Festival Focus

New writing

Saturday 23 June

In association with Faber Writing Academy, this year’s Festival of Ideas will include the first Festival Focus: New Writing Day.

The Ron Cooke Hub will host a series of readings and interviews throughout the day with some of a range of exciting first-time authors published within the last couple of years. We will also be running three creative writing workshops and panel discussions led by Faber Writing Academy Director, Richard Skinner and the Head of New Writing at the Royal Court London, Chris Campbell. The day will conclude with Professor Marina Warner giving a keynote address on her work on myths and metamorphoses.

In addition, our postgraduate students will be engaging audiences young and old in a series of interactive activities around the building to create a fun and festival atmosphere. Blackwells will be organising book signings and sales; the Ron Cooke Hub atrium will host local musicians.

10am onwards, Faber Academy Creative Writing Workshops I, II and III
11am, New writers, Chibundo Onuzo, Noo Sara Wiwa and Katherie Rundell
12.30pm, New writers, Adharanand Finn and Oliver Balch
2pm, Business of play writing, Playwright Richard Bean in discussion with Chris Campbell (Royal Court) and Professor Mike Cordner (Head of Theatre in the University's Department of Theatre, Film and Television)
3.30pm, New writers, Kathleen McMahon, Essie Fox and Sophie Coulombeau
6.30pm, Word Power: Speaking against death in the Arabian Nights, by Marina Warner

The University of York’s Humanities Research Centre‘s postgraduate students will be inviting families to participate in a poetry scavenger hunt, weaving fish traps, recording Dickens in our innovative 3Sixty space, taking part in a live experiment to understand what footprints can tell us about the mesolithic era and much more.