Not beyond the realms of science fiction
Univerity's Dr Sarah Falcus (l) with Huddersfield-based author Joanne Harris
Mon, 07 Nov 2016 16:02:00 GMT
Scifest Yorkshire welcomes leading authors Joanne Harris and Ken MacLeod
A SCIENCE-FICTION festival for all ages went with a bang after it took place at the University of Huddersfield.
SciFest Yorkshire was co-organised between the University’s Department of Music, Humanities and Media, Kirklees Libraries and Tolson Memorial Museum with sponsored events from Huddersfield Literature Festival and was well attended by children, parents, students and science fiction enthusiasts. The event was part of the University’s Sound.Vision.Place series.
Highlights of the event included talks from award-winning authors Joanne Harris, author of the massively successful novel Chocolat and the mythologically-inspired Rune series and the Arthur C Clarke nominated science-fiction novelist, Ken MacLeod.
Joanne Harris (pictured left) captured her audience with a humorous talk about sci-fi genre, writing and her earlier career as a writer/teacher. The author entertained with anecdotes from her life as an author, including her shock when the film-makers originally wanted to set Chocolat in America to meeting eventual star Juliette Binoche, who put herself forward for the part.
Joanne Harris explained to the audience her attraction towards mythology, the fantastic and the gothic and why she decided to take the route of tweeting stories sentence by sentence to her thirty-three thousand followers on twitter.
Ken MacLeod (pictured right) who has been quoted as being ‘Scotland’s leading science fiction writer’ gave two talks in a joint event with the Huddersfield Literature Festival. The first was in the University’s Heritage Quay where he offered tips on becoming a science fiction writer.
◄ Speaker Dr Will Tattersdill
His second was entitled ‘The science in science fiction - does it matter?’ and took place in Huddersfield’s Town Hall. He entertained the audience with his thoughts about everything from Hollywood science fiction and its mis-use of physics to the current trend for mainstream literary writers to pen science fiction. A sold-out book signing also took place.
Dr Sarah Falcus is a Senior Lecturer in English and helped to organise the event. “This year SciFest Yorkshire welcomed a wide range of people, from science fiction fans to young creative writers,” said Dr Falcus.
“Alison Lock, author of Maysun and the Wingfish, did a fantastic workshop with children at Birkby Fartown Library, where she showed them how to construct their own fictional worlds. And storyteller Tim Ralph made us all gaze with renewed wonder at the stars in his events at Lindley Library and Tolson Memorial Museum” she added.
Other events throughout the week included family films, seminars, a talk by the University of Birmingham’s Dr Will Tattersdill on late-Victorian science fiction and a sold-out Radiophonic Workshop where attendees made their very own spooky 1960s-inspired sound effects.
