With a range of new commissions, public art and headline talks from Val McDermid, Peter Hook, AL Kennedy, Simon Garfield, Stuart Maconie, Gavin Esler and Polly Toynbee among many others, the 2012 festival was another great success.

Planning is now underway for 2013, so pop 5th-13th October in your diary and make sure you join us for another packed programme.  This year’s festival focus will be on fiction and poetry and we’re planning a range of events with our partners Leeds Libraries, Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival and others.  Sign up for our e-bulletins to be the first to hear programme announcements.

Thank you to everyone who supported the 2012 festival.  You can see just a few of our festival pictures on our flickr stream, including some of our 2012 commissioned projects.

Morley Literature Festival is an annual festival of reading and writing in South Leeds.  Our 2012 event was our biggest yet and featured:

• 10 days of literature in Morley and Leeds City Centre
• 2042 attenders at 27 live events
• 5 new temporary public art commissions for Morley Town Centre by local artists
• 1 new video commission inspired by Morley by Northern Art Prize winning artist Paul Rooney
• 921 children across south Leeds involved in our Schools Programme

What the Audience Thought…

• “I loved the quality of the guests and a really good vibe, no hint of the stuffy cultural elitism that can accompany “literature” events.”

• “Having never been to a Lit Fest I didn’t know what to expect. I absolutely loved it.”
• “The programme this year was really varied and included loads of opportunities to hear some great speakers. The organisers should be congratulated for producing a great festival that we can all be proud of.”

• “I loved the warm welcome from all festival officials, terrific organisation of seating, visual aids and wonderful food!;  excellent speakers – enlightening, amusing and uplifiting”

Thank you to everyone who fed back comments through our visitor surveys, we do really welcome your thoughts and comments on how to make the festival better each yet.  We’ll be announcing our festival dates for 2013 really soon so watch this space!

This year’s short story competition, organised by the Friends of Morley Literature Festival, was as popular as ever with over 70 entries, judged by a panel that included our festival patron Gervase Phinn. Cash prizes were awarded to this year’s winners who were asked to write a story on any subject with a maximum of 3000 words. You can now read the winning entries as downloadable pdfs:

First place: Never Ending Love Story by Mike Lawrence

Second place: The Law According to Old Bill by Christine Sutton

Third place: The Book of Judas by Andy Stubbings

Thank you to everyone who entered this year and congratulations to our winner. Details of the 2013 competition, which is free to enter, can be obtained from the competition administrator Stuart Pereira.

We’re kicking off this year’s festival with a packed programme of activity in Morley on Saturday 6th October.

From 9am until 3pm, there’ll be a literary themed street market in Morley’s pedestrian precint. Bring your old books and swap them for a new read at the Friends of Morley Literature Festival’s bookstall. There’ll also be a chance to find out more about the services offered by Leeds Libraries.

Elisa Oliver will give a guided and informal walking tour of Morley, tracing the history of class, work and working conditions in Morley. This is a free event, no need to book – the tour starts from Morley Town Hall’s Queen Street entrance at 10am.

There’ll be new trail of playful public signage along the pedestrian precint, especially created for the Festival week by local artists Paul Ashton, Amelia Crouch, Clare Charnley, Jess Mitchell and Vikkie Mulford. Will you be able to spot all the not-so-familar signs?

We’ll also be unveiling a brand new video work by artist Paul Rooney, inspired by Morley and commissioned by the festival.

Over at Morley Library we have two free events during the morning for children. Conrad Burdekin reads some of his very silly poetry at 10.30 and at 11.30am there’s the chance to create your own character with illustrator Stephen Waterhouse.

Event highlights include our headline guest, legendary bassist Peter Hook; AL Kennedy will dissect the links between creativity and madness and we’ve a free seminar on Publishing in the Digital Age for those of you interested in exploring new publishing methods for your own writing. Sci-fi and graphic novel fans – check out our Superheroes event, tracing the links between superhero fiction and sci-fi.

And that’s just one day – there’s plenty more to enjoy over the following 9 days too!

