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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…
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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…
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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,…
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Norman Nicholson Festival
News has reached The Reader of another literary festival in October. It seems unlikely that the Danish pastries and power…
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‘Time swims before me’
Eleven months ago I began working on a Get Into Reading project at a local care home for elderly people…
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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…
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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…
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Cheltenham Literature Festival: Shakespeare
Yesterday, my day at the festival was bridged by two events that could not have provided two more different insights…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…