Kendal Mountain Literature Festival 2019

PRESENTED AS PART OF KENDAL MOUNTAIN FESTIVAL 14 – 17 NOVEMBER 2019

EXPLORING CREATIVITY AND CONNECTION IN LANDSCAPE, NATURE, PEOPLE AND PLACE

PRESENTING PARTNER

MAJOR PARTNERS

SUPPORTING PARTNERS

www.kendalmountainfestival.com

WELCOME TO KENDAL MOUNTAIN LITERATURE FESTIVAL 2019

PRESENTED BY

FJÄLLRÄVEN

This year’s Festival theme is centred around ‘openness’. Openness ensures freedom and creativity; the mainstays of mountain culture. It is both a call to action to the outdoor community and a commitment from our programming team to challenge the status quo and broaden the people, places, experiences and ideas represented on stage.

Our Literature Festival Director Paul Scully says, “Our Festival is a place where we can reflect on our relationships with nature, landscape, society and to each other. A space where people are challenged to be receptive to different ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving. We hope you are able to join us, no matter who you are, in this wonderful community of ideas, words and wanderings.”

This year we have a packed programme of writers, poets, historians, dancers and even an opera singer! Hear from those who have kayaked the Atlantic coast, travelled to remote outposts around the world, walked the height of Everest in England and battled to save precious environments. We are also proud to have launched ‘Open Mountain’ – a new voice in mountain and outdoor literature. After an open call for submissions this summer our judges selected five selected pieces of written work which will be performed at this session followed by a discussion with people under-represented in the outdoors.

We’re also delighted to once again have further expanded our Children’s Literature programme –explore the authors and their wonderful books on page 42-43.

Let us also take this opportunity to thank our patron, Robert Macfarlane for his unwavering support and our presenting partner Fjällräven, plus our support partners and funders; who share our vision of creativity, imagination and inspiration.

Image: ‘Murmuration’ by Rowena Dugdale

A WORD FROM OUR PATRON

ROBERT MACFARLANE

“My eyes were closed, and now they are open”, remarks Nan Shepherd in The Living Mountain (1977), one of the defining works of twentiethcentury nature writing. Shepherd was describing the experience of waking high in the Cairngorms after a night’s sleep; she was also, of course, referring to the power of the living world to open our eyes more broadly. Mountains, forests, rivers, a patch of edgeland where life flourishes; all can prompt new ways of seeing, belonging and relating, all can cause deep shifts in the heart’s sense of itself.

To be open to the world is an ethical – even a political – stance, as well as an aesthetic one. At a time when borders are being reinforced, positions hardened, prejudices deepened, when walls are literally being built between communities and nation-states, openness becomes vital. To be open means to welcome difference and change, to fight for equality and generosity and to fight against barriers and enclosures; to walk wide-eyed with wonder through this beautiful, vulnerable planet of ours. These are some of the qualities celebrated by this year’s rich and diverse programme. Now, more than ever, we must keep our minds and our mountains open.”

THE LITERATURE FESTIVAL TEAM

PAUL SCULLY

Literature Festival Director

Twenty years ago on the banks of the River Frome, Paul spent the morning swimming with, and listening to, the great Roger Deakin talk about his book - Waterlog. It began a passionate journey exploring nature writing, landscape, interconnection and place. He hopes audiences will be inspired and will ask themselves about their own connection to nature.

HENRY IDDON

Arts and Culture Officer

A bookshelf of adventure books in Henry’s home sparked a curiosity for mountain and adventure travel that has seen him ski, climb, cycle and hike around the world. His photographic practice reflects a curiosity to find new ways to explore the mountain world visually. Henry introduces a broad range of writers and topics to the Literature Festival, from road cycling to mountain arts.

CLAIRE CARTER

Artistic Director

Claire discovered climbing whilst on the UEA Creative Writing MA, and this sparked her excitement for the challenge of communicating kinaesthetic experience in wilderness. Claire has experimented with artistic collaboration and film as well as words, and so is thrilled to help build the Literature Festival as a multi-medium platform, which imagines and reimagines our relationship with place.

PLAN YOUR WEEKEND!

