Nelli Kirla explores the London Literature Festival with a great line-up next weekend
It is time for the annual London Literature Festival. Dive into the world of words. Southbank Centre is hosting a festival spanning three weekends of literary events, including poetry readings, debates, workshops and an array of talks, from the likes of Phillip Pullman to Tom Hanks to Tracy Chevalier. The weekend of October 28th to 29th is a chance for all of London’s literary youths to lose themselves in the ‘Young Adult Literature Weekend’ which is now in its fourth year.
The weekend sees a jam-packed schedule of talks, readings, Q&As, and even a market inside the Southbank Centre. It is a weekend to satisfy all sorts of literary cravings – whether this might be to look for inspiration on your blog or next big novel, to seek guidance from those who’ve been in your shoes, or simply to be entertained. Not only focused on the traditional novel, the weekend allows young writers to get into a more experimental direction of writing with Deanna Rodgers’ spoken word recital on Saturday, and a dialogue about sex and self-love with vlogger Hannah Witton. Keeping it contemporary and topical, you can also hear discussions between the authors of A Change is Gonna Come, a new fiction anthology on the importance of change in young writers’ fiction.
Combining different mediums of writing, the weekend also brings together different ages and mediums of writing. From young authors on their first blogs and novels, the series of events will work their way up to the finale, Tracy Chevalier, who will be discussing her latest work, New Boy, in conversation with novelist Sally Gardner. A retelling of Shakespeare’s Othello, New Boy is a natural continuation for Chevalier’s emblematic novel, Girl With a Pearl Earring (1999), the famous story inspired by Vermeer’s painting of the same title. After fishing out this 17th-century image and bringing it back to life in a new millennium, I do wonder what she has to say about Shakespeare’s 16th-century language today. Surely, language is the one thing that creates a collective sense of stability within the self, while simultaneously existing in an ever-changing state. I am curious to uncover this union of the classic and the modern. With this in mind, I’ll be heading down to Southbank ready to explore.
So go ahead and join me! Learn about the process of writing from the young authors who have published their own works, listen to spoken word, and learn something about the classics you thought you knew all about.
Recommended for those of ages 13-25, tickets are £10 for a day and £16 for the whole weekend. Visit this page for more information.
Photo Credit: Mary Bello