by Gudrun Bowers | 2, May 2019
Sunday 23rd June at 10.30am. Meet at Chanctonbury Ring Car Park.
Join anthropologist and presenter Mary-Ann Ochota for a 2 hour guided circular walk around Chanctonbury Ring. Mary-Ann will share her knowledge of the man-made landscape features we encounter along the way, and will tell us about all the particular features unique to this fascinating Weald & Downland area, which has a wealth of history.
2 hour walk, not suitable for push-chairs or wheel-chairs. Sensible footwear and clothing advised. The route will follow public footpaths and may include some fairly steep ascents. Well-behaved dogs on leads are welcome. Start and end point will be the Chanctonbury Ring car park, opposite the Wiston turning on the A283.
by Gudrun Bowers | 2, May 2019
Saturday 22nd June, 3pm, The Gluck Studio. Talk with slideshow. Free tea & cake!
Join anthropologist, TV presenter and writer Mary-Ann Ochota on a journey through Britain’s historic landscape.
Mary-Ann’s brilliant and essential book Hidden Histories; a Spotter’s Guide to the British Landscape is a real favourite at The Steyning Bookshop, and now we are lucky enough to have Mary-Ann in person to bring it all to life, with a fantastic talk and slideshow on Saturday, and a guided walk on Sunday!
What clues will tell you the origins of a village, or the age of a hedgerow? Why was this avenue of trees planted? How to tell a barrow from a mound? What, exactly is a tumulus and how can I spot one? Join Mary-Ann to find out all this, and more, as she shares the secrets of our countryside and helps us to identify the human activities that have shaped our green and pleasant land.
“This book is perfect for anyone who’s travelled through the countryside, scratched their head, and thought, ‘what on earth is that thing?’”
Tony Robinson
Mary-Ann Ochota’s TV presenting credits include Mystic Britain, Britain Afloat: Boats that made Britain (BBC2), Raised Wild/Feral Children (Discovery Networks), Britain’s Secret Treasures, Britain’s Secret Homes (ITV1), and Time Team (Channel 4). She is a presenter for BBC radio’s anthropology series, The Why Factor and a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4’s From Our Own Correspondent. Mary-Ann gained her MA in Anthropology from Emmanuel College, Cambridge and is a fellow of the Royal Geographic Society.
Tickets for Mary-Ann’s talk are £6, to include tea & home-made cake, and her book ‘Hidden Histories’ will be on sale at the Gluck Studio event.
For the more active, Mary is also leading a guided walk on Sunday, and we have a double deal with tickets for talk AND walk being only £15. (£3 saving)
by Gudrun Bowers | 2, May 2019
Saturday 22nd June, 10.30am. The Steyning Bookshop (kitchen or garden marquee)
Popular illustrator of the classic picture book Giraffes Can’t Dance, the lovely Guy Parker-Rees, will be stopping by the bookshop on the morning of Saturday 22nd June to entertain children with drawing, dancing and general hilarity!
Guy’s joyous and exuberant picture book Giraffes Can’t Dance will celebrate 20 years of being in print this June! To celebrate, Hachette have released a snazzy gold-covered edition, and after his session with the children has ended Guy will create a marvellous window display in our children’s window! Feel free to hang around to watch him at work!
Tickets are £4 for children but if you buy one of Guy’s books to get signed you’ll get £4 off the book – so really they are free! Guy has illustrated LOADS of brilliant picture books so plenty to choose from!
Age guide: 3-7 year olds will enjoy this event the most.
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by Gudrun Bowers | 29, Apr 2019
Friday 21st June, 7pm at Wiston House.
Join acclaimed theoretical physicist, author and broadcaster Jim Al-Khalili as he discusses his thrilling debut sci-fi novel Sunfall.
Set in a near-future of dazzling technologies and drawing on cutting-edge science, ‘Sunfall’ is a pacy and of course, brilliantly researched and seemingly plausible sci-fi thriller which explores what might happen if the magnetic field that protects life on Earth from deadly radiation from space was to fail.
