Luton Literature Book Festival

Dicky Barr

Immerse yourself in the adventures of Tom Mouse!

• 10am – 11am
• Ages 2 – 7 years

In this extra special show, you get to hear the exclusive interactive reading of both Tom Mouse stories by children’s author, Dicky Barr; You can do it Tom Mouse and Tom Mouse and the North Pole Mystery!

Children can find out more about Tom Mouse and his friends, have a go at some creativity around their own adventures and can ask loads of questions.

This is an in-person event.

Sidney Belony

Planet Poets! Create your own spoken word poem, ready to perform!  A Poetry Workshop for children with Sidney Belony

• 11:30am – 12:30pm
• Ages 6 – 9 years

Come along to the spoken word poetry workshop and create spoken word poems, celebrating our planet/the natural environment. We will explore what are our favourite things in nature? What do they look like/sound like?
The workshop includes:
– Fun, interactive word games (encouraging creativity, finding fun vocabulary for our poems)
– Movement/performance (using movement to support poetry creation, thinking about sounds/words that describe sounds)
– The chance to share our poems, at the end of the workshop

Sidney Belony is a playwright and poet, from Luton. Sidney’s writing has been performed at venues including Bunker Theatre, Theatre Royal Stratford East, and Hat Factory Arts Centre. She has also written for live online performances. Sidney was part of the Soho Theatre Writers’ Lab 2020/21. Recently, she wrote for Hear Me Now: Audition Monologues for Actors of Colour, Volume 2 (published by Methuen Drama, August 2022).

Sidney believes that storytelling is powerful and that writing can be fun. Sidney is workshop leader for the Writers’ Collective at Next Generation Youth Theatre.

Dr Timothy Jarvis

Flash Fiction workshop: A taste of creative writing with Dr Timothy Jarvis

• 1:00pm – 2:00pm
• Ages 16+ years

Sidney Belony

Writing for performance Workshop: Making a scene

• 2:30pm – 3:30pm
• Ages 16+ years

Setting, character, story… What makes a scene?

In this workshop we focus on playwriting/scriptwriting, exploring the key elements that writers use to create great scenes. How can we express our ideas in a play/script?

Through writing activities, we would create our own short scenes in the workshop.

The workshop includes:

– Fun, interactive writing tasks (encouraging creativity, finding fun ideas for our scenes)

– Focus on performance (writing characters, dialogue, settings)

– The chance to share our scenes, at the end of the workshop

Sidney Belony is a playwright and poet, from Luton. Sidney’s writing has been performed at venues including Bunker Theatre, Theatre Royal Stratford East, and Hat Factory Arts Centre. She has also written for live online performance. Sidney was part of Soho Theatre Writers’ Lab 2020/21. Recently, she wrote for Hear Me Now: Audition Monologues for Actors of Colour, Volume 2 (published by Methuen Drama, August 2022).

Sidney believes that storytelling is powerful, and that writing can be fun. Sidney is workshop leader for the Writers’ Collective at Next Generation Youth Theatre.

Simon James Green

WELCOME TO GAY CLUB! With Simon James Green

• 5.30pm – 6.30pm
• Ages 14+

GAY CLUB! is a landmark comedic novel by Simon James Green, about a group of queer teens at their worst – and ultimately their best – from one of the UK’s leading writers of LGBTQ+ teen fiction.

Simon James Green will be talking about his inspiration for the book, which includes elements of LGBT history, and why we should all take inspiration from the characters of GAY CLUB! Featuring comedy anecdotes from his own hapless teenage years, this event contains a positive message and a rallying call to action for anyone who wants to make the world a more open, accepting, and kinder place.