Mike Stuchbery is a writer and historian with a focus on European history and the 21st-century far right, and today he takes a brief holiday from the tensions of the here and now, to wonder why all those lives of the saints tend to end quite badly
Elizabeth Macneal was born in Edinburgh and now lives in East London. She is a writer and potter and works from a small studio at the bottom of her garden. She read English Literature at Oxford University before working in the City for several years. In 2017, she completed the Creative Writing MA at UEA where she was awarded the Malcolm Bradbury Scholarship. The Doll Factory, Elizabeth’s debut novel, won the Caledonia Novel Award 2018 and is a massive Sunday Times number one bestseller.
Dan Richards was born in Wales in 1982. He is co-author of Holloway with Robert Macfarlane and Stanley Donwood, first published in 2012 as a limited run of 277 books – letterpress printed by Richard Lawrence in his Oxford workshop. Faber & Faber published a general edition in 2013.
The Beechwood Airship Interviews, a journey into the head-spaces and workplaces of some of Britain’s most unique artists, craftsman and technicians, was published by HarperCollins in 2015.
Climbing Days, an exploration of the writing and climbing lives of Dan’s great great aunt and uncle – Dorothy Pilley and I.A. Richards – was published in 2016 and his new book Outpost: A Journey to the Wild Ends of the Earth will be the subject of his event at this year’s Curious Arts Festival.
Having spent years travelling to lesser known parts of the world, DJ duo Sweet Charity have amassed a collection of lesser known, forgotten-to-time-and-taste records from across the globe that are guarantee’d to have you dancing til the early hours. Starting with a monthly night at the ICA they expanded their thrift store and charity shop record sets to Glastonbury festival where they run the late night cruise ship HMS Sweet Charity.
Tim Burke was an activist, film-maker, writer, agent provocateur and flaneur who took his own life a year ago at the age of 55. Tim was profoundly affected by the Grenfell Tower fire in west London, and continually railed against what he saw as the venality of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.
A staunch community activist, here’s your opportunity to discover more about and celebrate the life of a remarkable and truly treasured human being
Our ‘LIVEwire’ Salon is a proven hit at the festival, and this year we have no fewer than twelve renegade poets performing for you at some point over the weekend.
Hosted by SALENA GODDEN
One of the UK’s foremost poets, Salena is also Byline’s Poet Laureate. After gracing global stages for 25 years, her rebellious livewire spirit unparalleled. Her ‘Pessimism Is For Lightweights’ pamphlet took UK poetry by storm last summer, and her ‘LIVEwire’ album was shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award in 2016.
Connor Byrne is a poet and performer from Brighton, now living in London. Their work explores gender and the relationships we have with others and the world. They have performed nationally and internationally, at festivals, competed in slams and self published two pamphlets.
Sunnah Khan is a Scottish Pakistani poet living in London, Sunnah writes poems of belonging and displacement. When she’s not producing documentaries, she’s either standing on her head or performing with her poetry collective 4 BROWN GIRLS WHO WRITE.
Oakley - A writer and performer originally from the West Midlands, they’ve received playwright development from Birmingham REP and gained a place on Royal Court’s playwrights programme. Oakley has performed nationwide, has been published by #Queer in the US and has a forthcoming collection ‘The Rainbow as a Bleeding Sky’ on Verve.
Sheena Patel - A London-based poet, and part of the exciting and much spoken about collective 4 BROWN GIRLS WHO WRITE. Sheena’s writing is a surrealist interweaving of sex and myth, and she can be a little bit rude sometimes.
Repeat Beat Poet - A broadcaster and hip hop poet, PJ fuses traditional poetics with hip hop culture to capture and extend moments of time, thought, and feeling. He produces and hosts monthly poetry events Boomerang and Pen-Ting and his radio show #TheRepeatBeatBroadcast, and is a house emcee with hip hop label Imaginary Millions.
Oli Spleen - In 2018 as a tribute to his recently deceased father, Oli recorded his second solo album ‘Gaslight Illuminations’. It was also inspired by the emotional fallout of a toxic relationship. It’s been described as “a gloriously dark and haunting work” and “a mesmerising work from an artist who has embraced his maturity”.
Maria Ferguson - A multi award-winning theatre maker from Essex, Maria is also a highly acclaimed poet. Her début one-woman show ‘Fat Girls Don’t Dance’ won Best Spoken Word Show at the 2017 Saboteur Awards, and follow-up ‘Essex Girl’ won Show Of The Week at VAULT 2019. It tours from September to November.
