. he brings particular insight in relation to migration, refugees and matters such as multilingualism. 4:00PM SATURDAY 17 NOVEMBER

JOYCE HAMPTON KATE YOUNG The Story of the The Little Library Huguenots: A Unique Cookbook Legacy 4:00pm 4:00pm

Growing up, Kate Young’s memories of books and Fleeing oppression after of food are intertwined— 1685, tens of thousands dreaming of rich treacle of French Protestants, the tart by the Gryffindor fire or Huguenots, came here to drinking gallons of ginger start again. Joyce Hampton, beer with the Famous Five. successful author of Looking Hear how she turned finding Back, a Century of Life inspiration in literature into a in Bethnal Green revisits blog, and then a book of her the area where so many own. Huguenots settled. She will talk to us about her Kate Young is an award- new book The Story of the winning food writer and cook Huguenots and the amazing and was named Blogger of legacy of these refugees. the Year in 2017 by the Guild of Food Writers. 4:00PM SATURDAY 17 NOVEMBER

DIANA EVANS SAVITA KALHAN Ordinary People The Girl in the Broken Mirror 4:00pm 4:00pm Conference Room Photo: Nick Tucker

Diana Evans, a British author of Nigerian and English Savita Kalhan will be talking descent, will be talking about her book The Girl in about her book Ordinary the Broken Mirror which People. The novel opens in explores the theme of the autumn of 2008 with a culture clash and describes party to celebrate Barack the pressure faced by its Obama’s election and ends protagonist Jay in growing with Michael Jackson’s up trying to be part of two death in June the following worlds. Savita does not shy year. It has been described away from cultural taboos. as “that rarest of books – a She says “Jay’s journey is portrait that lays bare the traumatic, but I firmly believe, normality of black family life that the story must inspire in suburban London, while the feeling that there is both revealing its deepest psyche, help and hope at the end of its tragedies, its hopes and the darkness.” its magic.” (Afua Hirsch) 4:00PM 5:30PM

W DANCE JAY BERNARD 4:00pm Surge: Side A 5:30pm

W Dance was originally In 1981, thirteen young black created as part of an event people were killed in a house for Women’s History Month fire in New Cross. A defining 2018. moment in Black British history, the fire happened The dance aims to celebrate during a period of racist womanhood and to develop attacks across multicultural awareness about women’s inner London, including identity and diversity by Tower Hamlets. Writing in bringing together, through the voices of those killed, dance and creativity, different and using archive film, video local female community and audio, poet Jay Bernard members—including the re-visits the New Cross ones who would not normally Massacre and asks what have access to dance. we can learn from it today. Jay Bernard’s work is multi- disciplinary, queer and rooted in the archives. Surge: Side A won this year’s Ted Hughes Award and will be published in 2019. 5:30PM SATURDAY 17 NOVEMBER

ELIZABETH HAYNES STORYTELLING WITH THE EMBERS The Murder of Harriet COLLECTIVE Monckton 5:30pm 5:30pm

Elizabeth Haynes’ new novel is based on a true Victorian murder. In 1843 the body The Embers Collective is a of Harriet Monckton, a London-based storytelling respectable young lady, was and live music group formed found, apparently poisoned, by three friends, a writer, behind the chapel she an actor and a musician, in attended in Bromley, Kent. 2016. Driven by a passion The shock of her murder was for the art of sharing stories, intensified when the post- Embers wanted to put on mortem revealed that Harriet events with a focus on was six months pregnant. community and connection. Using coroner’s reports They adapt world mythology, and witness testimonies, weaving stories and songs the novel unfolds from the into a live, evolving musical viewpoints of each of the landscape. They put on main characters, each of regular events in venues, whom has a reason to want festivals, forests and fields all Harriet dead. over the UK and beyond. 5:30PM SATURDAY 17 NOVEMBER

DINA BEGUM PHIL WHITAKER Brick Lane Cookbook You 5:30pm 5:30pm

Phil Whitaker talks about his latest book, You. You is the Come and hear Dina story of a father whose teenage Begum as she celebrates daughter cut him out of her life Brick Lane’s diverse food after he left her mother. Told cultures, from the home- in flashbacks as he makes style Bangladeshi curries his way across the country she grew up eating, to her to meet her for the first time own luscious and indulgent in seven years, it is a tale of cakes. inherited hurts and modern manipulation. The Brick Lane Cookbook is In this emotionally charged a culinary map of the East novel Phil Whitaker gives an End’s tastiest street and a incisive portrayal of family snapshot of London at its breakdown and asks whether authentic, multi-cultural best. it is possible to end a cycle of family traumas going back generations. 7:00PM SATURDAY 17 NOVEMBER

THE GENTLE AUTHOR The Life and Times of Mr Pussy: A Memoir of a Favourite Cat 7:00pm

indicator of some character flaw. That changed when I bought a cat, just a couple of weeks after the death of my father.“ — The Gentle Author.

