Literary Fireworks

Time for sparks to fly at Wrecking Ball Arts Centre as poets included in the new Grist Books’ anthology We’re All in it Together: Poems for a DisUnited Kingdom, alongside Michael Stewart, the author of Four Letter Words, Killing The Horses author John Newsham and Roger Hyams, author of The Lightman System, come together on Guy Fawkes Day and Bonfire Night to provide audiences with literary fireworks. All of the poets and authors appearing produce work that goes off with a bang.

With readings from:

Michael Stewart
Steve Ely
Safia Khan
Gaia Holmes
Jim Greenhalf
Aamina Khan
John Newsham
Roger Hyams

The event will also include short films made based on short stories contained within Four Letter Words, Q&As with the writers, a chance to get up close, personal and ask the important questions of poets and authors and an opportunity to buy books. The event will close with a panel discussion.

We’re All in it Together explores the fault lines of national and regional identity and the rupture precipitated and exposed by Brexit. What does it mean to be ‘British’ now? Is it possible for the Kingdom to become United? Is it even desirable? It’s the poetry collection that Guy Fawkes would have wanted.

Four Letter Words – Bold, gritty and blackly comic, Michael Stewart’s new collection of short fiction, Four Letter Words, explores twin contemporary urban dystopias: work and home.

Killing The Horses – Killing The Horses is rooted in the landscape and dialect of West Yorkshire and fuses realism with the mythical. It brings the macabre and darkly-religious world of the American Southern Gothic to the north of England. 

The Lightman System – “A superb novel – beautifully, beautifully written and with such heart-breaking truth and insight. Time is both cruel and kind, chance is more cruel than kind, and trying to defeat both is hard. This novel is a supreme example of how fiction can tell this story.” – Stephen Fry

Literary Fireworks will take place during the afternoon of November 5 and will run into the evening. The full line-up, additional guests and event schedule will be released soon.