LIFT 2012 will also be playing host to the UK premiere of Gatz, a spellbinding and seductive word-for-word staging of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s modern classic The Great Gatsby.

One morning in the office of a mysterious small business, an employee finds a copy of The Great Gatsby in the clutter on his desk. He starts to read it aloud and doesn’t stop.

Termed ‘the most remarkable achievement in theatre not only of this year but also of this decade’ by The New York Times, Gatz is an eight-hour event performed by New York’s Elevator Repair Service, spread over four parts to take the audience from early afternoon into the evening (including a long dining interval). Imagine your favourite book coming to life before your very eyes, losing yourself in the words as they are read aloud…this is the exciting and engaging prospect that Gatz offers its audience.

Gatz will be taking LIFT 2012 into the West End for 23 performances only – if you’re a Fitzgerald aficiando, you don’t want to miss out.

Gatz runs from Friday 8th June-Sunday 15th July 2012 at the Noël Coward Theatre in London. All performances start at 2.30pm and finish by 10.30pm, with tickets costing between £27.50-£77.50. Tickets are available through the Gatz London website or by calling 0844 482 5141.

On Friday 20th April, the Little Girl Giant will be arriving in Everton Park as part of her journey. To welcome her to the community, and to officially launch the Out of the Blue Festival 2012 programme, West Everton Community Council and Friends of Everton Park will be holding a ‘Picnic in the Park’ at the top of Everton Park. Members of the community and other visitors are invited to sing songs, share stories and have some lunch as the Little Girl has her siesta between 12.30-4pm.

The event will also be the culmination of Get Into Reading’s Titanic memorial celebrations – for the past few weeks, Get Into Reading groups across Liverpool and Wirral have been reading and discussing poems and other pieces inspired by the sinking of the Titanic, sharing memories of the world’s most famous ship. As part of the Sea Odyssey event and Out of the Blue launch, Get Into Reading Liverpool Project Manager Eleanor Stanton will be reading Thomas Hardy’s The Convergence of the Twain at the Park on Friday so to share in the reading, come along for what promises to be a great celebration – and if you can, please wear something blue.

There is this ringing hum  this
bullet-borne language  ringing
shell-fall and static  this late-night
ringing of threadwork and carpet  ringing

From ‘Phantom Noise’ by Brian Turner

The Reader Organisation has teamed up with Liverpool’s exciting Writing on the Wall Festival to bring award-winning US poet Brian Turner to Liverpool at the beginning of May. Brian will read on the evening of Wednesday 2 May as part of the festival, having visited Get into Reading groups in HMP Liverpool and Mersey Care NHS Trust. The partnership with Writing on the Wall allows both the festival and TRO to reach audiences they might not otherwise interact with by showcasing the work of an excellent contemporary poet.  The audiences in HMP Liverpool and Mersey Care will have the opportunity to read Brian’s work in advance of his visit, which should make his visit all the more enjoyable and stimulating.

Brian Turner was born in California and joined the US Army in 1998, serving in Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as Iraq. His collections – Here, Bullet and Phantom Noise (which was shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot prize in 2010) — searingly describe his experiences and those of the people around him. His poem “The Hurt Locker” was used as the title for Kathryn Bigelow’s film, for which she won the Oscar for Best Director in 2009, the first woman to do so.

Open the hurt locker
and see what there is of knives
and teeth. Open the hurt locker and learn
How rough men come hunting for souls

Online ticket sales for Brian Turner’s appearance at the War Tour event at the Casa, Hope Street, 7.30pm on 2 May and further details about the festival can be found on the Writing on the Wall Festival website; for phone/in person bookings, please contact The Unity Theatre, 1 Hope Place, L1 9BG/ph: 0844 873 2888.

Keep an eye on our blog for further information about Brian’s visit to Liverpool Get Into Reading and some words from the man himself.

Charlotte smashes her chocolatey prize

Don’t forget to let us know if you read anything worth recommending over the holiday – we always love to hear from you. Happy Easter!

‘The Medicine Chest of the Soul’, a session chaired by Tim Joss, Director of the Rayne Foundation, featured Jane alongside author Jeanette Winterson, and the LSE’s David McDaid and Margaret Perkins. They discussed the healing power of literature and the role of the arts in substantially improving health and wellbeing, something that is an important aspect of TRO’s work .   

You can listen to the lively and compelling session here.

In the article, Jeanette suggests that we take a leaf out of the book of the organisers of the growing worldwide movement Occupy by reclaiming Valentine’s Day from its increasing commercialised and money-driven purposes and instead remember the reason behind it: love in all its forms, something that is not a commodity but instead an ‘alternative currency’ for everyone to enjoy.

This is the day to recognise love in every shape and size and disguise. Known love, new love, love’s ghosts, love’s hopes. Loss is here too, and the spaces in between love.

Reclaiming love is the best thing we can do. Love has been squatted for too long by those false cupids with their “for sale” signs. It’s not a coincidence that Venus is the goddess of love and money. Or that her fat friend with the arrows lends his name to desire of both kinds. Cupidity is the all-consuming longing for riches. Love and money are both an exchange.

Wise words indeed – and we’d also point out that reading is the perfect exchange, of love, friendship, community, so why not read something lovely with someone you love this Valentine’s Day? We could think of few better ways to reclaim love for its original purposes.