Pete Whittaker Crack Climbing

13:30 – 15:00

Richard King The Lark Ascending

13:30 – 15:00

Julian Hoffman

Irreplaceable

15:30 – 17:00

Open Mountain

17:30 – 19:00

David Smart

Paul Preuss

15:30 – 17:00

Michael Gill

Edmund Hillary

17:30 – 19:00

Mike Berners-Lee

There Is No Planet B

19:30 – 21:00

KENDAL LIBRARY

Wainwright’s Mountain Guides

13:45 –14:45

CHILDREN’S LITERATURE Jasbinder Bilan

Asha & The Spirit Bird

13:45 –14:45

KENDAL LIBRARY

Wainwright’s Mountain Guides

15:00 –16:00

CHILDREN’S LITERATURE

Alex Stewart

Everest

15:30 –16:30

Tony Howard

Quest Into The Unknown

19:30 – 21:00

SHAKESPEARE CENTRE

Peter Van Hulle Mountain & Music

19:00 – 20:30

KENDAL LIBRARY

Spoken Word & A Pint

19:00 – 21:00

CHILDREN’S LITERATURE Lily Dyu

Fantastic Female Adventurers 17:00 –18:00

Charlie Gere

I Hate The Lake District

10:30 – 12:00

Hanna Tuullikki

12:30 – 14:00

Simon Grennan

Catrina Davies

Homesick

10:30 – 12:00

SHAKESPEARE CENTRE A Celebration of Ruskin

09:30 – 11:00

BREWERY ARTS CENTRE STUDIO

Gary Gibson Blood, Sweat & Smears

09:30 – 11:00

Marie Duval’s Mountaineering Bustle

12:30 – 14:00

Peter Fiennes Footnotes

14:30 – 16:00

David Gange

The Frayed Atlantic Edge

16:30 – 18:00

Dan Richards Outpost

14:30 – 16:00

KENDAL TOWN HALL

Dierdre Wolownick

The Sharp End Of Life

14:30 – 16:00

BREWERY ARTS CENTRE STUDIO

Cumbria Youth Dance Tethera

14:15 – 15:45

CHILDREN’S LITERATURE

Justin Anderson Snow Leopard

12:30 –13:30

CHILDREN’S LITERATURE Danny Rurlander Skylark

14:00 –15:00

Robert Mihinnick

Diary Of The Last Man

16:30 – 18:00

ALEXANDRA STEWART Children’s Literature p43

ALEX STANIFORTH Another Peak p13

CMARIE FUHRMAN Open Mountain p24

AMANDA THOMSON The Willowherb Review p12

ANGE HARKER Open Mountain p24

DAN RICHARDS Outpost p38

DANNY RURLANDER Children’s Literature p43

CUMBRIAN YOUTH DANCE Tethera p36

CLAUDINE TOUTOUNGI Open Mountain p24

LUKE TURNER Out Of The Woods p15

POLLY ATKIN Open Mountain p24

PETE WHITTAKER Crack Climbing p20

RICHARD KING The Lark Ascending p21

RACHAEL KIDD Sugar Store Gallery p46

GERALDINE GREEN Further Than It Looks p19

GARY GIBSON Blood, Sweat & Smears p31

JASBINDER BILAN Children’s Literature p42

HANNA TUULIKKI p34

JAY G YING The Willowherb Review p12

LILY DYU Children’s Literature p43

MARTIN DOREY Children’s Literature p43

ANITA SETHI Open Mountain p24

MAX LEONARD Rough Stuff Fellowship p17

KATE DAVIS Open Mountain p24

PETER VAN HULLE Mountain & Music p29

ZAKIYA MCKENZIE Writers in the Woods p8

FAYE LATHAM Spoken Word & A Pint p27

BEN TIBBETTS Alpenglow p14

MICHAEL GILL Edmund Hillary p25

CATRINA DAVIES Homesick p33

JULIAN HOFFMAN Irreplaceable p22

TONY HOWARD Quest Into The Unknown p28

JUSTIN ANDERSON Children’s Literature p43

DAVID GANGE The Frayed Atlantic Edge p40

DAVID SMART Paul Preuss p23

CHARLIE GERE I Hate The Lake District p32

TEDDY KEEN Children’s Literature p42

ASIM KHAN Open Mountain p24

JESSICA J LEE The Willowherb Review p12

JOY HOWARD Further Than It Looks p19

MICK FOWLER Boardman Tasker p10

MIKE BERNERS-LEE There Is No Planet B p26

TIFFANY FRANCIS-BAKER Writers in the Woods p8

ROBERT MIHINNICK Diary Of The Last Man p41

DIERDRE WOLOWNICK The Sharp End Of Life p39

EMILY CHAPPELL Where There’s A Will p18

KAREN LLOYD Spoken Word & A Pint p27

PETER FIENNES Footnotes p37

PETER OWEN JONES Everest England p16

BEATRICE STANLEY Spoken Word & A Pint p27

WRITERS IN THE FOREST TIFFANY FRANCIS-BAKER AND ZAKIYA MCKENZIE

7.30 – 9.30pm | Thursday 14 November

Brewery Arts Centre Malt Room | Tickets £10

From Wordsworth to J.K Rowling, England’s forests have inspired and shaped the nation’s literary history for centuries.

As part of its centenary this year, the Forestry Commission launched a new writers’ residency to diversify voices found in nature writing.

During 2019, writers Tiffany Francis-Baker and Zakiya Mckenzie spent time exploring the nation’s forests and meeting the people looking after these majestic landscapes. Join Tiffany and Zakiya on a journey into England’s woodlands, hearing excerpts of their work and exploring where nature writing could go next.

Zakiya McKenzie is a writer, radio producer and presenter, currently researching a PhD in literature on the different genres and personae Caribbean writers took on when writing in the UK from 1940s to 1980s. She has written for a number of publications and has been involved in initiatives to improve sustainability, wellbeing and innovation in Bristol.

Tiffany Francis-Baker is a freelance writer, author and artist specialising in nature, landscape and ethical living. Her first book, Food You Can Forage, was published in 2018, and she has recently published her latest book Dark Skies. She has written and illustrated for national publications including the Guardian, the Countryman and Small Woods.

Tiffany Francis-Baker

Zakiya McKenzie

THE BOARDMAN TASKER AWARD FOR MOUNTAIN LITERATURE

THE BT SHORTLISTED AUTHORS EVENT

1 – 5.45pm | Friday 15 November

The Malt Room, Brewery Arts Centre | Tickets £12.50

Established in 1983 to commemorate the lives of Peter Boardman and Joe Tasker, the Boardman Tasker Charitable Trust celebrates their legacy by presenting the annual Award for Mountain Literature, presented to the author of an original work, which has made an outstanding contribution to mountain literature. Who will be the 36th winner of the coveted Boardman Tasker Award?

