From Palestine to eco-literature – my autumn events are rippling out into planetary concerns. Many thanks to the Havant Literary Festival (Oct 3-12) for inviting me to read from Astra at the eco-literature event on their programme this year. I was leaf-tickled to hear that my friend the wonderful eco-poet Helen Moore has been added to the bill!
A half-day conference on ecologically inspired literature
Sun Oct 12
2pm – 5.45pm
Bosmere School,
South Street, Havant
£10, £8 concs.
We start the afternoon with Dr Rebecca Welshman of the University of Liverpool, who is the leading authority on the life and work of West Country naturalist and writer Richard Jefferies. A long-time TB sufferer, Jefferies died at 38 in 1887. Environmental catastrophe and the human place are themes of his adventure novel After London (1885). Those who admired and were influenced by him include Edward Thomas, John Fowles and Raymond Williams.
In the second session (begins around 3.20pm) Dr Adeline Johns-Putra of the University of Surrey will discuss the representation of contemporary environmental crises such as climate change in literature. Dr Johns-Putra is the current Chair of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment, UK and Ireland, and a member of the editorial board for the journal Green Letters: Studies in Ecocriticism.
Our third contributor is the poet, author, performer and political activist Naomi Foyle. This session will start around 4.10pm. Naomi Foyle is an old friend of the Festival and works part-time at the University of Chichester. You may know her as an inspirational poet, but she is also a sci-fi novelist. The recently published Astra is her second novel and its post-apocalyptic ecological theme plays very much into the subject of this conference.
Joining us also will be Frome-based eco-poet and children’s author Helen Moore.
The final session (starts around 5pm) is a panel discussion with all four contributors and plenty of opportunities for Q & A.
[Photo nicked from Donna Click It: more of her delicate designs here.]