Toria Garbutt - A rising star of the UK scene, Toria has been touring with Dr John Cooper Clarke since spring 2016, both at home and abroad. Her début album ‘Hot Plastic Moon’ was released by N&T, and her début collection ‘The Universe and Me’ has been hailed by The Guardian and Radio 4.
Joelle Taylor - An award-winning poet, playwright, author and editor who has recently completed a world tour with her latest collection ‘Songs My Enemy Taught Me’. Joelle is widely anthologised, the author of 3 full poetry collections and 3 plays and is currently completing her début book of short stories ‘The Night Alphabet’.
Michelle Fisher - A writer and performer from Glasgow, Michelle was a resident artist at Roundhouse from 2017-18 and has been commissioned by the likes of BBC and Huffington Post. Her work explores wider societal issues, including class and poverty, and how they impact on our daily lives.
Matt Abbott - A poet, educator and activist from Wakefield, Matt formed spoken word label Nymphs & Thugs in 2015 and fronts alternative act Skint & Demoralised. His ‘Two Little Ducks’ show explores the working-class Leave vote and the refugee crisis.
Radio K W G is a musical collaboration between guitarist WillB, vocalist Kylie Earl and lyricist Geoff Allnutt. They have released 3 Eps of road songs and are currently recording and writing a new album. For further details please go to radiokwg.com
Their music has been described as an authentic version of British Americana and Southern Gothi with heartbreaking songs on the theme of The Road
The PGs are singers Mary Currie and Alison Craig with a load of sound making props and gizmos, and Nat Wallace on guitar.
They have been described as “Folk n Foley” but they are (slightly) more than that, as they plunder a variety of musical genres in the course of their set, from Prog Rock to Music Hall.
They also lob a few of their own songs into the mix too.
Teacups, Whirly tubes, megaphones, door latches and harmony all help to bring texture, and a fresh approach to their sound.
Warning- Kazoos may be used during the performance ( But we are assured that this will be done sensitively and sparingly.)
Rosie Wilby is an award-winning comedian who has appeared many times on BBC Radio 4 programmes including Woman’s Hour, Loose Ends, The Human Zoo and Four Thought, at major festivals including Latitude and Glastonbury and in the finals of several major comedy competitions.
Her first book Is Monogamy Dead? was shortlisted for the Diva Literary Awards 2017, longlisted for the Polari First Book Prize 2018 and followed her TEDx talk of the same name. Her trilogy of solo shows investigating love and relationships began with The Science of Sex, which has been performed all over the world, and ended with The Conscious Uncoupling, which toured to venues including London's Southbank Centre and was shortlisted for Funny Women Best Show.
Rosie also presents The Breakup Monologues podcast, which has been recommended by Chortle, The Observer, Metro and Time Out, writes for publications including The Guardian, Sunday Times and New Statesman and appears as a commentator on sexuality, dating and love on TV programmes including Good Morning Britain, radio shows and podcasts including The Guilty Feminist.
The Oldie’s “mistress of social types” illustrator Chelsea Renton, takes us on her journey from traditional portraiture to cartooning.
Chelsea Renton is a portrait artist, cartoonist and illustrator who has spent many years observing the British in all their foibles and follies, and with all their warts and wrinkles. Notable portraits include Sir George Christie, Richard E Grant, Denis Healey
and Arthur Brown “the God of Hellfire”. Her illustrated ‘Field Guide to the Peoples of the British Isles’, based on her regular Oldie cartoon strip, will be published in November 2019 (Oneworld). Before returning to her home town of Lewes, she worked as a political advisor during the Balkan Wars and now, when not staring at people, she is an active campaigner on green and local housing issues.
PLINK! play plinky instruments.
You know, ukulele, mandolin, banjo, mandola, that sort of thing. Oh, and a double bass too, because that’s just a deep plinky instrument. And they sing, sometimes solo and sometimes in harmony. All in all, they’re a pretty musical bunch. And the music? Well, it’s old, new, borrowed but never blue. You’ll recognise most of their stuff, but the way they do it is – well, plinky. Fresh, original, dynamic and just plain fun. Try and catch one of their concerts – you’ll walk away clicking your fingers and humming! PLINK! – a new way to sing old songs (and a few more recent ones too!).
Dylan Jones is the author of the Sunday Times bestselling biography David Bowie: A Life and the New York Times bestseller Jim Morrison: Dark Star. He is the multi-award-winning Editor-In-Chief of GQ and a former columnist for the Guardian, the Observer and the Independent. On 1 August Faber publish Dylan Jones’s book, The Wichita Lineman: Searching in the Sun for the World’s Greatest Unfinished Song.
