York Explore Library
:Mon 1 Oct – Sat 17 Nov :
Library opening Times :
Free
Pop in to the York Explore Library foyer to see a selection of our original WWI archives on display in our exhibition case.
From Chocolate letters to Conscientious Objectors to photographs of air raid damage this collection highlights the local impact of WWI on the city.
York Explore Library :
Sat 29 Sep :
2.00pm – 3.00pm :
£3
On a hot night in the summer of 1938, Violet Lowther’s mother Peggy is dying, her father Ellis is drunk in the pub, and Violet’s life is being ruined behind a dance hall in Barnsfield by a young miner who doesn’t look like Clark Gable after all. What more could go wrong? By the end of September, the Prime Minister is flying to Munich to try to make peace with Hitler, and in the same week Violet travels to the remote moorland of Thorndale to visit relatives, escaping her own war with her father. But when Violet learns the truth about Ellis’ love for Peggy, will she be able to make her peace with him?
An engaging family drama, Janet Dean Knight’s debut novel explores the tensions in the run up to the Second World War, barely twenty years after the first. Janet’s research for her book drew heavily on family history, newspapers and other archive material, and in this talk she will share how York Explore Library and Archive helped her add the fine detail of everyday life in the 1930s to her compelling story.
Follow Janet on
To book tickets please click here.
York Explore Library :
Sat 29 Sep :
10.00am – 1.00pm :
£20
Come and try your hand at mono printing and block printing onto paper to create a night-bird image. There will be a range of pre-prepared print blocks to use or – for those who are happy using a craft knife – have a go at creating your own bat, owl or night-time songbird design.
By the end of the workshop you will come away with a printed design for a 3D bird on a string or a 2D bird picture. Bring an apron and a bag/cover to transport your (wet) design so that it can fully dry back at home.
Author’s Biography:
Sarah Jackson is a mixed media artist
This event will take place in The Garden Room.
To book tickets please click here.
York Explore Library :
Thu 27 Sep :
6.45pm – 7.45pm :
£3 (or £2 with a York Card)
Finding the Words is a regular poetry evening every month at York Explore Library. Each evening brings together three poets and we aim to include both published writers and those working towards a collection. We’ll have a bar available and readings last around an hour. The evening is also a chance to share and chat, so please feel free to bring any news or information about poetry local, regional or national.
Nick Allen’s poetry has appeared in various magazines and anthologies – most recently, the Interpreter’s House, the Poetry Salzburg Review, Verse Matters and Un/Forced: a collection of writing from Rhubarb. His first pamphlet, the necessary line, was published by Half Moon Books of Otley, in October. He helps to organise the open mic evening, Rhubarb at the Triangle in Shipley, the last Wednesday of each month. He is a sub-editor with the on-line poetry magazine Algebra of Owls. He derives most of his sustenance from malt whisky and good espressos.
Katharine Goda writes poetry as a way of recording and reflecting on moments which would otherwise go unnoticed. Her work has appeared on the YorkMix poetry blog and been chosen for two Forward Poetry anthologies. She enjoys participating in Poetry Society stanza groups and workshops, volunteering with participatory arts organisations and running poetry writing sessions.
Pauline Kirk was born in Birmingham, and now lives in York. She has had ten collections of poetry and six novels published, three under her own name, and four as PJ Quinn. Her most recent collection, Time Traveller, was published by Graft Poetry. She is Editor of Fighting Cock Press, and a member of the editorial group of Dream Catcher.
This event will take place in the Marriott Room and cost £3 or £2 with a York Card
To book ticket please click here.
Acomb Explore Library :
Thu 27 Sep :
2.00pm – 4.00pm :
Free
Grief, bereavement and loss are extremely hard to talk about…but they shouldn’t be!
Come together with professional artists and storytellers, to, share memories and find creative ways of expressing what has happened and who you are, through the arts.
This workshop is run by Next Door But One. All we ask is for you to bring an object that has a story attached to it (a photo, a song, a piece of jewellery, anything) and we will all make poems, art and music from it.
This is a free workshop, but please book.
Follow on
Twitter: @ndb1arts : Facebook: /ndb1arts : Instagram: nextdoorbutone
To book tickets please click here.
York Explore Library :
Wed 26 Sep :
6.30pm – 7.30pm :
£5
An introduction to the origins of the literary Gothic in eighteenth-century Britain, discussing how three particular novels helped to define the terms in which the home and family have subsequently been represented in Gothic literature, art and film.
