Authors ~ Storytellers ~ Poets ~ Musicians ~ Acrobats
Discussions ~ Readings ~ Talks ~ Performances
TUESDAY 5th MAY
TWO WILTSHIRE WRITERS and two book launches!
– with ELEANOR BARKER-WHITE and JILL SHARP
Arts Centre, Devizes Road SN1 4BJ
Tel 01793 535534
12.30pm ~ 5th May ~ £8 (£7)
If your world was shattered, thanks to a broken relationship, would you use a glass die to help you make decisions? If you had lost your sense of self, what risks would you take to find your spark again? Is life a game that can be won or lost by the roll of a die? Fascinated by the endless capacity for human resilience, short story writer and novelist Eleanor Barker-White is the author of Die Trying and lives in Wiltshire.
When a confused stranger appears in Kate’s garden shed, she can’t understand why her best friend Jamie seems reluctant to help. But gradually, they begin to discover who the stranger might be. Their effort to take him home leads Kate on a difficult and dangerous journey, from which she may not find her way back, let alone resolve the fears of her troubled new friend. Prizewinning poet, OU tutor, and editor on a children’s magazine, Jill Sharp, who grew up climbing trees and building dens but now leads a quieter life in Swindon, is the author of The Purple Feather,
a tragi-comical history time-travel mystery.
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IMAGINARY LANDSCAPES – provided by poetry and harp – with CHRIS TUTTON and LUCY NOLAN
Central Library, Regents Circus, Swindon SN1 1QG
2.30pm ~ 5th May ~ £8 (£7)
Information: 01793 463238
An exquisite fusion of words and music, bringing together the poetry of leading poet, author, and raconteur, Chris Tutton, “master of the short poem” (Ned Sherrin), with award-winning international harpist, Lucy Nolan in a spellbinding programme of words and music.
Together, Chris and Lucy have appeared at the Hay Festival, the Royal Albert Hall, and delighted audiences across the UK. Now, it’s our chance to see them, in Swindon!
Pets and their People . . . with CHARLES FOSTER
Arts Centre, Devizes Road SN1 4BJ
Tel 01793 535534
6.30pm ~ 5th May ~ £9 (£8)
Why did we domesticate wild animals? Why do we keep dogs, cats, and even snakes in our homes? Do pets help us communicate? Can pets show us who we really are? Do we want animals as part of our families because we too are essentially wild and want to keep some wildness in our lives? What’s really going on between us and animals?
Charles Foster, former vet and barrister, now Fellow of Exeter College Oxford, and prolific writer, whose books include the best-selling Being a Beast, which describe his attempts at living like a wild animal, says this of his work. ‘Most of my books are attempts to work out what on earth we are doing on this extraordinary planet.’
In his latest book, Pets and their People, he examines the human–animal bond. Why do we welcome some animals as family, while exterminating others without a second thought? Might the wolves on our sofas be re-shaping us just as much as we re-shaped them?
Broken Threads – with MISHAL HUSAIN, in conversation with Kate Clark, and with you
Arts Centre, Devizes Road SN1 4BJ
Tel 01793 535534
8pm ~ 5th May ~ £9 (£8)
What would you do if you had a personal but only partial story, a patchwork of memories and anecdotes, of hurried departures, lucky escapes from violence, and homes never seen again?
Would you set off on a journey through time, using letters, diaries, and audio tapes to trace family lives shaped by war, independence, and partition?
Erstwhile presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, award-winning journalist, television broadcaster of the year, and now global podcaster Mishal Husain always knew that the lives of her four grandparents changed forever in 1947, as the new nation states of India and Pakistan were born. Decades later, the fragments of an old sari sent her on a mission to uncover their moving and meaningful story, beautifully and rigorously told in Broken Threads.