The shortlisted books are No Easy Way by Mick Fowler, Lands Of Lost Borders by Kate Harris, Inner Ranges by Geoff Powter, Paul Preuss by David Smart, Hangdog Days by Jeff Smoot, The Equilibrium Line by David Wilson.

The confirmed authors attending are Mick Fowler, Geoff Powter, David Smart, Jeff Smoot and David Wilson.

The Boardman Tasker Shortlisted Authors Event afternoon is hosted by Stephen Venables. Stephen will chat with shortlisted authors and will include readings from the authors. This will be followed by the Chair of Judges announcing the 2019 winner.

This year there were 38 books submitted from eight different countries and the 2019 judges are novelist Roger Hubank (chair), editor-in-chief of Alpinist Katie Ives and climber & bibliophile Tony Shaw, all of whom will be present.

Peter Boardman and Joe Tasker Image © Vertebrate Publishing

THE SHORTLIST

Mick Fowler

No Easy Way

Mick Fowler is the master of the small Himalayan expedition. He has been at the forefront of this approach for thirty years, balancing family life, work and annual trips to the greater ranges.

Kate Harris

Lands of Lost Borders

The chronicle of Harris’ odyssey on the fabled Silk Road and an exploration of the importance of breaking the boundaries we set ourselves; a meditation on the essential longing to soar completely out of bounds.

Geoff Powter

Inner Ranges

This collection includes provocative editorial and opinion work about the state of adventure, personal tales from a life of exploration and risktaking, and award-winning profiles of mountaineering greats.

David Smart

Paul Preuss

An intriguing biography of renowned Austrian alpinist Paul Preuss, who achieved international recognition for his remarkable solo ascents and for his advocacy of an ethically ‘pure’ alpinism.

Jeff Smoot

Hangdog Days

In his lively, fast-paced history enriched with insightful firsthand experience, Jeff Smoot vividly chronicles the characters and events of the raucous, revolutionary late ‘70s and ‘80s in rock climbing.

David Wilson

The Equilibrium Line

From bouldering on Yorkshire grit and traditional climbs in Derbyshire and Wales to ice climbs on Ben Nevis, the Alps and further afield these poems explore risk, falling and finding balance – on rock, ice, and other places in our lives.

THE WILLOWHERB REVIEW

JESSICA J LEE, AMANDA THOMSON & JAY G YING

6.30 – 8.00pm | Friday 15 November

Brewery Arts Centre Malt Room | Tickets £10

The Willowherb Review is a ground-breaking new literary journal dedicated to diversity in nature writing, publishing emerging and established writers of colour who take as their themes place, environment, and nature. We are delighted to welcome the editor Jessica J Lee, and contributors Amanda Thomson and Jay G Ying to showcase the exciting work from Willowherb.

Jessica J. Lee is a British-Canadian-Taiwanese author, environmental historian, and winner of the RBC Taylor Prize Emerging Author Award. She received a doctorate in environmental history and aesthetics in 2016, and her first book, Turning, was published in 2017. Jessica is the founding editor of The Willowherb Review.

Amanda Thomson is a visual artist and writer who teaches at the Glasgow School of Art. A lot of her work – in art and writing – explores how we are located (and locate ourselves) in the world, nature, flora and fauna, and is often rooted in the highlands of Scotland. Her first book, A Scots Dictionary of Nature, was published by Saraband Books in 2018.

Jay G Ying is a poet, fiction writer, reviewer and translator based in Edinburgh. His work can be found in The White Review, The Poetry Review, Ambit, The Scores among others. He is a winner of the 2019 New Poet’s Prize, and was shortlisted twice for the Desperate Literature Short Fiction Prize. His first poetry pamphlet, Wedding Beasts, is forthcoming from Bitter Melon.

ANOTHER PEAK ALEX STANIFORTH

7 – 8.30pm | Friday 15 November

Abbot Hall Social Centre | Tickets £10

Reaching Everest was always the dream, but after an avalanche stopped Alex the first time and an earthquake the second, he had to take a step back. But even as he climbed down, he couldn’t stop wondering ‘What’s next?’

A restlessness in his bones, and a need to help make things better after the lives claimed in his two climbs, led Alex to his hardest mission yet: ClimbTheUK; to cycle to the highest points of the United Kingdom.

But a history of anxiety, depression, and eating disorders rears its multiple heads once more, making this the hardest thing Alex has ever had to do. Finding himself alone too often, with only his thoughts for company, it becomes less of a fight of man and nature and more of man and mind.

Alex joins us to share his second book Another Peak recalling this inspirational and compelling journey, exploring the peaks and troughs of mental health through the outdoors.

“A REMARKABLE STORY TOLD WITH GRIT AND HONESTY”

MARK BEAUMONT

ALPENGLOW BEN TIBBETTS

7 – 8.30pm | Friday 15 November

Shakespeare Centre | Tickets £10

Join photographer Ben Tibbetts as he shares photographs, drawings and stories from the highest peaks of the European Alps. After nearly a decade of climbing to reach all 82 alpine summits over 4000m, Ben Tibbetts describes his journey on each ascent through a series of stirring adventures, into which are woven stories from the historical climbs.