Written in 1968, ‘Wichita Lineman’ is the first existential country song, a heartbreaking torch ballad still celebrated for its mercurial songwriting genius fifty years on.
Part biography, part work of musicological archaeology, The Wichita Lineman opens a window on to America in the late-twentieth century through the prism of a song that has been covered by myriad artists in the intervening decades.
Mixing close-listening, interviews and travelogue, the revered Dylan Jones explores the legacy of a record that has entertained and haunted millions for over half a century.
David Keenan grew up in Airdrie in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He is the author of England’s Hidden Reverse and a senior critic at The Wire. His debut novel, This Is Memorial Device, was shortlisted for the Gordon Burn and Collyer Bristow Prizes, and was a Book of the Month for Waterstones, Rough Trade and Caught by the River.
Hugh St Clair is an experienced arts and design journalist with work published in numerous British and international magazines and newspapers from House and Garden to the Art Newspaper and Bonham’s Auction House Magazine. He has edited and written four books on paintings – three Millers Guide to Art and Buying Affordable Art. He has worked with art public relations firms to promotes overseas galleries setting up temporary spaces in London. He has recently been writing for Hiscox art insurers to help market their services.
Moving to Suffolk a few years ago he has become increasingly interested and knowledgeable about mid twentieth British artists living in East Anglia. He trained at Sothebys and worked at provincial auction houses before becoming an arts writer.
Guy Kennaway lives for pleasure, producing books only when all else has failed. In all of Kennaway’s work he likes to study oppressed minorities under severe pressure and then make fun of them. He is best known for One People about a Jamaican village threatened by mass US tourism, and Bird Brain about a community of optimistic pheasants. His latest book is Time To Go, a comedy about killing his mother. He has written for magazines and newspapers, as well as many film scripts and TV adaptations, none of which have been made. Not surprisingly he lives alone.
Jess Kidd was brought up in London as part of a large family from County Mayo. Her first novel, Himself, was shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards in 2016 and she was the winner of the Costa Short Story Award in the same year. In 2017, Himself was shortlisted for the Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award and longlisted for the CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger. Her second novel, The Hoarder, was shortlisted for the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award in association with Listowel Writers’ Week’. Both books were BBC Radio 2 Book Club picks.
Having spent years travelling to lesser known parts of the world, DJ duo Sweet Charity have amassed a collection of lesser known, forgotten-to-time-and-taste records from across the globe that are guarantee’d to have you dancing til the early hours. Starting with a monthly night at the ICA they expanded their thrift store and charity shop record sets to Glastonbury festival where they run the late night cruise ship HMS Sweet Charity.
Sophie Naufal is a London based British Lebanese composer, musician and performer. As a film and theatre composer Sophie blends a vast array of samples from around the world with her own instrumentals creating innovative, textured soundscapes. Most recently she scored Claudia Legge’s Negotiating The Mind, an art piece exploring feelings of anxiety and claustrophobia through an underwater world. As a singer-songwriter she writes wry, dark, and sharply observed narratives of modern life. Her intricate guitar and vocal melodies draw on a wide range of ethnic and historical styles giving her music a timeless quality She frequently performs her music at poetry events around London. Her long awaited debut EP is forthcoming this September 2019
Murray Lachlan Young is a British poet, stand-up performer, broadcaster, playwright, screenwriter and children’s author. He came to prominence during the Brit Pop era of the mid 1990’s, when he became the only poet to sign a contract worth £1m. His work echoes the great rhymers Edward Lear, Lewis Carroll and Gilbert and Sullivan, along with more alternative influences such as Grandmaster Flash, Tom Waits and Ian Drury.
His satirical commentaries can read like RD Laing in their philosophical intensity, whilst their subjects range from the vanities of celebrity and middle-class angst, to highlighting the absurdities of modern life. Currently the poet in residence on BBC 6 Music radio station, touring the UK with his solo stand-up show and the collection of his work How Freakin’ Zeitgeist are you?, published by Unbound books.
Let Me Tell Ya a Little about ….MISS V
Let me tell you a bit about myself & my music,
I was singing before I was born – sometimes people don’t understand,
It’s my medication – it’s my meditation – …
I was born in London
Singer, Songwriter, Dancer and Gymnast, Rebecca has performed with Mariah Carey, Earth Wind and Fire and Alexander O'Neil
Ear Smoke are gatherings of poets and musicians to celebrate words in flight. Starting by Conrad Gamble 4 years ago in London, it has had over 30 shows across London and abroad, currently enjoying a residency at Laylow in West London.
Tonight’s Lineup includes.
