Events

Ros will be headlining with Niall and Little Machine in ”Beyond Words’  at the Crystal Palace Overground Festival.

Date: Sunday 16 June 2012

Time: 4-6pm

Venue: Westow Park, Crystal Palace, London SE19

Details: Crystal Palace Overground Festival Website

Ros will be participating in WordJam on 18 May 2012 as part of the Brighton Fringe, alongside Pete Hunter, Sally Jenkinson and Rosy Carrick, who curated and will MC the event.

Facebook page for the event: https://www.facebook.com/events/448651305150515/

Ros Barber

Ros is the author of forthcoming verse novel The Marlowe Papers (Sceptre, 2012) and three collections of poetry, the most recent, Material (Anvil 2008), a Poetry Book Society Recommendation. An engaging performer, her work on the page has been compared to that of Philip Larkin and Carol Ann Duffy.

This year she will be appearing in the main Brighton Festival Books & Debate programme, at Ledbury and Hebden Bridge Poetry Festivals, and at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

Her media appearances include Radio 4’s Poetry Please, Radio 3’s The Verb, and Meridian TV’s arts programme The Frame.
“Ros Barber’s work is exquisitely honed in meter and metaphor — she makes the iambic pentameter sound as if she just invented it. Her voice is an instrument of creativity, intellect and emotion. Her performance at Pure Poetry was one of the most memorable I have seen in fifteen years.”
– Patience Agbabi

Pete Hunter

Peter has been writing poetry every since he can remember, and performing poetry ever since he stumbled across an open-mic night in the back of a pub. Since then poetry has taken him on a journey all around the UK, into Europe and on a tour of America. He has won many poetry slams and performed at many festivals. He has also co-written poetry-themed plays and soundscapes for BBC Radio Bristol and BBC Radio 4 and was a consultant for the Radio 4 National poetry slams and BBC Radio 7’s Stand Up poetry series.

People who have heard him at festivals have said:

“Awesome poems and delivery”

“You restored my faith in poetry and my dad really liked it”

“As the audience’s roars subsided and the clapping slowed, one voice could be heard loud and clear at the front: ‘Best thing I’ve seen all Glastonbury!'”

“That poem you did last night was amazing, I could see it all unfolding in front of my eyes – but I was on acid…”

“I liked the one with all the rhyming”

Sally Jenkinson:

Yes – she is a northern lass, with iron lungs and a heart made from bees’ honey, whose lyrical, surreal, tender poetry makes toes curl and mouths crease into unshakable grins. A poetry coach, front women for an array of the best spoken word nights in the U.K, published writer and all round wonder woman, Sally’s poetry not only separates her out as being a unique voice in the spoken word scene, but as a voice for anyone who has ever looked at the world and wondered how all its magic can be squeezed onto paper and shared out amongst strangers. Come see the woman who has done just that.

http://www.writeoutloud.net/profiles/sallyjenkinson

Venue: The Writer’s Place, 9-10 Jew Street, Brighton, BN1 1UT

Time: 7.30pm

Tickets: £8/£6

Book tickets here: http://boxoffice.brightonfringe.org/event.aspx?evId=3530&pfId=3633#EventTitle

Sceptre is 25

Andrew Miller, Ros Barber, Jess Richards, Clare Morrall. Chaired by Dr Katy Shaw

To celebrate Sceptre’s 25th anniversary, a selection of its established and emerging authors read from their latest and forthcoming books. Andrew Miller has just won the coveted Costa Book of the Year for his sixth novel, Pure, a gripping evocation of 18th-century Paris. Ros Barber’s The Marlowe Papers pulls off an ‘ingenious and imaginative’ (Hilary Mantell) literary feat, conjuring a coruscating historical thriller – in verse! Jess Richards’ wildly inventive debut novel Snake Ropes invokes the magic realism of Angela Carter in a mysterious tale of an island off the edge of the map. The Roundabout Man by Clare Morrall is an acutely observed slice of modern life that maps the chasm between nostalgia and reality.

Venue: Pavilion Theatre, Brighton

Time: 7.30pm

Price: £10

Book tickets here:  http://brightonfestival.org/event/719/sceptre_is_25/

New Blood

Five very different, but equally exciting debut novelists talk about their work and their journey to publication.

The Times described Selma Dabbagh’s debut, Out of It, as “A punchy first novel … beautifully observed … the plot races and the voices are strong.”
Peter Salmon’s first novel, The Coffee Story, was chosen by Toby Litt as his book of the year in the New Statesman.
Ros Barber’s The Marlowe Papers is the explosive fictional autobiography of Christopher Marlowe in blank verse.
Suzanne Joinson won the New Writing Ventures Award in 2007. A Lady Cyclist’s Guide to Kashgar is her debut novel.
Sophie Coulombeau won Route’s Next Great Novelist Award 2012 with Rites.

Venue: Little Theatre, Holme Street

Time: 7.30pm

Tickets: £5/£4

Book here: http://hbaf.co.uk/2012/05/new-blood-first-time-novelists/

11am Creative Writing Workshop

Ros will be running a two hour creative writing workshop.

2pm  Poetry Reading

Ros will be reading from all three of her published collections, and reading a short extract from forthcoming verse novel The Marlowe Papers.

Both events at the Wantage Civic Centre.

I’m delighted to be running a workshop on writing sonnets for members of the Kent & Sussex Poetry Society.  We’ll be breaking down a selection of sonnets (traditional through to experimental) to see what makes them tick, and then writing our own.  Sonnets are pretty much my favourite form so I’m very happy to spend a day delighting in the reading and writing of them.  Anyone interested in attending will first need to join the Kent and Sussex poetry society.