Pairidaeza: the Old Persian for Paradise
Drawing on her memories of life in Iran, Mimi Khalvati's poems are full of love and longing, lost maternal Edens and paradisal gardens. Her readings will interweave the classical forms of Persian...
Every Second, The Messiah: A Performed Reading from The Late Walter Benjamin
The Late Walter Benjamin juxtaposes the life and death of the German-Jewish Marxist intellectual Walter Benjamin with the grinding reality of a working-class London council estate in post-war...
What To Do While You’re Waiting For Paradise
How do writers motivate themselves when they know their novel might never be published? What to do while waiting to hear from agents? Does self-publishing ruin credibility? Emerging writer...
Writing My Way Home
Jenn Ashworth reads from her two published novels, A Kind of Intimacy and Cold Light, as well as from her forthcoming book, The Friday Gospels. As all are set in her native Lancashire, Jenn will...
Just Dwelling: Paradise Lose and Saved in Literature
From Milton to Atwood, the canon abounds with stories of perfect worlds destroyed by human folly. Dr Tate explores competing versions of paradise imagined by writers including HG Wells, JG Ballard...
Speaker(s): Andrew TateWild Life: A Reading
Join Rupert as he reads from The Fantasy Kid, his book of poems for children, and debuts some new material. Poet Rupert Loydell travels the southwest as a visiting lecturer, writer and painter. He...
Itch: A Reading
The tale of a curious schoolboy searching out all the elements in the periodic table, the story features missing eyebrows, schoolbag arsenic, and a whole host of dangerous situations. Find out the...
Speaker(s): Simon MayoCommunion
The poet Denise Levertov, talks of saving paradise when she says: “we have only begun to love the earth. We have only begun to imagine the fullness of life, how it might be to live as siblings with...
The Tragedy of the Prodigal Son: Pirates, rebellion and the fight for the commons
The story of the prodigal son has been commonly narrated as a story of beautiful redemption, but what if the son's failure to escape his father's empire was read as a tragedy? Drawing on Star...
Speaker(s): Kester BrewinThe Trouble With Growth
Is economic growth inevitable? Does it have to be? Reflecting on the Occupy London protest at St Paul's Cathedral in his time as canon chancellor, Giles Fraser asks if the root causes of the...
Speaker(s): Giles FraserUtopias Unlimited
Paradise is not monopolised by believers. Secular culture, with increasing skill and determination, offers fulfilment courtesy of the Big Society, a federal UK, the American Dream and My Everything....
Speaker(s): John BellWhy Forgiveness is Impossible: Musings from a Christian Theologian
How do we love someone at work who seems hell-bent on sabotaging a successful career? And how do religious people resolve differences when interpretation seems to lead to righteous indignation rather...
Readings from the Book of Exile
An hour of poetry exploring the territory of truth – the territory of hope – the territory of humour – the territory of sharing – the territory of exile. Expect poems that rhyme and stories...
Speaker(s): Pádraig Ó TuamaHow to be a Bad Christian – and a Better Human Being
What if I'm happier in a pub than a church? What if I struggle with creeds and doctrines but still want to follow Jesus? What does Christianity look like as a spiritual practice instead of a belief...
Speaker(s): Dave TomlinsonI believe in life after hacking
Ruth Gledhill, the Times religion correspondent since 1989, talks about how religious reporting has developed, technological changes, the hacking controversy, and how it has felt to be a woman and a...