John Baker’s Blog

I was at the National Railway Museum yesterday to formally launch the opening of the York Literature Festival.

The festival runs from the 1st to the 15th March. Although not on the scale of Cheltenham or Edinburgh, there is a varied programme on offer, mainly involving local writers and readers, of whom there are many. Among writers brought in to the festival from the wider world, there will be Tracy Chevalier (Girl with a Pearl Earring), the poet Carol Ann Duffy (The World’s Wife), Joolz Denby, GP Taylor, and Joanne Harris (Chocolat).

Jonathan Heawood, the director of English PEN, will speak about the history and future of PEN International. He will concentrate on the dangerous side of writing, including the 2006 murder of Ann Politkovskaya, the author of books on Putin’s Russia and the war in Chechnya, and the threats to Salman Rushdie’s life in 1988. PEN’s members are writers and literary professionals who aim to promote literature and defend the freedom to write. This event will be in the Marriott Room at York Central Library on the 10th March at 7.30pm.

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