Bradford Literature Festival | |
---|---|
Status | Active |
Genre | Festival |
Begins | Late June |
Ends | Early July (variable dates) |
Frequency | Annually |
Location(s) | Bradford, West Yorkshire |
Country | England |
Years active | 9 |
Inaugurated | 2014 |
Founders | Syima Aslam Irna Qureshi |
Most recent | 2023 |
Next event | 2024 |
Participants | 500 |
Attendance | 115,000 |
Organised by | Culture Squared |
Filing status | community interest company |
Website | Official website |
The Bradford Literature Festival (sometimes abbreviated to BLF) [1] is a spoken and written word event that promotes literature and is held for ten days annually over June and July in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. The first event was held in 2014 and was attended by 968 people; over the next decade the attendance had risen to over 115,000 per year. The event is noted for its attendance by minority groups and writers, with over 50% of attendees coming from BAME backgrounds and 85% of attendees benefitting from free tickets as part of the Ethical Ticketing Policy. [2]
The Festival was started by Syima Aslam and Irna Qureshi in 2014 for a weekend. By the time of the 2017 event, they had a full-time staff of seven besides themselves with funding from Bradford Council, the Arts Council and the National Lottery. [3] [4] After the short weekend festival in 2014, the event was lengthened to cover ten days which was held across late June/early July for the 2017 and 2018 and 2019 festivals. The 2016 event was held in late May of that year. [5] The festival is a series of events held at different locations across the Bradford District including theatres such as the Alhambra, bookshops, schools, colleges, Bradford City Hall, bars and art galleries. [6] Whilst the emphasis is on the written word, some parts of the event include the arts, theatre, film, music [7] and talks by famous people such as the former boxer, Frank Bruno, hip-hop artist Akala, 80's icon Luke Goss and former footballer John Barnes. [8]
In 2018, as a celebration of the 200 years since Emily Brontë's birth, the festival installed four stones engraved with specially commissioned poems from four contemporary female writers, at strategic points between Thornton and Haworth. [9] Jeanette Winterson, Carol Ann Duffy, Jackie Kay and Kate Bush have each written a piece of poetry that will adorn the four stones. The stones form a walk which connects the Bronte birthplace at Thornton, with the Bronte Parsonage Museum in Haworth. [10]
In 2019, the festival attracted speakers such as Jeanette Winterson, Elif Shafak, John Barnes, Habib Ali al-Jifri, Luke Goss, Saul Williams, Lady Leshurr and Michael Rosen, attracting an audience of over 70,000 including a free Education Programme which reached over 18,000 young people. [11] Approximately 15 of the 500+ booked speakers pulled out of the event when it was revealed that some of the sponsorship for the festival had come from the Home Office's Building a Stronger Britain Together programme. One of those who withdrew, journalist Hussein Kesvani, stated that if he had appeared at the festival, then it would have been a conflict of interest. Some of the young Muslims whom he had interviewed "expressed how the expansive counter-extremism programme had affected their ability to express their religious identity". [12]
In 2020, the covid 19 pandemic had a drastic change to the festival programming. In response to the challenges of social distancing, BLF produced an all-digital festival and began a partnership with Reading is Magic Festival and Adab Festival Pakistan, increasing its international reach. [13]
In 2021, the festival moved to a hybrid festival, programming 49 live event and 50 digital events, attracting an audience of 114,139 people, with 57% BAME visitors. In response to the COVID-19 climate, five Family Fun Days entitled ‘Literature Unlocked’ were held at public parks across the City. [14]
In 2022, the10-day literary and cultural celebration attracted 56,338 visitors in June/July 2022, an 81% return on pre-Covid audiences, and was heralded as the “Glastonbury of literature festivals”. In just eight years, Bradford Literature Festival established itself as one of the largest literature festivals in the UK and the industry leader for championing socio-economic and ethnic diversity of audiences and artists alike. Welcoming audiences from across the Bradford district, the breadth of the UK, and from overseas. [15]
In 2023, Bradford Literature Festival delivered an acclaimed programme to record-breaking audiences – hailed as our best year yet. Attendance doubled to 116,225 with 678 events and 63,350 engagements with children and young people. [16] [17]
Haworth is a village in West Yorkshire, England. Located in the Pennines, Haworth is 3 miles (5 km) south-west of Keighley, 8 miles north of Halifax, 10 miles (16 km) west of Bradford and 10 miles (16 km) east of Colne in Lancashire. The surrounding areas include Oakworth and Oxenhope. Nearby villages include Cross Roads, Stanbury and Lumbfoot.