The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole, The Old English Baron by Clara Reeve and A Sicilian Romance by Ann Radcliffe demonstrate that the Gothic is nothing if not a self-referential mode, and this talk will be illustrated with literary and visual examples of its strange and (sometimes) funny as well as frightening metamorphoses over the past 250 years. Along the way it will ask what we mean when we refer to a cultural artefact as ‘Gothic’.
Author’s Biography:
Jim Watt teaches in the Department of English and Related Literature and the Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies at the University of York. He is the author of Contesting the Gothic: Fiction, Genre and Cultural Conflict, 1764-1832 (Cambridge UP, 1999) and of essays and articles on the Gothic and other topics. His latest book British Orientalisms, 1759-1835 is forthcoming with Cambridge UP.
To book tickets please click here.
York Explore Library :
Mon 24 Sep :
6.30pm – 8.00pm :
£5
Waterstones York are delighted to present author, journalist and broadcaster, Sir Max Hastings.
Sir Max will discuss his new book, Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy 1945-1975, a masterful chronicle of one of the most devastating international conflicts of the 20th century and how its people were affected.
No past volume has blended a political and military narrative of the entire conflict with heart-stopping personal experiences, in the fashion that Max Hastings’ readers know so well. The author suggests that neither side deserved to win this struggle with so many lessons for the 21st century about the misuse of military might to confront intractable political and cultural challenges. He marshals testimony from warlords and peasants, statesmen and soldiers, to create an extraordinary record.
Tickets available from Waterstones York
To book tickets please click here.
York Explore Library :
Thu 20 Sep :
6.00pm – 7.30pm :
£5
Join us as we launch the Big City Read 2018 and hear Matt Haig discuss writing The Radleys and Reasons to Stay Alive. Matt will be in conversation with Rob O’Connor.
Matt Haig is a best-selling author who has written fiction for both children and adults and non-fiction for adults. His adult work focuses on the human condition in general and his own experience of dealing with mental health issues. Far from being bleak or depressing, his books are both witty and life-affirming and he is a strong advocate of the power of reading which makes him a perfect author for our Big City read. Matt’s most recent novel is the best-selling How to Stop Time and his new non-fiction work, Notes from a Nervous Planet, was published in July.
Matt lives in Brighton with his partner writer Andrea Semple and their children Lucas and Pearl.
Rob O’Connor is a board member for the York Literature Festival and was the festival director from 2016 – 2018. He also teaches literature and creative writing at York St John University and the Centre for Lifelong Learning at the University of York. His areas of research interest focuses on genre theories, science fiction and fantasy, contemporary fiction, and creative writing
To book tickets please click here.
York Explore Library :
Thu 13th Sep :
6.30pm – 7.45pm :
£5
God’s vengeance on the wicked city of Sodom is a perennial source of fascination and horror. Michael Arditti’s passionate and enthralling new novel explores the enduring power of the myth in five momentous epochs. A young Judean exile transcribes the Acts of Abraham and Lot in ancient Babylon; the Guild of Salters presents a mystery play of Lot’s Wife in medieval York; Botticelli paints the Destruction of Sodom for a court in Renaissance Florence; a bereaved rector searches for the Cities of the Plain in nineteenth century Palestine; a closeted gay movie star portrays Lot in a controversial biblical epic in 1980s Hollywood.
Author’s Biography:
Michael Arditti is the prize-winning author of ten works of fiction. Easter won the Waterstones Award and was longlisted for the Costa Award. Unity was shortlisted for the Wingate Award and Pagan and her Parents was shortlisted for the Lambda Award in the US. Widows and Orphans, Arditti’s last novel, was published to great critical acclaim in 2014.
He is currently the theatre critic for the Sunday Express. He lives in North London.
This event will take place in the Marriott Room.
To book tickets please click here.
York Explore Library :
Fri 14 Sep :
6.30pm – 8.00pm :
£6
Waterstones York present Kate Atkinson, who will be returning to her original home city to celebrate the release of her new novel, Transcription. Kate will discuss this, and her other work, in conversation at York Explore library.
One of our finest novelists, Kate won the Whitbread Book of the Year Prize for her debut, Behind the Scenes at the Museum. Her four bestselling novels featuring Jackson Brodie became the BBC television series Case Histories. Her most recent novels, Life After Life and A God In Ruins, both won the Costa Novel Award and were critically acclaimed on both sides of the Atlantic.
Tickets are available from Waterstones York at £6 each, or £22 to include a copy of Transcription which you can have signed and dedicated on the evening.
To book tickets please click here.