Jim al-Khalili is a British theoretical physicist, author and broadcaster. He is Professor of Theoretical Physics and Chair in the Public Engagement in Science at the University of Surrey. He is a regular broadcaster and presenter of science programmes on radio and television, including BBC Radio 4’s ‘The Life Scientific’, and has published numerous books on physics, including Black Holes, Wormholes and Time Machines, Nucleus: A Trip into the Heart of Matter, Quantum: A Guide for the Perplexed, The House of Wisdom: How Arabic Science Saved Ancient Knowledge and Gave Us the Renaissance, and Paradox: The Nine Greatest Enigmas in Science. Sunfall is his first novel.
Jim will discuss his novel, its scientific inspiration, and his fascinating life in science with Richard Burge, former Director of Wilton Park.
This event is kindly supported by Wilton Park.
£25 including a Prosecco Reception and a complimentary copy of Sunfall in hardback.
Tickets on sale now!
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by Gudrun Bowers | 29, Apr 2019
Thursday 20th June, 7.30pm Gluck Studio.
Steyning Bookshop presents Justin Hopper & Sharron Kraus performing their new album Chanctonbury Rings live at the Gluck Studio. Through spoken word and music, the piece tells of uncanny encounters with the mist-shrouded Sussex landmark. It is based on American writer Hopper’s book The Old Weird Albion, and in particular his childhood visits to Steyning, with new music composed by psych-folk artist Sharron Kraus, which she performs live on synths, strings, woodwinds and more.
This performance marks the world debut of the Chanctonbury Rings album. An early version, performed here in 2018, marked the album’s beginning. Now Hopper and Kraus come full circle, returning to launch vinyl and CD through Ghost Box Records.
The duo will perform Chanctonbury Rings in full, along with a short set of songs by Sharron Kraus.
Copies of the album and of Justin’s book The Old Weird Albion will be on sale. There will be a licensed bar selling beers, wine and soft drinks.
Tickets are £8 available via the Steyning Bookshop and direct from Ticketsource here.
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by Gudrun Bowers | 29, Apr 2019
Wednesday 19th June, 7.30pm. Steyning Centre, Saxon Room
At the age of eight, Iranian-born novelist Dina Nayeri fled Iran along with her mother and brother. Eventually she was granted asylum in America, where she made her way to Princeton.
Nayeri will be discussing the refugee experience, and its public and political perception, which is the subject of her powerful new book The Ungrateful Refugee. Weaving her own moving story with the accounts of other refugees, bringing us inside their daily lives and taking us through the different stages of their journeys, this book should be compulsory reading for all policy-makers!
Among the vivid stories in the book we see a couple fall in love over the phone, women gathering to prepare noodles that remind them of home, a closeted queer man trying to make his case truthfully as he seeks asylum, and a translator attempting to help new arrivals present their stories to officials.
Here are the real human stories of what it is like to be forced to flee your home, and to journey across borders in the hope of starting afresh.
“Dina Nayeri has written a vital book for our times. The Ungrateful Refugee gives voice to those whose stories are too often lost or suppressed. Braiding memoir, reportage and essayism, Nayeri allows those fortunate enough never to have been stateless or displaced to glimpse something of the hardships and subtleties of refugee experience. Written with compassion, tenderness and a burning anger, her book appears at the end of a decade in which division and dislocation have risen to a terrible pitch. It speaks powerfully from – and to – the heart. Please read it.”
—Robert Macfarlane, Underland, Landmarks
Dina Nayeri’s debut novel, A Teaspoon of Earth and Sea (2013) was translated into 14 languages. Her second novel, Refuge (2017) was a New York Times editor’s choice. She holds a BA from Princeton, and an MBA from Harvard. Her article The Ungrateful Refugee: ‘We have no debt to repay’ in The Guardian has exceeded 80k shares.
Tickets are £10 to include a £5 voucher towards book purchase.
Tickets available from The Steyning Bookshop on 01903 812062 or direct from Ticketsource.
A licensed bar will serve wine, beer and soft drinks.
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by Gudrun Bowers | 29, Apr 2019
Tuesday 18th June at 7.30pm. The Gluck Studio
‘An extraordinary travelogue, strange and brilliant’
In 2013 Guy Stagg made a pilgrimage from Canterbury to Jerusalem. Though a non-believer, he began the journey after suffering several years of mental illness, hoping the ritual would heal him. For ten months he hiked alone on ancient paths, crossing ten countries and more than 5,500 kilometres.