Ben works as an adventure photographer, artist and as an international certified (IFMGA) mountain guide. He has been climbing in the Alps for nearly two decades.

He says, “I set out on this project not only to climb all the highest peaks of the Alps but to produce the most beautiful and fascinating book ever made about these mountains. I wanted to make something that redefined the genre, a book that is as full of stories as it is of art, a book of information and inspiration.” The event will be presented by climber Rob Greenwood.

“THE PHOTOGRAPHS ARE SUMPTUOUS, INSPIRATIONAL, UNIQUE... THE HISTORICAL RESEARCH METICULOUS, THE DRAWINGS BEAUTIFUL AND THE TEXTS CAPTURE THE ESSENTIAL CHARACTER OF EACH ROUTE”

VICTOR SAUNDERS AUTHOR, MOUNTAINEER & IFMGA MOUNTAIN GUIDE

© Ben Tibbetts

OUT OF THE WOODS LUKE TURNER

9 – 10.30pm | Friday 15 November

Festival Bookshop | Tickets £10

Author Luke Turner joins us to share his new book, Out of the Woods. Turning the nature memoir genre upon its head...it is a honest, haunting and moving memoir about sexuality, shame and the lure of the trees.

After the disintegration of the most significant relationship of his life, the demons Luke has been battling since childhood are quick to return - depression and guilt surrounding his identity as a bisexual man, experiences of sexual abuse, and the religious upbringing that was the cause of so much confusion. It is among the trees of London’s Epping Forest where he seeks refuge. But once a place of comfort, it now seems full of unexpected, elusive threats that trigger twisted reactions.

Shortlisted for the prestigious Wainwright Prize, Out of the Woods is a dazzling, devastating and highly original memoir about the irresistible yet double-edged potency of the forest, and the possibility of learning to find peace in the grey areas of life.

“A BRAVE AND BEAUTIFUL BOOK, ELECTRIFYING ON SEX AND NATURE, RELIGION AND LOVE”

OLIVIA LAING AUTHOR

EVEREST ENGLAND PETER OWEN JONES

9.30 – 11am | Saturday 16 November

Brewery Arts Centre Malt Room | Tickets £10

A unique hill-walking guide with a culminative ascent the height of Everest – 29,000 feet in 12 days.

BBC TV presenter and celebrity vicar Peter Owen Jones joins us to share his own personal ‘Everest’ and to show us how we can embark on our own without leaving England’s green and pleasant land. Ascending hills of varying sizes whose ascents add up to the same height as Mount Everest, countryman Peter guides the reader on a road trip covering hand-picked hill-climbs in different parts of England from Cumbria to Cornwall. This walking journey takes in sacred places found on coastal cliff walks, ancient sites, tors, peaks, mountains and the highest peak in England.

“I WANTED TO SEE WHAT IT WOULD BE LIKE TO GET ABOVE THE PLANE, TO GET SOME PERSPECTIVE ON LIFE, BUT I HAD NO IDEA THAT WHAT WOULD EMERGE IN THE WRITING OF IT WAS KIND OF WHAT LAY DEEP WITHIN ME. IT WASN’T THE BOOK I WAS PLANNING TO WRITE”

PETER OWEN JONES

© Heathcliff O’Malley

THE ROUGH STUFF FELLOWSHIP ARCHIVE MARK HUDSON & MAX LEONARD

9.30 – 11am | Saturday 16 November

Abbot Hall Social Centre | Tickets £10

Founded in 1955, the Rough-Stuff Fellowship is the world’s oldest off-road cycling club. Its archive contains thousands of stunning images and documents – an unexpected treasure trove of incredible value that has recently been published in a book by Isola Press.

The photos are evocative of a bygone style – of a time when you might set off on a bike ride wearing a shirt and tie or a bobble hat, and no ride was complete without a stop to brew up some tea and smoke a pipe. They are also a record of intrepid adventures. RSF riders explored the Lake District, the Cairngorms, the Alps, Iceland, even Everest, and their exploits were beautifully documented. In their own very British way, these men and women were pioneers, pedalling and carrying their bikes where angels feared to tread. This talk from Mark Hudson, Archivist at RSF, and Max Leonard, Publisher at Isola Press celebrates their style and their spirit, showcasing not only an unseen corner of cycling history, but of British outdoor culture.

“THIS WAS BIKEPACKING BEFORE ‘BIKEPACKING’; GRAVEL RIDING BEFORE ‘GRAVEL RIDING’; ADVENTURE CYCLING BEFORE ‘ADVENTURE CYCLING” MARK HUDSON

WHERE THERE’S A WILL EMILY CHAPPELL

11.30 – 1pm | Saturday 16 November

Brewery Arts Centre Malt Room | Tickets £10

Endurance cyclist Emily Chappell shares her new book: a story of transformation from London cycle courier to cross-continental bike racer, testing the limits of resilience and endurance.

Despite seeing herself as distinctly normal, Emily has done remarkable things, including being the first female finisher of the infamous Transcontinental Race in 2016, which spanned the width of Europe. The story of that race, in which she rode nearly 4,000 miles in thirteen days and ten hours, sleeping in short bursts whenever exhaustion took her, is the centrepiece of a narrative of resilience and joy on a bike.