The Life and Times of Mr Pussy is a literary hymn to the intimate relationship between humans and animals, filled with sentiment yet without being sentimental.

The Gentle Author reads stories of Spitalfields’ most famous cat, Mr Pussy, who died last year but lives on in this compilation of favourite tales of feline domestic life.

“I was always disparaging of those who dote over their pets, as if this apparent sentimentality were an SUNDAY PROGRAMME AT A GLANCE

Garth Cartwright 1:00pm The Legacy of Altab Ali 1:00pm Lesbian Fiction Discussion 1:00pm Jason Cowley 1:00pm Melanie Whitman 1:00pm David Stubbs 2:30pm Leslie Clayden 2:30pm Charlie Kiss 2:30pm Neil Faulkner 2:30pm C.G. Menon 2:30pm City of Stories 3:30-5:00pm Allan Jones 4:00pm Simon Miller 4:00pm Diane Atkinson 4:00pm Simon Hannah 4:00pm Mile End Community Project 4:00pm John Boughton 5:30pm Viv Albertine 5:30pm Eric Levene 5:30pm Hannah Vincent 5:30pm Storytelling with TUUP 5:30pm Chris Difford 7:00pm

Please check on the day for rooms 1:00PM SUNDAY 18 NOVEMBER

GARTH CARTWRIGHT THE LEGACY OF ALTAB ALI 1978-2018 Going For A Song: A Chronicle Of The UK 1:00pm Record Shop 1:00pm

2018 marks the 40th anniversary of the murder of Altab Ali, a 25 year old Going For A Song explores Bangladeshi textile worker the rise and fall (and partial killed in a racist attack as resurrection) of the UK he walked home after work. record shop. Detailed here The murder provoked the are Whitechapel’s shellac mass mobilisation of the synagogues, Soho’s post- Bengali community in Tower WW2 jazz, blues and folk Hamlets and Ali became a merchants, Jamaican ska symbol of resistance against shacks and the techno racism. We will be showing temples. Featuring cameos two short films about the from Bob Dylan, The Beatles, events made by Ruhul Amin, Prince Buster, David Bowie, Purbo London and New Thin Lizzy, The Clash, BB Eastenders, followed by a King, Pete Burns, Danny panel discussion about the Baker and others, Going for impact of the murder and a Song tells tall, true tales of the fightback by the local how record shops shaped community. musical culture. 1:00PM SUNDAY 18 NOVEMBER

LESBIAN FICTION DISCUSSION

1:00pm

Author readings and panel Sam Skyborne writes books discussion. Meet three to spark the imagination London-based lesbian fiction with strong female lead authors whose latest novels characters. Alice, her cover crime, psychological latest novel, is a gripping drama and romance. psychological drama set in South Africa. Veronica Fearon is a former criminal lawyer, turned writer of the five bookDani series chronicling the life of a lesbian gang negotiator, whose love life is in turmoil. Clare Lydon is an international best-selling author of lesbian romance, and host of The Lesbian Book Club podcast. 1:00PM SUNDAY 18 NOVEMBER

JASON COWLEY MELANIE WHITMAN Reaching for Utopia Re-writing the Self 1:00pm 1:00pm

New Statesman editor Jason Cowley will be discussing his new book Reaching for Utopia which brings together essays and profiles Have you ever considered chronicling the remarkable writing a blog or a memoir? political and cultural Or perhaps you’d simply transformations of the last like to pull on some of your decade – from the fall of personal experiences and Blair to the rise of Corbyn. turn them into fiction? In The book is a thematic this one-day course we’ll compilation that explains, be experimenting with using through personal interviews real life events and personal with key politicians and history as inspiration for others, how the country got writing. You’ll learn how to to the position it’s in now collate, edit and transform with Brexit looming and with your memories into competing visions for what engaging prose. Britain may look like in the aftermath. 2:30PM SUNDAY 18 NOVEMBER

DAVID STUBBS LESLIE CLAYDEN Mars by 1980. The Story of Swimming With Stingrays Electronic Music The Other Side Of Life 2:30pm 2:30pm

