Speaking to the Shelves:Creative Writing Workshop with Yvonne Battle-Felton

The Leeds Library continues its Speaking to the Shelves programme with a new series of creative writing sessions available at the library or online.

When the programme’s curator Becky Cherriman asked established writers and workshop leaders to design writing activities around texts they considered part of the literary canon, she expected some surprises. The writers did not disappoint. Sign up to deepen your knowledge of a much-adored Classic, discover a book you haven’t yet read, see what we can learn from the canon and expose problems within it. Sign up to write creatively. Together you will climb onto the shoulders of these powerful giants, notebook and pen in hand.

Join Author Yvonne Battle-Felton for this Online Zoom workshop as she tilts Madeleine L'Engle’s science-fiction novel ‘A Swiftly Tilting Planet’, encouraging writers to respond in the genre of their choosing.

N.B. It is not essential to have read ‘A Swiftly Tilting Planet’ as extracts from the novel will be provided in the workshops.

There will be an optional session for up to one hour after the session has ended where people are welcome to stay and discuss the session, ask any questions, and get feedback from fellow participants.

Form/genre: any

Further workshops in the programme can be found here: https://www.theleedslibrary.org.uk/events

The programme is supported by funding from Leeds Inspired, part of Leeds City Council.

Yvonne Battle-Felton, author of Remembered, is an author, academic, host, and creative producer. Remembered, was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction (2019) and shortlisted for the Jhalak Prize (2020). Winner of a Northern Writers Award in fiction (2017), Yvonne was awarded a Society of Author’s Foundation Grant for Remembered in 2018. Yvonne also writes for children and has titles in Penguin Random House’s The Ladybird Tales of Superheroes and The Ladybird Tales of Crowns and Thrones. Yvonne has a PhD in Creative Writing from Lancaster University and is Principal Lecturer—Business and Enterprise Lead at Sheffield Hallam University.

Curator Becky Cherriman is a Yorkshire writer, workshop leader and performer. She works part-time as Co-leader of the Creative Writing pathway at The University of Leeds Lifelong Learning Centre. Published by Seren, Mslexia, New Walk, Envoi, Mother’s Milk, Bloodaxe, Well Versed, Moving Worlds and The North, she was resident poet for Morley Literature Festival in 2013 and lead artist for Altofts Festival In A Day 2016. ‘Echolocation’, her first poetry pamphlet, and first collection ‘Empires of Clay’ were published in 2016 by Mother’s Milk and Cinnamon Press respectively. Her agnostic poem Jesus Lives was highly commended in the Forward Prizes 2017.

Host or Publisher The Leeds Library