Emily examines the sometime competing natures of comradeship, competition, vulnerability and will in a nuanced, insightful and inspiring tale of endurance and achievement.

A beautifully written book about a normal person finding the capacity to do something extraordinary.

“CHAPPELL IS A GIFTED STORYTELLER” OBSERVER

FURTHER THAN IT LOOKS (BOOK LAUNCH) GREY HEN PRESS

11.30 – 1pm | Saturday 16 November

Abbot Hall Social Centre | Tickets £10

Awesome, immense, at once inviting and threatening, mountains have inspired painters and poets, challenged the adventurous and offered a hard-won living to local people. Here are poems that celebrate their splendour and explore our relationship with them.

Joy Howard’s Grey Hen Press poets; Kerry Darbishire, Kate Davis, Caroline Gilfillan, Geraldine Green and Hilary Tattershall join us to bring this anthology to life!

Grey Hen Press was first set up by Joy Howard in 2007. Grey Hen is a small independent press which publishes poetry by older women, concentrating in the first instance on producing themed anthologies. These showcase the particularity of women’s voices, and give less well-known poets the opportunity of having their work published alongside that of established writers.

CRACK CLIMBING PETE WHITTAKER

1.30 – 3pm | Saturday 16 November

Brewery Arts Centre Malt Room | Tickets £10

Renowned crack climber, author and one half of the ‘Wide Boyz’ Pete Whittaker shares his new guide, The Definitive Guide to Crack Climbing.

Pete is widely regarded as one of the best crack climbers in the world, having made dozens of cutting-edge first ascents and hard repeats, including the first ascent of Century Crack (5.14b) in Canyonlands, Utah. With his many years of experience, Pete joins us to share tips and tricks from the world of crack climbing, as well as his essential guide to gear and equipment.

Pete has interviewed some of the world’s top crack climbers so that you can learn from the best. Gain insights from Lynn Hill, Alex Honnold, Barbara Zangerl, Peter Croft and more.

Master the craft and advance your climbing. It’s time to jam!

The book is not launched until January 2020 – however in this one-off event you will be able to buy Pete’s new book.

“IF EVERYBODY WHO READS THIS BOOK LEARNS JUST ONE THING THAT BENEFITS THEIR CLIMBING, I’LL BE A HAPPY AUTHOR. GET JAMMING!”

PETE WHITTAKER

THE LARK ASCENDING RICHARD KING

1.30 – 3pm | Saturday 16 November

Abbot Hall Social Centre | Tickets £10

Join us to explore a history of Britain’s landscape and the music that it inspires. Through a series of ‘headphone walks’ and reflective interviews with musicians, filmmakers, ruralists and witnesses Richard King explores Britain’s rural landscapes and the compositions inspired by their beauty and drama. His journey takes us from Vaughan Williams and the landscape his generation encountered as they returned after the armistice, through the decades to the New Age Travellers of the 1980s congregating every year at Stonehenge.

His unique and intimate history of a nation celebrates the British countryside as a living, working, and occasionally rancorous environment – rather than an unaffected idyll – that forged a nation’s musical personality and provided a space in which life could be experienced on its own terms and at its fullest, under open skies, far away from the gaze of authority.

“THIS IS A BOOK TO SET YOU THINKING AND MAYBE DON THE HEADPHONES AND THE GORE-TEX, AND STRIDE OUT, MODISH AND UNASHAMED”

STUART MACONIE

IRREPLACEABLE JULIAN HOFFMAN

3.30 – 5pm | Saturday 16 November

Brewery Arts Centre Malt Room | Tickets £10

Join author Julian Hoffman in conversation with Karen Lloyd, for a talk on his latest book, Irreplaceable. All across the world, irreplaceable habitats are under threat. Unique ecosystems of plants and animals are being destroyed by human intervention. From the tiny to the vast, from marshland to meadow, and from Kent to Glasgow to India to America, they are disappearing.

A book about the power of resistance in an age of loss; a testament to the transformative possibilities that emerge when people come together to defend our most special places and wildlife from extinction.

Julian Hoffman traces the stories of threatened places around the globe through the voices of local communities and grassroots campaigners as well as professional ecologists and academics. And in the process, he asks what a deep emotional relationship with place offers us – culturally, socially and psychologically. In this rigorous, intimate and impassioned account, he presents a powerful call to arms in the face of unconscionable natural destruction.

“POWERFUL, TIMELY, BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN AND WONDERFULLY HOPEFUL”

ROB COWEN AUTHOR

© Rowena Dugdale

PAUL PREUSS DAVID SMART

3.30 – 5pm | Saturday 16 November

Abbot Hall Social Centre | Tickets £10

David Smart joins us from Canada to share his biography of the renowned and compelling Austrian alpinist, Paul Preuss. Paul Preuss is considered one of the founders of free climbing, having achieved international recognition for his remarkable solo ascents and for his advocacy of climbing without any artificial aids. In the months before his death in 1913, from falling more than 300 metres during an attempt to make the first free solo ascent of the North Ridge of the Mandlkogel, Preuss’s public presentations on his climbing adventures filled concert halls in Austria, Italy, and Germany.

George Mallory, the famed English mountaineer who died on Mount Everest in 1924, said, ‘no one will ever equal Preuss.’ And Reinhold Messner, the first climber to ascend all fourteen 8000 metre peaks, was so impressed by the young Austrian’s achievements that he built a mountaineering museum around Preuss’s piton hammer, wrote two books (in German) about him and instituted a foundation in Preuss’s name.

