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Events

Self-Publishing Crash Course

Learn the top tips for self-publishing in this talk by bestselling local author and publisher of Curious Cat Books, Rachael Hardcastle. Rachael will share invaluable, no-nonsense, honest advice to inspire you to write and journal your way to complete a memoir, a poem, or even a full-length novel. She will share her experience about how to use print-on-demand technology to write, edit and design your book – and how to utilise Amazon to reach potential readers all over the world.  

Rachael Hardcastle is an Amazon international #1 bestselling author. She writes mostly fantasy and adventure books for young adults and teens – her stories are fun, fast-paced and addictive. Rachael understands that through writing, we face our darkest fears, explore infinite new worlds and realise our true purpose. Creative writing helps us to understand what that purpose is. Since starting her self-publishing experience in 2010, Rachael has worked with many individuals to help make their dreams of publishing a book a reality, including school children! Her imprint, Curious Cat Books, has been responsible for producing gorgeous children’s books, memoirs and more since 2017. 

https://www.rachaelhardcastle.com/ 

Access and Covid safety measures: if you have specific access needs or queries and/or prefer to be seated away from other audience members as a Covid safety measure, please contact our Admin at: [email protected] with your request.  

Date: Sunday 11 May 

Time: 3pm-5pm 

Location: Cellar, Lawrence Batley Theatre, Queen Street, Huddersfield HD1 2SP 

Tickets: £9 (£7 conc), free for University of Huddersfield staff and students & essential carers 

Early Bird tickets have now ended

Age guidance: 16+ 

Access Guide: https://www.accessable.co.uk/huddersfield-literature-festival/access-guides/syngenta-cellar 

For further information on concession and essential carer tickets please visit our FAQ’s page.

 

Book tickets

Please note: When purchasing tickets please download the Eventbrite ‘app’ or ‘create an Eventbrite account’. This will facilitate quicker access to your tickets.

Workshop: Writing Setting with Okechukwu Nzelu

THIS EVENT HAS NOW SOLD OUT.

A chance to take part in a fiction workshop taught by award-winning novelist and creative writing tutor Okechukwu Nzelu.   

Setting can be one of the most crucial parts of fiction: it’s how your characters experience the world, and it can help make that world more convincing. But how can writers portray setting powerfully? Which aspects of it are most important? How do we convey the complexity of a whole world, without boring or alienating our readers?   

In this workshop, we’ll use discussions, writing prompts and extracts from published work to explore all these questions, and help you develop the portrayal of setting in your own writing.   

Dr Okechukwu Nzelu FRSL won a Northern Writers’ Award from New Writing North in 2015. His debut novel, The Private Joys of Nnenna Maloney (Dialogue Books, 2019), won a Betty Trask Award; it was also shortlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize and the Polari First Book Prize, and longlisted for the Portico Prize. In 2021, it was selected for the Kingston University Big Read and distributed to all staff and students at three universities. His second novel, Here Again Now (Dialogue Books, 2022) was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature Encore Award, the Polari Prize, the Jhalak Prize and the Diverse Book Awards.  

He has made several appearances on national radio, and is a regular contributor to Kinfolk magazine. He is a non-executive director of ALCS and CLA, and Lecturer in Creative Writing at Lancaster University. In 2024 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. 

Access and Covid safety measures: if you have specific access needs or queries and/or prefer to be seated away from other audience members as a Covid safety measure, please contact our Admin at: [email protected] with your request.  

Date: Saturday 10 May 

Time: 2pm-4pm 

Location: TEN, Lawrence Batley Theatre, Queen Street HD1 2SP 

Tickets: £15 (£10 conc); Free for essential carers accompanying a paying ticket holder.

Early Bird Tickets have now ended.

For further information on concession and essential carer tickets please visit our FAQ’s page.

Age Guidance: 16+ 

Access Guide: https://www.accessable.co.uk/huddersfield-literature-festival/access-guides/lawrence-batley-theatre 

THIS EVENT HAS NOW SOLD OUT

Book tickets

Please note: When purchasing tickets please download the Eventbrite ‘app’ or ‘create an Eventbrite account’. This will facilitate quicker access to your tickets.