Alan Moon (Alice St Clair Erskine) - Acclaimed actress and poet Alice a regular on the BBC on both the TV (A Royal Romance, The Crimson Fields), and the wireless, a regular on BBC 3 Words and Music and Radio 4's Homefront. She has performed her poetry internationally, including performances in Italy Greece and New York. Under her pseudonym Alan Moon, she recently performed a majestic show at Brasserie Zedel and has become editor of "The Print and the Poem" for the Royal Academy.
Grace Pilkington - Writer and Poet From Shepherds Bush. She write about taboo subjects such as mental illness and women's issues. She has wowed at literary night across London and has performed on the BBC World Service Se is part of poetry collective Little Grape Jelly that has performed at Hay and Aldeburgh and has a collection published by Eyewear. She is regular at Ear Smoke. Incisive, inimitable and hilarious.
DeerHart - Nancy Trotter Landry and Bob Pearson.
The beguiling two piece comprised of singer Nancy Trotter Landry and guitarist Bob Pearson will attend to your soul.
Hosted by Conrad Gamble - Author and Poet and Filmmaker. Conrad has performed both nationally and internationally at various festivals. At home highlights include Sunday Papers Live, Cheltenham Poetry Festival, Secret Cinema (Dead Poets Society), Blacks Club, Somerset House, The Listeners Project and abroad across Europe. He has been commissioned to write for Suitcase Magazine and the Book of Everyone. His (non poetry book) 'For the Love of London' came out nationally two years ago.
Ian Birch has edited, launched and re-launched multiple publications in London, New York, Milan and Sydney. Most recently, he was editorial director at Hearst Media on both sides of the Atlantic, overseeing classic brands such as Harpers Bazaar, Esquire, Elle and Cosmopolitan. Ian won the Mark Boxer Award for lifetime achievement at the British Society of Magazine Editors Awards. His first book, UNCOVERED: Revolutionary Magazine Covers (Cassell, 2108) is an oral history of some of the industry’s most impactful covers told in the words of the people who created them.
He will be joined by Melissa Denes, Editor-in-Chief of the Guardian Weekend Magazine and Paul McNamee, Editor-in-Chief of The Big Issue.
Melissa Denes has been the editor of Guardian Weekend magazine since 2013, winning the British Society of Magazine Editors award for best newspaper magazine in 2018 and 2015, and the Press Award for best newspaper supplement in 2016. She was the Guardian’s arts editor from 2006-2013.
Paul McNamee was appointed UK Editor of The Big Issue in summer 2011, the first time The Big Issue had a single editor across all national, regional and online editions. He started out on local newspapers in Northern Ireland, before co-founding Belfast-based Irish music magazine Blank with Colin Murray. He moved to the NME in London and following a number of years there he began writing for a series of newspapers and magazines, amongst them the Daily Mirror, The Guardian, Belfast Telegraph and The Irish Times. He was named British Editor of The Year in 2013 and 2016 by the BSME (British Society of Magazine Editors) and Magazine Editor of the Year three times by leading publishing industry body PPA Scotland. He served a two-year term as Chairman of PPA Scotland.
The Big Issue delivered an annual sales increase for three consecutive years in 2015, 2016 and 2017. It currently sells 78,449 copies per week across Britain.
Heathcote Ruthven is a writer and one third of New River Press. He has edited poetry anthologies including Year Of The Propaganda Corrupted Plebiscites and When They Start To Love You As A Machine You Should Run. His writing has appeared in International Times, The Idler, The Indepedent, Vice, and others. He is currently working on I Am Not Who You Think I Am: a collection of poems and prose poems by people who have experienced homelessness in collaboration with Miranda Gold and Crisis
Natalie Haynes is a writer and broadcaster. Her first novel, The Amber Fury, was published to great acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic, as was The Ancient Guide to Modern Life, her previous book. Her second novel, The Children of Jocasta, was published in 2017. Her retelling of the Trojan War, A Thousand Ships, will be published in May 2019.
She has spoken on the modern relevance of the classical world on three continents, from Cambridge to Chicago to Auckland. She writes for the Guardian. She is a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4: reviewing for Front Row and Saturday Review, appearing as a team captain on three seasons of Wordaholics, and banging on about Juvenal whenever she gets the chance.
Four series of her show, Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics, is broadcast on Radio 4. Her documentary on the Defining Beauty exhibition at the British Museum, Secret Knowledge: The Body Beautiful aired in 2015 on BBC4 in the UK and on BBC World News everywhere else. She was a judge for the 2012 Orange Prize for Fiction, the 2013 Man Booker Prize, and the 2014 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize.