“NO-ONE WILL EVER EQUAL PREUSS”

GEORGE MALLORY

OPEN MOUNTAIN: INCLUSION & COLLECTION

POLLY ATKIN, ANITA SETHI AND KATE DAVIS

5.30 – 7pm | Saturday 16 November

Brewery Arts Centre Malt Room | Tickets £10

Open Mountain: Inclusion and Connection is a new voice in mountain and outdoor literature. A panel discussion with performance prose and poetry, our event will showcase people under-represented in the outdoors.

Following our open call for submissions this summer, we will be showcasing 5 selected pieces of written work as selected by our judges: journalist Anita Sethi and poets Polly Atkin and Kate Davis. We have welcomed submissions from low-income and working-class writers, writers from ethnic, cultural and religious minorities, LGBTQ+ writers and disabled writers.

This event aims to raise questions about who is allowed in or shut out of particular places and conversations about those places, and why. We want to change those conversations. The mountain is open to everyone.

We were overwhelmed and deeply impressed by the breadth, range, and quality of work submitted, and wished we could include more of it. We are delighted to invite to the stage: CMarie Fuhrman - co-editor of Native Voices (an anthology of Native American poetry), writer Claudine Toutoungi, poet Asim Khan, walking guide and writer Ange Harker and author Kate Davies.

See page 50 for an exclusive preview of some of the selected writers work and more information on our Open Mountain initiative.

Anita Sethi

Kate Davis

Polly Atkin

© Stuart Holmes

EDMUND HILLARY: A BIOGRAPHY MICHAEL GILL

5.30 – 7pm | Saturday 16 November

Abbot Hall Social Centre | Tickets £10

Michael Gill joins us to share his new biography of an incredible man – Edmund Hillary – the New Zealand beekeeper who climbed Mount Everest.

The author, Michael, was a close friend of Hillary’s for nearly 50 years, accompanying him on many expeditions and becoming heavily involved in Hillary’s aid work building schools and hospitals in the Himalaya. During the writing of this book, Gill was granted access to a large archive of private papers and photos that were deposited in the Auckland museum after Hillary’s death in 2008. Building on this unpublished material, as well as his extensive personal experience, Michael Gill profiles a man whose life was shaped by both triumph and tragedy.

Affectionate, but scrupulously fair, in Edmund Hillary – A Biography Michael Gill has gone further than anyone before to reveal the humanity of this remarkable man.

“FOR THE CLIMBER, THE BOOK WILL BE ESSENTIAL READING, BUT THERE IS MUCH HERE TOO IN THE MORE GENERAL APPEAL OF A LIFE WELL SPENT, IN MAKING THE UTMOST OF ONE’S TALENTS, AND IN MAN’S PURSUIT OF GOALS AT THE LIMIT OF HUMAN ENDEAVOUR”

MIKE BAILEY FOOTLESS CROW

THERE IS NO PLANET B MIKE BERNERS-LEE

7.30pm – 9pm | Saturday 16 November

Brewery Arts Centre Malt Room | Tickets £10

Feeding the world, climate change, biodiversity, antibiotics, plastics – the list of concerns seems endless.

But which is most pressing, what are the knock-on effects of our actions, and what should we do first? Do we all need to become vegetarian? How can we fly in a low-carbon world?

Should we frack? How can we take control of technology? Does it all come down to population? And, given the global nature of the challenges we now face, what on Earth can any of us do?

Fortunately, Mike Berners-Lee has crunched the numbers and plotted a course of action that is practical and even enjoyable. His book There is No Planet B maps it all out in an accessible and entertaining way, filled with astonishing facts and analysis.

“I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THIS BOOK...A BEACON OF COMMON SENSE, CLARITY AND – CRUCIALLY – HOPE”

CAROLINE LUCAS MP

SPOKEN WORD AND A PINT

PRESENTED BY KAREN LLOYD

7 – 9pm | Saturday 16 November Kendal Library | Tickets £10

Grab a drink from the bar and settle down for some serious literary revelry.

Hosted by award-winning local author Karen Lloyd, we will be joined by poets, storytellers and performers. We will welcome to the stage Geoff Cox, Beatrice Stanley, Faye Latham, Gary Liggett, Caroline Gilfillan, Mark Carson, Barbara Hickson, Chris Dodd, Luke Brown, Jonathan Humble and Jemima Longcake, who will make this a spoken word evening like no other!

For an irreverent night of spoken word that packs a punch, don’t miss this wild night of poetic entertainment.

Luke Brown

QUEST INTO THE UNKNOWN TONY HOWARD

7.30pm – 9pm | Saturday 16 November

Abbot Hall Social Centre | Tickets £10

Join Tony Howard to discover the jaw-dropping account of a life of adventure that is the very definition of true exploration.

Tony Howard rose to fame in 1965 as a member of a group of young climbers from northern England who made the first British ascent of Norway’s Troll Wall; a climb described by Joe Brown as, ‘One of the greatest ever achievements by British rock climbers’. Tony went on to design the modern sit harness, now used universally by every climber in the world. He founded the company Troll Climbing Equipment but never stopped exploring. Quest into the Unknown is his story.