Award-winning actress and storyteller Ursula Holden Gill will be joining us next Saturday 15 September, at the White Rose Shopping Centre, for some free magical storytelling sessions for children.

We’ll be at the Centre from midday and storytelling sessions will run at 12.30, 1pm, 1.30pm and 2pm – so come along, find our rug and comfy cushions and enter a spellbinding world as Ursula weaves words and music into enchanting tales.

You’ll also be able to talk to some of the staff and volunteers at Morley Literature Festival to find out more about this Autumn’s events. See you there!

Our full programme for October 2012 is now online and on sale.  From 6-14 October we’ve a 10 day programme packed full of talks, music, art and family events from a host of authors including Polly Toynbee, A.L. Kennedy, Val McDermid, Peter Hook, Gavin Esler and Stuart Maconie.

Over the next few months we’ll be looking at some of our festival themes in more detail, but these include:

Dinner, Discussions and Debates
Sci-Fi, Self-publishing, Royal Reporting and author discussions with Val McDermid & NJ Cooper,  AL Kennedy, Tim Ewart, Helen Rappaport, David Hine, Adam Christopher, Samit Basu and Justina Robson

Political Powerhouses
Talks by eminent political commentators Polly Toynbee and Gavin Esler

Boys in Bands
Members of two of Manchester’s most iconic bands (Joy Division’s Peter Hook and Inspiral Carpets’ Tom Hingley) speak about their respective memoirs

Local Authors
We celebrate the wealth of literary talent in Yorkshire and the North and discuss how Northern identities have served as inspiration with Ross Raisin, MY Alam, Wes Brown, Jack Sheffield, Dave Simpson and Stuart Maconie

Mini Morley
Our clutch of  events with Gillian Rogerson, Conrad Burdekin and Stephen Waterhouse for ilttle bookworms are all free, fun and hands-on!

See you this Autumn…

We’re delighted that we’ve been awarded a grant from Leeds Inspired, the new cultural programme for Leeds, to create a new and playful programme of publicly sited work as part of the 2012 festival and inspired by the theme Fact/Fiction. Central to the project is a new video work from Northern Art Prize-winner Paul Rooney, and alongside this we’re seeking to commission four Leeds-based artists to create playful public signage to be sited in Morley’s pedestrian precinct during the 10 day festival.  Download the commission brief as a pdf: Morley Literature Festival small commissions brief 2012. The deadline for expressions of interest is 22nd June 2012.

Well, 2011 really was our best year to date -  fantastic events with Ian Rankin, Lucy Worsley, Adam Hart Davis,  Jon Ronson, Debi Gliori and Mark Radcliffe to mention just a few,  plus jewellery making with Tatty Devine and the Poetry Takeaway taking the people of Leeds by storm.

Adam Hart Davis said of the festival: “You provided the best audience I had all week; they asked the most difficult questions, and they bought the most books. And what a wonderful venue.” What fantastic feedback -  we’re going to do our best to make 2012 another festival to remember!

We can now confirm that this year’s festival will take place from 6th-14th October 2012.

We’re now busy programming this year’s event, which, as well as including author talks, panels, workshops and children’s events, will hold some special surprises!  We’re very excited to have received a funding award from Leeds Inspired to develop new work around the theme of playfulness so watch this space – more details coming soon…

The photos and poems created by National Portrait prize-winner Paul Floyd Blake and upcoming young poet Andrew Macmillan as part of 2011/12′s Home Is Where the Art Is project are now online to enjoy.

Home Is Where the Art Is saw four Morley households and 3 local primary schools borrow original works of art from Leeds Art Gallery to mount in their own homes and classrooms.  Andrew and Paul’s work was created in response to the scheme.  The artworks were mounted in exhibition as part of Morley Literature Festival 2011 and in Leeds Central Library at the start of 2012.

There’s a lovely set of photos by Maria Spadafora from our Now Then! workshops from 2011 now available on Flickr.  Now Then! is our creative community blog, building a snapshot of Morley through text, sound and image.  We’re working with communities and individuals to create an archive of what Morley has been, what it is now and where it’s going in the future.