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Get into Reading Footsoldier Dies and Goes to Heaven
Mary Weston manages the Merseycare Reads Project, teaches in Continuing Education, works as a counsellor, runs open house for asylum…
Cheltenham Literature Festival: Mistaken Identity
Sitting down with my lunch (it’s not all cake) in the Writers’ Room, I was asked “So, have you done…
BBC Radio Merseyside Event: Liverpool Black Pioneers
Ray Costello, the author of the new book on the Liverpool black community, Liverpool Black Pioneers, published by Bluecoat Press,…
Norman Nicholson Festival
News has reached The Reader of another literary festival in October. It seems unlikely that the Danish pastries and power…
‘Time swims before me’
Eleven months ago I began working on a Get Into Reading project at a local care home for elderly people…
Cheltenham Literature Festival: The Otherness of Helen Mirren
Not unfamiliar to a regal presence, yesterday Cheltenham played host to one of Britain's most admired leading female actors, Dame…
Cheltenham Literature Festival: The Saga of the Broken Glass and the Missing Rucksack
My day at the festival started with a walk across Cheltenham's Imperial Square in the quiet sunshine of an autumnal…
Cheltenham Literature Festival: Shakespeare
Yesterday, my day at the festival was bridged by two events that could not have provided two more different insights…
Cheltenham Literature Festival: Reports from The Writers’ Room
So what's it like in the Writers' Room on the first Saturday of the festival? In a word, busy. I…
Cheltenham Literature Festival: What’s in a name?
My first evening at the festival started with a conversation with an older lady who had got up to let…
Cheltenham Literature Festival: Eric Hobsbawm
I have just heard Eric Hobsbawm, amongst the first of the speakers at this year's festival, talking at length about…
Cheltenham Literature Festival: The Inner Sanctum
In the first of her reports from the Cheltenham Literature Festival Jen Tomkins picks up her press pack and gets…