Tony has dedicated his life to travelling the world in search of unclimbed rock faces and remote trekking adventures. This book, the last word in adventure travel, takes the reader from Tony’s youth spent developing the crags of the English Peak District, via whaling ships in the Southern Ocean, thousand-mile canoe trips in the Canadian Arctic, living amongst the Bedouin in the rocky mountains of Jordan, to the isolated opium tribes of Thailand.

“THIS BOOK OFFERS A VOYAGE INTO THE SOCIAL HISTORY OF MANY PEOPLES. IT WOULD SIT COMFORTABLY IN ANY LIBRARY RECORDING GREAT EXPLORATION” TGO MAGAZINE

MOUNTAIN & MUSIC PETER VAN HULLE

7 – 8.30pm | Saturday 16 November Shakespeare Centre | Tickets £10

Mountains and the upland landscape have always been an integral influence to musicians going back centuries. However, until the late 18th century, nature itself was seen as something to be tamed and if that was not possible, then to be avoided. Mountains were obstacles, places of danger, immense, immovable and uninviting. However, with the dawn of the Romantic age came a distinct shift in this symbiosis. As poets, composers and artists began to explore upland regions, both through travel and for leisure, then the mountain went from being a source of fear to being a source of inspiration. Accompanied by Michael Cayton on the piano, Peter Van Hulle (Dutch National Opera and English National Opera amongst others) will explore and demonstrate the many ways that the uplands have affected composers and performers and focus on the role of the mountain in opera and art song, its wider influence on classical music and also how the very contours of the landscape shaped some of the best known melodies we have today.

Image © Sophie Pierce Peter Van Hulle

A CELEBRATION OF RUSKIN

9.30 – 11am | Sunday 17 November

Shakespeare Centre | Tickets £10

2019 is the bicentenary of the visionary art critic, writer, artist and thinker John Ruskin. In this exclusive event presented by Lancaster University and The Ruskin and chaired by Professor Sandra Kemp, Director of the Ruskin-Library, Museum and Research centre, we explore and celebrate Ruskin’s extraordinary life and legacy.

John Ruskin (1819-1900) was a writer, artist and philanthropist. As an author he commanded international respect, attracting praise from figures as varied as Tolstoy, George Eliot, Proust and Gandhi. He wrote on a dizzying variety of subjects: art and architecture, nature and craftsmanship, literature and religion, political economy and social justice. He also worked tirelessly for a better society; the depth and range of his thinking, his often fierce critique of industrial society and its impact on both people and their environment, and his passionate advocacy of a sustainable relationship between people, craft and nature, remain as pertinent today as they were in his own lifetime.

John Ruskin

THIS EVENT IS PRESENTED BY

BLOOD SWEAT AND SMEARS GARY GIBSON

9.30 – 11am | Sunday 17 November

Brewery Arts Centre Studio | Tickets £10

Some people collect records, some people collect football programmes and some people train spot. Gary collects new routes.

Gary is well known throughout the UK for his new routing. In fact, with almost 5000 to his name there’s a good chance you’ve climbed one of them! Bedevilled by controversy, mostly of his own making, Gary has gone his own way and clashed with the climbing establishment of the day.

Over time, British climbing has changed immeasurably – and so has Gary. Gary has more than just climbing in his life: his love for his favourite ‘punk’ band, his inherited love for his football club, his long and continuous commitment to his profession and more than anything his love for his family and friends.

Love him or loathe him, here Gary shares his thoughts and memories giving the reader a personal insight into this ‘controversial’ man.

“GIBSON IS PROBABLY THE EPITOME OF THE CLIMBING OBSESSIVE. LIKE A DOG ON DIURETICS IN A LAMP POST FACTORY GARY HAS BEEN THERE, SEEN IT AND DONE A NEW ROUTE ON IT...” WHO’S WHO IN BRITISH CLIMBING

I HATE THE LAKE DISTRICT (BOOK LAUNCH) CHARLIE GERE

10.30am – 12pm | Sunday 17 November

Brewery Arts Centre Malt Room | Tickets £10

Charlie Gere offers a different vision of the rural environment from those found in much contemporary nature writing.

Based on his trips around North West England, including visits to the defunct nuclear power station at Sellafield, home of all British nuclear waste; the mysterious and deathly Morecambe Bay; sites of slavery in the North West; places where UFOs have been sighted, avant-garde artists created work, and Islamic terrorists trained; shantytowns where the navvies who built the railways lived with their families; and even the remains of Blobbyland in Morecambe.

In his book Charlie engages with nuclear power and nuclear war, slavery, imperialism, ghosts, love, God, cockroaches, and the sheer violence and contingency of ‘nature’ itself – of which the human presence is merely a part. This event challenges the bourgeois pastoralism of popular nature writing and reveals the landscape of North West England as profoundly unnatural and strange.

“GERE UNDOES THE AESTHETICS AND WELL-WORN TALES OF THE LAKES TO PROVIDE A DARKER, STRANGER, AND MORE WONDROUS LANDSCAPE” RON BROGLIO PROFESSOR, ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY

HOMESICK CATRINA DAVIES

10.30am – 12pm | Sunday 17 November

Abbot Hall Social Centre | Tickets £10

Catrina Davies shares the story of her new book, Homesick : a memoir of a personal housing crisis and a country-wide one, a comment on class, economics, mental health and nature, and a thoughtful examination of what we mean by ‘home’.