The Crossway is Guy’s account of this extraordinary adventure. Having left home on New Year’s Day, Stagg climbed over the Alps in midwinter, spent Easter in Rome with a new pope, joined mass protests in Istanbul and survived a terrorist attack in Lebanon. Travelling without support, he had to rely each night on the generosity of strangers, staying with monks and nuns, priests and families.
As a result, he gained a unique insight into the lives of contemporary believers and learnt the fascinating stories of the soldiers and saints, missionaries and martyrs who had followed these paths before him. The Crossway is a book full of wonders, mixing travel and memoir, history and current affairs. At once intimate and epic, it charts the author’s struggle to walk towards recovery, and asks whether religion can still have meaning for those without faith.
We are really looking forward to hearing Guy Stagg discussing his journey, with photographic slides.
‘Beautifully written, filled with strange encounters and extraordinary language, The Crossway is a meditation, an escape, a confrontation, a losing and a finding. It is a timely antidote to our disconnected times.‘ Philip Hoare, author of Leviathan.
A signed paperback copy of The Crossway is included in the ticket price of £12.
Tickets are available via Ticketsource or direct from The Steyning Bookshop on 01903 812062.
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by Gudrun Bowers | 29, Apr 2019
Tuesday 18th June, 2-4pm. The Gluck Studio
Novelist and creative writing coach Beth Miller will lead aspiring writers in a 2 hour workshop focussing on story and character development.
With lashings of tea and home-made cake to keep the creative juices flowing!
Beth Miller has published 5 books – 3 novels; The Good Neighbour, When We Were Sisters, and The Two Hearts of Eliza Bloom, and 2 non fiction books; For the Love of the Archers and For the Love of Shakespeare. She also teaches on the Creative Writing Programme based at New Writing South, and works as a ‘book coach’, helping writers at all stages of their careers in one-on-one sessions.
“Beth helped me find the confidence and clarity in my writing to spur me on to complete my novel.” Martin Nathan, author of the novel A Place of Safety, published by Salt, June 2018.
Places on the workshop are limited to 15 participants, so do book early to avoid disappointment! Book here with Ticketsource or by phone / in person at The Steyning Bookshop.
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by Gudrun Bowers | 29, Apr 2019
Monday 17th June at 7.30pm. The Gluck Studio.
Author Lucy Foley will discuss her latest novel The Hunting Party, a fiendishly twisty murder mystery set in a remote Scottish hunting lodge. Bringing all of the appeal of an Agatha Christie-style house-party whodunit to a thoroughly modern thriller, it is a riveting read which will keep you turning the pages long after lights out!
A group of thirty-something friends from Oxford meet to welcome in the New Year together, a tradition they began as students ten years ago. For this vacation, they’ve chosen an idyllic and isolated estate in the Scottish Highlands – the perfect place to get away and unwind by themselves. They arrive on December 30th, just before a historic blizzard seals the lodge off from the outside world. Two days later, on New Year’s Day, one of them is dead…..
Lucy Foley studied English Literature at Durham and UCL universities and worked for several years as a fiction editor in the publishing industry, before leaving to write full-time. The Hunting Party is her debut crime novel, inspired by a particularly remote spot in Scotland that fired her imagination. Lucy is also the author of three historical novels; The Book of Lost and Found, The Invitation, and Last Letter from Istanbul. Her journalism has appeared in ES Magazine, Sunday Times Style, Grazia and more.
‘Chilling. You won’t sleep.’ – Adele Parks
`Foley builds the tension cleverly and creepily, underlining the point that old friends aren’t always the best’ – The Observer
Tickets available at The Steyning Bookshop or online via Ticketsource.
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by Gudrun Bowers | 25, Apr 2019
Nick Sharratt’s Big Draw-Along.
Sunday 16th June. Doors open at 10.30 for bacon butties and coffee. Big Draw-along starts at 11am.
After the fabulous fun we had at last year’s Steyning Festival event, our favourite illustrator / writer, Nick Sharratt, is back for a Fantastic Father’s Day Family-Friendly-Fun-Filled hour of drawing.
Bring your favourite pens. Paper will be provided.
Free coffee and bacon butties for dads!
Adults £7 Children £5.
Tickets are available from the Steyning Bookshop or online this link to Ticketsource