“I was born in June 1951 in Mile End Hospital, making Join author David Stubbs me a true Cockney. I could in conversation about never understand how his latest book Mars by anyone born south of the 1980 in which he charts Thames could pretend to the evolution of electronic be Cockney, when you were music. Its beginnings are in supposed to be born within the world of avant-classical the sound of Bow Bells. They composition, but the must have had Superman’s book also encompasses hearing!” the cosmic funk of Stevie And so begins the story of Wonder, Giorgio Moroder Les ‘Gentleman’ Clayden, and unforgettable eighties former Whitechapel market electronic pop from the trader. From the East End likes of Depeche Mode, to Japan; from Miss World Pet Shop Boys and Laurie to arm wrestling, prepare to Anderson, right up to the laugh and cry as you journey present day innovators on through the life of one of the the underground scene. nicest men around. 2:30PM SUNDAY 18 NOVEMBER

CHARLIE KISS NEIL FAULKNER A New Man A Radical History of the World 2:30pm 2:30pm

Join Marxist historian Neil Faulkner in conversation about his book A Radical Charlie Kiss, a trans man, History of the World. This is reads from his book A New a sweeping history from the Man: Lesbian/Protest/Mania/ hunter-gatherers two million Trans Man. Charlie lived for years ago to the ancient many years as a lesbian empires of Persia and feminist and was an activist China, and from the Russian at Greenham Common Revolution to modern Women’s Peace Camp. In imperialism and the 2008 his twenties he suffered from crash. What happened in the severe bi-polar episodes past was not predetermined. connected to struggles Different outcomes— over gender identity and an liberation or barbarism—were insecure background. In time often possible. Rejecting Charlie realised that that in the top-down approach of order to be happy, to be conventional history, Faulkner himself, he had to transition contends that it is the mass to male. action of ordinary people that drives great events. 2:30PM 3:30 - 5:00PM

C. G. MENON CITY OF STORIES Subjunctive Moods 3:30-5:00pm 2:30pm

This is an event to celebrate the City of Stories, a project The stories in Subjunctive run by London’s libraries Moods are based around in partnership with Spread those tiny moments of the Word, London’s writer missed connection and of development agency. As realisation—the heartbeats part of City of Stories, by which we all grow up. Bidisha, novelist and creative writing tutor, ran Featuring CG Menon’s two workshops in Idea Store prize-winning writing Whitechapel, to support alongside her most recent local communities in telling stories, Subjunctive Moods their own stories. During is a collection exploring Writeidea, Bidisha will return the complexities of human to Whitechapel to facilitate relationships, cultural identity an open-mic session, where and finding your way back we will invite the winner and home. highly commended writers of Tower Hamlets to read their work. 4:00PM SUNDAY 18 NOVEMBER

ALLAN JONES SIMON MILLER Can’t Stand Up For Falling Ebolowa Down: Rock’n’Roll War 4:00pm Stories 4:00pm

Allan Jones joined Melody Simon Miller lived in Maker in the early 70s and Cameroon in the 1970s and then launched Uncut heard about the rape and magazine in 1997. For 15 murder of a young American years he wrote a popular woman in the mid-1950s. monthly column called Stop He was never convinced Me If You’ve Heard This by the official account of One Before, based on his what happened and years experiences as a music later decided to write an journalist in the 70s and 80s. alternative version. Ebolowa Here he puts those is the result. It’s a smart encounters into a book and slick noir-style thriller interviewing legends of Rock with a political edge, rich in ‘n’ Roll, like Lou Reed, David international themes such as Bowie and Van Morrison corruption and greed, and with hilarious consequences, wonderful West African life. sometimes hard to believe but always hilariously entertaining. 4:00PM SUNDAY 18 NOVEMBER

DIANE ATKINSON SIMON HANNAH Rise Up Women! A Party with Socialists in It 4:00pm 4:00pm

Marking the centenary of (limited) female suffrage, this talk charts women’s fight for the vote through the lives of those who took part, in a timely celebration of an extraordinary struggle. For over a hundred years, Diane Atkinson’s detailed the British Labour Party has and authoritative Rise been a bastion for working Up, Women!, has already class organisation and become the definitive history struggle. However, has it of the suffragettes and is ever truly been on the side both moving and thrilling. of the workers? Where do What comes through is the its interests really lie? And power and courage of the can we rely on it to provide ‘bloody difficult’ women a barrier against right-wing who continued to challenge forces? By looking into the establishment and at its history, Simon Hannah the same time changed the shines a light on the internal perception of women, for dynamics of the ‘party with the better, before the war in socialists in it’, as Tony Benn 1914. once called it. 4:00PM 5:30PM