Jeanette will be appearing with director of The Reader Organisation Jane Davis at an event at this year’s LSE Space for Thought Literary Festival at the London School of Economics and Political Science on Wednesday 29th February 2012, 4.30-6pm. ‘The Medicine Chest of the Soul: Arts and Health’ will explore the substantial role the arts can play in improving health and wellbeing, especially the healing power of literature.

Director of the Rayne Foundation Tim Joss will be chairing the discussion and alongside contributions from Jane and Jeanette, other featured speakers are David McDaid, LSE senior research fellow in Health and Social Care and Margaret Perkins, research officer within the Personal Social Services Research Unit at LSE.

The event is part of the 4th annual Space for Thought Festival, this year with the theme of ‘Relating Cultures’. The festival runs from Wednesday 29th February-Saturday 3rd March and has a very varied programme featuring a range of star speakers including London Penny Readings guest AS Byatt, Claire Tomalin and Michael Rosen.

‘The Medicine Chest of the Soul: Arts and Health’ event is now fully booked, but check the LSE website for details on possible returns or changes or consider going to the venue on the day in case of last-minute empty seats.

Having started in great style last year, this year’s festival looks to be even bigger –  in more ways than one. Threshold 2012 won’t be held under one roof but several, taking over the entirety of Liverpool’s Baltic Triangle for a whole weekend, in venues including Camp and Furnace, the Blade Factory, the New Picket, Elevator, the Nordic Church, the Lantern Theatre and the Brewery Tap.

Curated as a collaboration between promoters Under The Influence and the Contemporary Urban Centre (unfortunately recently  closed in physical form but very much still ongoing in spirit), Threshold has been a champion of arts at grassroots level; the ethos at its heart being to engage with the arts, music and performance promoters, providing them with a platform to create and explore.

Amongst the highlights of a bumper line-up is a Performing Shakespeare workshop by Max Rubin (Lodestar, Liverpool Shakespeare Festival) and Script In Hand Theatre at the Lantern Theatre and a Philosophy in Pubs discussion of Culture of Capital at The Brewery Tap.

One day tickets for Friday, Saturday and Sunday cost £10 each, with Weekend tickets costing £25. All tickets are available from Skiddle.com or via the Threshold Facebook page . Full schedules and line-ups can be found on the website, through Twitter and Tumblr.

Is the interest in global literature evidence of a rootless cosmopolitanism, hostile to the influence of the social and political realities of a particular author’s nationality and cultural background? Are we kidding ourselves we even understand works in translation? Is great national literature universal because it is great, or great because it is universal?

These questions and more will be debated by the speakers, but let us know your own thoughts on the matter – do you read literature in translation? Does an author’s nationality affect how you read their work?

The New International? Literature in an age of ‘globish’

Thursday 20 October, 7.00pm until 9.00pm

Free Word Centre, 60 Farringdon Road, London EC1R 3GA

£7.50/5: buy online or by calling 0207 269 9220

Other highlights include ‘Jane Austen, Bronte and Love’, a talk by Elizabeth Williams about two of Britain’s best-loved authors, which takes place at 2.30pm on Thursday in Bebington Central Library, and the Bookfest Bookswap at the Pyramids Shopping Centre in Birkenhead, where you can bring along your old books and swap them for new (second-hand) books that you’ve been dying to read! (Friday 10am-3pm).

So, whether you’re a keen reader, or haven’t been to your library for a while, head along to this year’s Bookfest, where you’re sure to find something to fire your imagination!

For more information call 0151 606 2665 or visit http://www.wirral.gov.uk/my-services/leisure-and-culture/libraries/bookfest-2011.

As Lisa mentioned earlier, today is World Mental Health Day and for the third year running, we have teamed up with Mersey Care NHS Trust and the Bluecoat running to bring the Chapter and Verse literature festival to users of local mental health services this week.  The three-way partnership began in 2009, when we brought Brian Keenan, who was appearing at the festival, to Ashworth special hospital – one of the most moving events I have experienced in my time with The Reader Organisation.  We have hosted poetry workshops, author readings (Brian Patten sharing his memories and poetry with seniors at Waterloo Day Hospital last year was another high point) and even a jazz-poetry jam, with sax and a double bass.

Hard acts to follow, but this year’s line up is looking good.  On Thursday 13^th October  Reader-in-Residence Eleanor McCann and our Events and Publications Manager Maura Kennedy will be bringing John Healy to the Kevin White unit.  Healy is the author of The Grass Arena, a story of alcoholism and redemption which is acclaimed in the recovery movement.  The Kevin White is Mersey Care’s drug detox inpatient unit, which has hosted one of our longest standing reading groups, so it is an interesting fit.

At the same time, Colin Grant who wrote a biography of Bob Marley, will be talking and playing tracks at Ashworth Special Hospital.  A patients’ music group will also be there to play him out.  Events at Ashworth always take a lot of organising, and Cath McCafferty, who manages Mersey Care Reads within the Trust, will be behind the scenes dealing with it all.  This is the one I’m looking forward to most of all, not only for the music, but because the patients always respond so eagerly to artists who are willing to come into their rather circumscribed world.

On Friday afternoon Sarah Hall will be talking to community reading group members from Southport and Kirby about her new collection of short stories The Beautiful Indifference.

One thing will be different this year:  we have recently welcomed Maura Kennedy into our team at the reader as our Events and Publications manager.  Equally at home in the sophisticated world of the arts and in the down to earth settings we work in, she’s  going to be a big presence in the organisation, and it looks like we may be able to look forward to a many more events like these, right across the country!