Saltaire is a Victorian model village in Shipley, West Yorkshire, England, situated between the River Aire, the railway, and the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. Salt's Mill and the houses were built by Titus Salt between 1851 and 1871 to allow his workers to live in better conditions than the slums of Bradford. The mill ceased production in 1986, and was converted into a multifunctional location with an art gallery, restaurants, and the headquarters of a technology company. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and on the European Route of Industrial Heritage.
Keighley is a market town and a civil parish in the City of Bradford Borough of West Yorkshire, England. It is the second largest settlement in the borough, after Bradford.
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The National Science and Media Museum, located in Bradford, West Yorkshire, is part of the national Science Museum Group in the UK. The museum has seven floors of galleries with permanent exhibitions focusing on photography, television, animation, videogaming, the Internet and the scientific principles behind light and colour. It also hosts temporary exhibitions and maintains a collection of 3.5 million pieces in its research facility.
Bradford City Association Football Club is an English professional football club in Bradford, West Yorkshire. The team competes in League Two, the fourth tier of the English football league system, and is managed by Graham Alexander.
The City of BradfordMetropolitan District, commonly called Bradford, is a local government district of West Yorkshire, England, with the status of a city and metropolitan borough. It is named after its largest settlement, Bradford, but covers a large area which includes the towns and villages of Keighley, Shipley, Bingley, Ilkley, Haworth, Silsden, Queensbury, Thornton and Denholme. Bradford has a population of 528,155, making it the fourth-most populous metropolitan district and the sixth-most populous local authority district in England. It forms part of the West Yorkshire Urban Area conurbation which in 2011 had a population of 1,777,934, and the city is part of the Leeds-Bradford Larger Urban Zone (LUZ), which, with a population of 2,393,300, is the fourth largest in the United Kingdom after London, Birmingham and Manchester.
Worth Valley is a ward in the City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council, West Yorkshire. The population of the ward taken at the 2011 Census was 14,387. It is named after the River Worth that runs through the valley to the town of Keighley where it joins the River Aire. In the north it is bounded by North Yorkshire, in the west by Lancashire and in the south by Calderdale District.
The Ilkley Literature Festival is a literature festival held annually in Ilkley, Yorkshire. Inaugurated in 1973 by the poet W. H. Auden and until 1988 held every two years, the festival is the oldest and largest of its type in the north of England.
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Bradford is a city in West Yorkshire, England. It became a municipal borough in 1847, received a city charter in 1897 and, since the 1974 reform, the city status has belonged to the larger City of Bradford metropolitan borough. It had a population of 349,561 at the 2011 census; the second-largest subdivision of the West Yorkshire Built-up Area after Leeds, which is approximately 9 miles (14 km) to the east. The borough had a population of 546,976, making it the 9th most populous district in England.
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Penistone Hill Country Park is an open space of moorland that is located to 0.31 miles (0.5 km) west of Haworth and 0.62 miles (1 km) north-west of Oxenhope in West Yorkshire, England. The park's highest point is detailed with a trig point which is 1,030 feet (310 m) above sea level. Since 1994, the park has been notified as being an SSSI as part of the South Pennine Moors.
Ovenden Moor Wind Farm is a wind powered electricity generating site in England. Ovenden Moor is located north of Halifax and west of Bradford in West Yorkshire. The site was opened in 1993 with 23 turbines, but these were later removed in favour of larger turbines but with 14 fewer towers. This updated the output of the site from 9.2 MW to 22.5 MW with an expected generation lifetime of 25 years. As the turbines can be seen from some distance and the fact that they overlook the Brontë Country to the north, they have the subject of continued criticism and objections.
Northcliffe Park is a 35-hectare (86-acre) area in Shipley, West Yorkshire, England, set aside for allotments, parkland and woodland. The park and playing fields were donated by Sir Norman Rae in 1920 and the playing fields are known as the Norman Rae fields, but are part of the park itself. The park adjoins the town of Shipley to its eastern and northern sides, and Heaton to the south, with Northcliffe Golf Club also bordering the park on the western side. Bradford Model Engineering Society have two demonstration and ride-on lines within the park which are open to public in the summer.
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Syima Aslam Hon. FRSL is the CEO, Artistic Director and Founder of the Bradford Literature Festival.
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