The Birmingham Literature Festival is a project of Writing West Midlands, a regional literary development agency that is a charitable organisation. The national portfolio organisation Arts Council England is also involved. It was these two companies that organised the last Birmingham Literature Festival, which dates back to the end of the last century. Of course, there is a fairly wide range of partners and a variety of venues and locations. One of the highlights of the event is the online broadcast of various festival events that took place throughout the city. Read more on birminghamski.com.
Establishment of a literary festival
The Birmingham Literature Festival was founded in the autumn of 1999. Since then, it has been held every autumn. Over these two decades, the festival has managed to become the leading event in the Midlands. The reasons for this leadership are quite simple. Firstly, the festival attracts the best writers, the best speakers and thinkers, and secondly, the best artists, not just from Birmingham or even the UK, but from all over the world. Not just from Birmingham, but from all over the world.
In 2024, the Birmingham Book Festival celebrated a quarter of a century. On the one hand, it seems to be a long time, but on the other hand, if we compare it with the old-timers of Birmingham’s festival life, it is just childish. However, to celebrate this momentous occasion and to express their gratitude to their audience, who had gathered in large numbers to enjoy the event, it was decided that every ticket holder would receive a free copy of the specially commissioned anthology “Onward”.
This is how the festival’s fans got another good reason to continue to support the event for many more years,
In 2024, the festival organizers made full use of the achievements of science and technology, namely programming and others, which allowed them to attract a wide range of innovative literature and works inspired by literature. And also to create unique opportunities for festival guests to become its audience and enjoy high-quality events online, through annual festival programmes and related projects.
For everyone who loves to read, loves literature, follows new authors, autumn is the most wonderful time of the year. Because in October, the Birmingham Literary Festival starts. In 2024, it celebrated its 25th anniversary, and, characteristically, there were much more guests than at the very beginning of its existence. Among the guests, authors who love this festival stood out, perhaps more than anyone else, perhaps even more than readers.
As the festival’s director, Chantelle Edwards, said in an interview, it aims to be a permanent and independent champion of literature and writing, of Birmingham and all its people. If you attend and see the festival, and then analyse what you see and hear. You will come to the conclusion that no other organizer has ever taken the needs of its local readership into account in the way that Writing West Midlands has and does. On the other hand, no other festival has the kind of diverse audience that Birmingham has. The result is such a diverse and interesting programme.
Meeting with Jackie Kay
Speaking about the 2024 festival, many people mention the evening with Jackie Kay during the National Poetry Day. This meeting really became a highlight of the festival. The poet read excerpts from her poetry collection The First of May. They were translated and performed in British and Scottish sign language by Rachel Tipping, who was on stage. It brought the audience to tears, laughter and everything that usually happens between these two extremes.
At first, it seemed that almost all the poems were stories about the poet’s parents and the turn when you become the parent of your parents. But no, they were also poems about the history of protest in the UK, which is considered to be on the left, and which is associated with activists and their causes, who artistically, recognised those who came before them and fought through art.
And the audience was happy about this, and there was a response from them about those events. Many of those present, in turn, began to tell stories about their participation in the protests in activist groups. People shared their feelings of not being forgotten, of being remembered.
Most of all, the participants of the meeting were surprised by Kay’s sense of humour and passion. She admired the human capacity for change, and it was genuine. For all that, Jackie Kay was a model of kindness in her interactions with the audience. The poet even managed to sprinkle a little ash on future writers, on behalf of the “fairy godmother.” She can slittle of it.
Celebrating the anniversary
But, as you know, a birthday is a celebration, and what celebration can be complete without gifts? To celebrate 25 years of the Birmingham Literature Festival, and most importantly, to continue to promote literature from the West Midlands, the organisers came up with the following idea.17 Five local writers were commissioned to write a short essay. The work was to be set, of course, in Birmingham. These stories were to be published as a special edition.
The result was an eccentric, funny, self-ironic, tender collection of stories. They explored the city’s landmarks, history, and the people of Birmingham. The collection was published by The Emma Press, with a cover design by Cold War Steve, and is called “Forward”. After all, this is the motto on the city’s coat of arms. Some say that this is the authors’ way of emphasising the desire of creative people to continue creating.
The five writers were Maeve Clarke, Liam Brown, Catherine Lupin, Kavita Bhanot and Thomas Glave. They all have very different writing paths, and the one thing they have in common is their close connection to Birmingham. For example, Kathryn Lupin told us that she spent her entire childhood in the Black Country from birth, and attended the Writing West Midlands’ Room 204 writer development program. Katherine wrote a short story called “Something Old, Something Sweet”. It was her first commissioned work.
To counteract self-deprecation and promote local authors, the Birmingham Literary Festival invited everyone to share the names of authors from Birmingham and the surrounding area, as well as those who have written about Birmingham. It turned out that there are a lot of such authors, that they are known and remembered, and their works are read, and even more so, they are popular. There’s no disrespect, everything is honest, everything is by the book.
Come to Birmingham
We also talked about the works of unknown writers, and there were people who not only liked them, but were impressed by them. But we are talking about very young people, and about their first attempts at writing. This, of course, fuelled hope for the future, hope for interesting life stories that would be artistic and meaningful, and also different from what the book industry usually pays the most attention to.
The Birmingham Festival of Literature was another, perhaps not superfluous, occasion to reach out to publishers and various agents and invite them to please come to Birmingham, of course, whenever you like, whenever it is convenient for you. It’s always nice and beautiful here. But I would like them to come only in October, because at this time of year it is also beautiful.
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