MILE END COMMUNITY JOHN BOUGHTON PROJECT Municipal Dreams: the Bridging the Gap Rise and Fall of Council Housing 4:00pm 5:30pm

Were you told stories by your grandparents? Did they speak the same language as you? Will you tell these For almost four decades stories to your own children? we have been taught to Are stories important for see public spending as maintaining your mother a bad thing and ruthless tongue? Stories from economising as a virtue. Home is a series of short John Boughton’s respected films created as part of the blog, Municipal Dreams, Bridging the Gap storytelling shows there is an alternative. project. His book of the same name celebrates a time when The project aims to promote dreams of shelter and heritage language use, security for all – not just as well as reconnect and those who could afford to increase cultural awareness purchase it – were in large across generations within part made a reality, and asks the London Bangladeshi us if we should consider community. reviving that dream before it gets destroyed completely. 5:30PM SUNDAY 18 NOVEMBER

VIV ALBERTINE ERIC LEVENE To Throw Away Unopened Feinstein’s Theory of Relatives and Other Hessel 5:30pm Street Stories 5:30pm

The legendary Punk guitarist Feinstein’s Theory of Viv Albertine returns to Relatives and Other Hessel Writeidea to talk about Street Stories is a collection her new memoir To Throw of humorous fictional tales Away Unopened a fearless set in and around the Jewish dissection of one woman’s East End of London during obsession with the truth – the late 1940s and early the truth about family, power, 1950s. The stories are based and her identity as a rebel on Eric Levene’s vague and outsider. “A chronicle recollections of growing up of outsiderness that goes in Hessel Street during this beyond her years in the Slits period, which is why the to explore class and gender, book is a work of fiction and her parents and sibling rivalry, not fact. and why she’s done with men”. (The Guardian) 5:30PM SUNDAY 18 NOVEMBER

HANNAH VINCENT STORYTELLING WITH TUUP The Weaning io 5:30pm 5:30pm

Born to Guyanese parents and raised in Acton, West London, Godfrey Duncan When professional couple —TUUP (The Unorthodox, Nikki and Rob uncover Unprecedented Preacher) their childminder Bobbi’s —has been a professional secret, everything changes. storyteller since 1981, when The Weaning is a book he joined Ben Haggarty about love and loss and the to form the West London individual journeys that lie Storytelling Unit. Truly an buried beneath newspaper elder of the storytelling headlines. Hannah Vincent revival in Britain, his style is wrote this gripping page- one of total improvisation, turner, her second novel, unbounded charisma and as part of a PhD in Creative alarming spontaneity. In his & Critical Writing at the role as a creative lyricist, University of Sussex, poet, percussionist and investigating autobiographic vocalist with the highly practice. It reads both as influential dance music a meditation on the act of collective, Transglobal reading and writing, as well Underground, he has as a gripping suspense performed throughout the narrative. world. 7:00PM SUNDAY 18 NOVEMBER

CHRIS DIFFORD Some Fantastic Place 7:00pm and his non-Squeeze detours including managing Bryan Ferry. Some Fantastic Place is distinguished by its admirable candour— unlike many artists, Difford is reflective about the obstacles he’s had to overcome, including flying anxiety, substance abuse, and relationship breakdowns, and he is direct and forthcoming about how these things inform his life and music, even now. However, Difford’s dry sense of Chris Difford is one of the humour also shines through founding members of new- —for instance, speaking of wave band Squeeze and the band’s first, ill-fated U.S. co-writer of Up the Junction gig, at The Lighthouse in and other pop classics. Bethlehem, New Jersey, he In the eighties he and his writes, “We literally played writing partner Glen Tilbrook to one man and a dog. were hailed as the new We were forced to play a Lennon and McCartney. second set by the owner. Some Fantastic Place covers The dog left.” a lot of ground—his south London childhood, the band’s ups and downs SPARE PAGE

“It’s so exciting to have this broad and well-curated collection of events so close to our home. Cost often prevents us from attending literary events, so it’s wonderful that these events are free.” (Audience member 2016)

Writeidea—bringing writers and readers together VENUE

Idea Store Whitechapel 321 Whitechapel Road London E1 1BU

Whitechapel Underground/Overground Station

Fully accessible

For more information about any of our events visit Patrons: www.ideastore.co.uk Jill Dawson Louise Doughty Brick Lane Bookshop will be Spread the Word supplying books for sale Alex Wheatle throughout the festival.

Brick Lane Bookshop 166 Brick Lane London E1 6RU Tel: 0207 247 0216 [email protected] follow: @bricklanebooks