About this Events Guide
Love all things literary? Looking for book events and literature lectures in the North East? Our monthly what’s on guide captures the literature and book chat, lectures, readings and other events.
In current Covid-19 circumstances, most events are online and open to a global audience. However, we still focus on promoting events organised by universities, bookshops, museums and festivals in County Durham, Newcastle, Gateshead, Sunderland, Teesside, Northumberland and surrounding areas.
If you are organising a relevant book and literature-related event that could be added, let us know.
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Wed 01 17:30 – Online | Reproductive Rights in Contemporary Feminist Dystopian Literature with Katie Tobin |
 | Reading her selected texts as mirrors to our own (bio)political climate, Katie’s lecture will aim to show how reproductive politics are inextricable from the dystopian novel. Katie’s research brings together elements of queer theory, ecocriticism, intersectional feminist theory, and bioethics to explore how dystopian novels challenge current attitudes and legislations concerning surrogacy. Organised by Late Summer Lecture Series.
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Wed 08 to Thu 09 10:00 – Online | Durham History of the Book Conference |
 | A forum for scholars working on premodern book cultures from across the globe. Organised by Durham University Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies.
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Wed 08 17:30 – Online | The Victorian: Reimagined with Céleste Callen and Rosalind Crocker |
| The Victorian interest in time, and our own 21st-century interest in the Victorians, unite these two lectures in our Late Summer Lecture Series 2021. Organised by Late Summer Lecture Series.
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Sat 11 00:00 – Gateshead Central Library | Hidden Hands – The Lives of Manuscripts with Mary Wellesley |
 | Mary Wellesley, who holds a PhD in literature and teaches courses on medieval literature as part of the British Library’s Adult learning programme, joins us to discuss how manuscripts were prepared the many contributors to the creation of these venerable, beautiful and delicate objects, most of which perished through fire, water or wilful destruction.
Organised by Gateshead History Festival 2021.
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Wed 15 17:30 – Online | The Marginalised Body with Anthony Walker-Cook and Kirby Archer |
| From the 18th to 21st centuries, people pushed to the margins by social and political forces have found some sort of voice through literature. Listen to their stories in this Late Summer Lecture, part of our 2021 series that roams across The Past, Present, and Future in literature and culture. Organised by Late Summer Lecture Series.
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Sat 18 14:00 – Gateshead Central Library | This Lovely City with Louise Hare |
| Join Louise Hare as she tells us about her debut novel, This Lovely City which was selected for the Radio 2 Book Club. It’s an atmospheric and compelling story about jazz musician, Lawrie Matthews. Fresh off the Empire Windrush, he’s taken a room in South London lodgings and has fallen in love with the girl next door. Organised by Gateshead History Festival 2021.
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Sat 18 15:30 – Gateshead Central Library | Kololo Hill with Neema Shah |
| Meet Neema Shah as she tells us about her debut novel, Kololo Hill. A devastating decree is issued: all Ugandan Asians must leave the country within 90 days, taking with them only what they can carry, leaving behind all their money and they must never return. For Asha and Pran, newly married, it means leaving behind the family business, for Jaya leaving behind her much loved home but violence in Kampala is escalating and people are disappearing. Will they make it to safety in Britain and will they be given refuge if they do? Set in Uganda in 1972, this is a story of loss and separation but ultimately, hope. Organised by Gateshead History Festival 2021.
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Wed 22 17:30 – Online | Space and Place with Laura Day |
| Norman Nicholson’s poetry collection, Sea To The West (1981), meditates on the changing landscape over time, contemplating the history of Cumbria and the trajectory of its future. Laura’s lecture will explore how the poems in the collection deal with these issues in light of the commentary offered by Nicholson in his autobiography, Wednesday Early Closing (1975). Organised by Late Summer Lecture Series.
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Wed 22 18:00 – The Word | In Conversation with Harriet Evans and Lissa Evans |
 | Come along to The Word as we welcome authors Harriet Evans and Lissa Evans who will be discussing their books The Beloved Girls (Harriet Evans) and V for Victory (Lissa Evans), as well as their careers as best-selling authors. Organised by The Word.
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Wed 22 19:00 – Gateshead Central Library | An Evening with Stacey Halls |
| We are delighted to host an evening with bestselling historical fiction author, Stacey Halls as she talks about her writing, her novels and her historical research. Her first novel, The Familiars, was the bestselling debut of 2019 and was inspired by the Pendle Witch trials. She followed her debut with The Foundling set against the backdrop of Georgian London exploring families, secrets, class, equality and the power of motherhood. Her latest novel, published in June, is Mrs England, a portrait of an Edwardian marriage – a story of men and women, power and control, courage, truth and the very darkest deception. Organised by Gateshead History Festival 2021.
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Thu 23 18:00 – The Word | An Audience with Nicci French |
| Join us for an evening with bestselling crime author Nicci French at The Word as they discuss their career and their new thriller ‘The Unheard’, coming this September. Nicci French will be interviewed by Doctor Rosie White from Northumbria University. Organised by The Word.
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Sat 25 18:00 – The Word | An Audience with Ann Cleeves |
| Award-winning author of the Vera and Shetland series, Ann Cleeves, will be joining us at The Word to discuss her new book The Heron’s Cry, the second in her new Two Rivers series set in North Devon featuring Detective Matthew Venn, following the sensational number one bestseller, The Long Call. Organised by The Word.
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Wed 29 17:30 – Online | The Literatures of New York with Paul Cockburn |
| The escaped tiger of Jonathan Lethem’s Chronic City (2009) invokes issues of urban nature. Considering the role of extra-human agency in a range of ecocritical texts on New York since 1890, Paul’s lecture will track Lethem’s tiger to identify the risk of naturalizing politically produced conditions by appealing to a network of human and extra-human actants. Organised by Late Summer Lecture Series.
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