HALTON’S

TALKWRITE
‘Life’s Better with a Book’ LITERATURE
FESTIVAL
A Readers’ Day 2010
7 - 12 June
09:30 - 10:00 13:30 - 15:00
Doors open; Afternoon workshops:
guests arrive: register Choose one workshop from
a choice of 4

10:00 - 10:45 Happily Sorrowful

Introduction and panel discussion / Sorrowfully Happy - Jane Davis
The panel: The Reader Organisation staff discuss
some of their favourite pieces of literature – those
treasured for helping them cope in times of need. Take Notice and Connect:
Offering a brief introduction of some of the themes ‘The Visionary Poet’ - Eleanor Spencer
of the day, which you will have a chance to explore
in greater depth in your workshops Only Connect: “From the heart
– May it return to the Heart” - Mark Till
10:45 - 11:00
Tintern Abbey: Capturing the
Morning tea and coffee
Happy Past - Brian Nellist

11:00 - 12:30
15:00 - 15:15
Morning workshops:
Afternoon tea and coffee
Choose one workshop from a choice of 4

Revelations through Recovery 15:15 - 15:45

- Eleanor Stanton The Reading Cure Panel
Modern Bibliotherapy: Join staff from The Reader
Pass on a Poem - Angela Macmillan Organisation for this clinic, to solve your problems
with the help of some of our greatest writers.

Narrative Healing:
Storyteller/Saviour - Leila Green 15:45 - 16:00
Raffle and final reading
Walking, Thinking, Reading,
Connecting - Emma Hayward

12:30 - 13:30
Lunch
 Workshops Brindley Readers’ Day, 12 June
AM
Narrative Healing: Storyteller Or Saviour?
Leila Green
Isabel Allende’s popular novel Eva Luna appears to champion the idea of
storyteller as saviour, providing stories like good friends in times of need.
Do you believe that fictional stories can help engender order in real life?
The workshop will give you the chance to ponder whether strong, solid
stories make for strong, solid minds.
Advance Preparation: Advance reading of Eva Luna is preferable though
not essential, as handouts will be provided.
Walking,Thinking, Reading, Connecting Emma Hayward
‘Walking, ideally, is a state in which the mind, the body, and the world are
aligned, as though they were three characters finally in conversation
together, three notes suddenly making a chord’
A History of Walking, Rebecca Solnit
For writers such as Wordsworth, walking is all about connections:
connecting the mind with the body and, indeed, connecting the human
being to the world.
Works to be looked at may include those by Wordsworth, Rebecca
Solnit, Robert Louis Stevenson.
Advance Preparation: None necessary.
Pass On A Poem Angela Macmillan
At key moments in our lives we often turn to poetry for inspiration,
solace, and emotional healing. Actively reading poetry allows the reader
to think about means of personal expression: his or her own, as well as
others.
Bring a poem (not self-written) that means something special to you to
share with the group. You’re welcome to read it aloud (should you
wish),and tell us why you’ve chosen it.
Advance Preparation: As above.
Revelations Through Recovery Eleanor Stanton
“My dearest Elinor...My illness has made me think...It has given me leisure
and calmness for serious recollection. Long before I was enough recov-
ered to talk I was perfectly able to reflect...”
Marianne Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen
Is it possible to see ill health in a positive way? Can hard times really make
us stronger?
Make up your own mind: Eleanor Stanton’s workshop will take a look at
works of prose and poetry that document the experience of recovery
from illness as a cause for reflection and / or trigger for epiphany.
Advance Preparation: None necessary. Handouts will be provided.
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£20 £15 OAP/Student
PM
Happily Sorrowful / Sorrowfully Happy
Jane Davis
Jane Davis will read from and talk about Tim Gautreaux’s collection of
short stories Waiting for the Evening News – “stories filled with heart and
humour”, it says on the back of the book: and that’s exactly what you get.
Who said that you couldn’t be down to earth and real and even worried
sick...and still be filled with hope and joy at the same time?
Advance Preparation: Buy Waiting for the Evening News (Sceptre) in
advance or just come along and listen.
Tintern Abbey: Capturing The Happy Past
Brian Nellist
What’s it like to try to return to a place where you have experienced a
moment of supreme wellbeing? Can you recover it? Brian Nellist looks at
Wordsworth’s Tintern Abbey, and considers whether we can breathe
new life into happy memories to re-live our best times.
Advance Preparation: None necessary.
“Come with me. Look”: Looking And Seeing In
Poetry Eleanor Spencer
The poet is often conceived as a ‘seer’ or ‘visionary’ – a Romantic idea
that perceives the poet as having the ability to show us things never seen
before or to encourage us to look at the world around us in completely
new ways.This workshop will examine this idea alongside other historical
conceptions of the poet in reference to poetry that has the ability to
surprise and excite us as we discover unfamiliar worlds.
Poems may include: Wallace Stevens' 'Thirteen Ways of Looking at a
Blackbird', Anne Stevenson’s ‘England’, Louis MacNeice's 'Snow', Craig
Raine's 'A Martian Sends A Postcard Home', Wordsworth’s ‘Upon
Westminster Bridge’.
Advance Preparation: None necessary.
Only Connect: “From The Heart – May It Return To
The Heart” Mark Till
“From the heart – may it return to the heart”: That’s how Beethoven
inscribed one of his scores. This workshop, led by Mark Till, will explore
the vital human need to make connections in a world in which we are
essentially separate from one another. We will try to connect with
passages by Charles Dickens, George Eliot and E. M. Forster.
Advance Preparation: None necessary.
£12 Unemployed/ Leisure Card