Born in London and raised in Vancouver, Tom Rachman was a foreign correspondent for the Associated Press stationed in Rome, then an editor at the International Herald Tribune in Paris. He is the author of three novels, the international bestseller The Imperfectionists; The Rise and Fall of Great Powers and The Italian Teacher, as well as a short stories collection, Basket of Deplorables. He lives in London.
Candice Carty-Williams is an author, book marketer and sometime journalist based in south London. Born in 1989, the result of an affair between a Jamaican cab driver and a Jamaican-Indian dyslexic receptionist, Candice worked in the media before moving into publishing aged 23. In 2016, Candice created and launched the Guardian 4th Estate BAME Short Story Prize, before moving to Vintage Books.
Her debut novel, Queenie, has stormed bestseller lists and been called a politicised Bridget Jones. We look forward to welcoming her to Curious in August.
Nimco Ali was born in Somalia and grew up in the UK, where she studied at Bristol University and went on to work as a civil servant and an independent training consultant. She is the co-founder, with psychotherapist Leyla Hussein, of Daughters of Eve, a non-profit organisation set up in 2010 to support and protect young women from communities that practise female genital mutilation (FGM). FGM is a set of procedures that involve partial or total removal of external female genitalia, including the clitoris and labia, and sometimes also infibulation – narrowing of the vaginal opening by creating a seal by sewing up the labia. It is carried out before puberty, and often on girls very much younger. FGM, which can prove fatal and often leads to medical complications, has been illegal in the UK since 1985, but was formerly considered a mainly cultural issue. Nimco Ali and Daughters of Eve have successfully campaigned for it to be recognised as child abuse.
Currently she is an ambassador for #MAKERSUK. MAKERS is AOL’s women’s leadership platform that highlights the stories of ground-breaking women today to create the leaders of tomorrow. In 2014, she was awarded Red Magazine’s Woman of the Year award, and also placed at No 6 on the Woman’s Hour Power List. Most recently she was named by The Sunday Times as one of Debrett’s 500 most influential people in Britain, and as one of the Evening Standard’s 1000 most powerful. Nimco is a trustee for Women for Refugee Women and the Emma Humphreys Memorial Prize and is a founding member of the Women’s Equality Party.
Paula’s talent for writing was first noticed when she won the BBC National Get Writing competition and her comic story was read by Bill Nighy on Radio 4. The opening chapters of her teen thriller, ‘The Truth About Celia Frost’, led to her becoming a winner of ‘Undiscovered Voices 2010’ run by The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators British Isles. Celia Frost was nominated for 11 literary awards. It was selected as the winner of the Leeds Book Award (2012), Sefton Super Reads Award (2012), and the Nottingham Brilliant Book Award (2013).
Her second novel, ‘Blood Tracks’, was published in 2013. It was shortlisted for several literary awards, winning ‘The Rib Valley Book Award 2014’.
Paula’s stories for adults have been published in a number of anthologies of contemporary fiction. She was commissioned to write a story for Nottingham UNESCO City of Literature’s anthology, ‘These Seven’.
Paula is proud to be a writer in residence in a secondary school for the national literacy charity First Story. She is also regularly invited into secondary schools around the UK to do author talks and workshops. Paula is delighted to be the patron of the East Midlands School Library Association as she’s a big fan of school librarians and the great work they do to get students reading.
D-Vox AKA Daniela Rhodes has been a DJ for over 15 years and has been influenced by artists across genres and eras. From mixing hard dance in her bedroom, inspired by Tiesto, she now explores house, techno, drum and bass, disco, breaks and more. D-Vox is also a versatile vocalist/lyricist & has developed a unique ability to accompany instrumentals within her DJ sets with her original, live vocals.
She hosts live show 'D-Vox & Guests' on Bournemouth’s number one, live streaming internet radio station Afro*disiac Live Radio every second Friday of the month from 8pm, having also aired shows on Voice FM 103.9 and Progressive Beats Radio. She has held a three month residency out in The Maldives and has also begun making her mark in Ibiza and Ayia Napa over the last few years.
With a packed local and national gig diary, radio show guests booked until 2020, producers in a queue waiting for vocals for their upcoming releases, plus her new positions as an event reviewer for Data Transmission and A & R Representative for Koda Recordings sub labels Koda DnB and Koda Hard, Daniela has her foot firmly on the pedal towards achieving her potential.
Who knows where her talents will take her as she continues to surprise audiences and collaborators alike with her versatility, dedication and determination to share great music as far and wide as she can spread it.