Aged thirty-one, Catrina Davies was renting a box-room in a house in Bristol. Working several jobs and never knowing if she could make the rent, she felt like she was breaking apart.

Homesick for the landscape of her childhood in west Cornwall, Catrina decides to give up the box-room and face her demons. As a child, she saw her family and their security torn apart; now, she resolves to make a tiny, dilapidated shed a home of her own.

With the freedom to write, surf and make music, Catrina rebuilds the shed and, piece by piece, her own sense of self. On the border of civilisation and wilderness, between the woods and the sea, she discovers the true value of home, while trying to find her place in a fragile natural world.

“YOU WILL MARVEL AT THE BEAUTY OF THIS BOOK, AND RAGE AT THE INJUSTICE IT REVEALS”

GEORGE MONBIOT

HANNA TUULIKKI

12.30 – 2pm | Sunday 17 November

Brewery Arts Centre Malt Room | Tickets £10

Join artist, composer and performer Hanna Tuulikki as she shares her multi-disciplinary art with us.

Hanna Tuulikki is an artist, composer and performer based in Scotland. In research-led projects, she works with voice and gesture, investigating the ways in which the body communicates beyond and before words.

With a particular interest in the practice of ‘mimesis’ within musical and movement traditions across cultures, her work explores the place of folk narratives, memory, ritual and technology within specific environments.

Tuulikki’s innovative practice spans site-specific performance, audiovisual installation and interactive new media, blending together vocal composition, choreography, costume and visual score drawings. Her critically acclaimed work has been commissioned and presented by organisations internationally, across visual, musical and performing arts. For the session, she will introduce a selection of her recent works.

“A CONFIDENT, ELEGANTLY PRODUCED AND RICHLY LAYERED WORK THAT TRANSLATES SOMETHING ELEMENTAL ABOUT NATURE AND RITUAL WITHOUT EVER EDGING TOWARDS THE BOMBASTIC”

DEER DANCER REVIEW THE SPECTATOR

MARIE DUVAL’S MOUNTAINEERING BUSTLE SIMON GRENNAN

12.30 – 2pm | Sunday 17 November

Abbot Hall Social Centre | Tickets £10

Join Simon Grennan for an introduction to the contrasting world of Victorian travel and mountaineering through the work of maverick London cartoonist Marie Duval. In the 1870s, Europe’s first female cartoonist climbed the heights of mirth by drawing illustrations, cartoons and full comic strips about the English abroad, on mountaineering holidays and mountain tours. Simon Grennan is a graphic novelist and scholar of comic strips. His most recent book, Drawing in Drag by Marie Duval, continues the work of Marie Duval, his co-authored 2018 book which showcased the work of a forgotten Victorian cartoonist for the first time. He is also author of A Theory of Narrative Drawing (2017), and Dispossession, a graphic adaptation of Trollope’s John Caldigate, which was named as one of The Guardian’s Books of the Year in 2015. He is Leading Research Fellow in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the University of Chester.

“A SUPERB STUDY...COMBINING FASCINATING INSIGHT WITH HONESTY AND APPRAISAL, WE’RE TREATED TO AN EXTRAORDINARY JOURNEY INTO THE WORLD OF LATE VICTORIAN HUMOUR...A POSITIVELY GLORIOUS VISUAL ACCOUNT” JOHN FREEMAN DOWN THE TUBES

TETHERA CUMBRIA YOUTH DANCE

2.15pm – 3.45pm | Sunday 17 November

Brewery Arts Centre Studio | Tickets £10

An exciting opportunity to watch Topos: Tethera – a unique piece of vertical choreography, exploring the relationship between climbing and dance, on the big screen! And to hear from those behind the film.

Funded by Arts Council England, Cumbria Youth Dance Company has worked alongside Wired Aerial Theatre to create a suite of connected choreography; a stage piece which was performed at The Lowry and Theatre by the Lake in March; an outdoor performance shared at Brantwood, Coniston in May and Lakes Alive, Kendal in September; and a dance film which will be screened and debated as part of our Festival.

The project – Topos – takes its name from the special notation climbers use to describe their routes on paper. A similar notation method exists in dance, called Labanotation, and over the course of this project these young dancers have explored the connection between vertical & horizontal movement to produce three unique pieces of choreography.

Presented by Professor Jonathan Pitches and with a panel of those involved in creating the film, this event will discuss the process and the relationship between dance and climbing.

FOOTNOTES PETER FIENNES

2.30pm – 4pm | Sunday 17 November

Brewery Arts Centre Malt Room | Tickets £10

Peter Fiennes joins us to share an illuminating journey into Britain’s past and present.

Beginning with Enid Blyton’s favourite holiday spot, the Isle of Purbeck, setting for many of her children’s stories, Peter embarks on a unique exploration of Britain. He follows in the footsteps of some of our greatest writers, tracing paths recorded in their books and journals, and looking for the country they once knew. He joins Somerville and Ross on their ascent of Snowdon; revisits the English journey of JB Priestley in the 30s and Beryl Bainbridge in the 80s, and accompanies Dickens from his house in Gad’s Hill to his final resting place in Westminster Abbey.

Blending travel writing, history and biography, wide-ranging and deeply personal, Footnotes is a fascinating quest to discover Britain anew.

“PART TRAVELOGUE, PART BIOGRAPHY, PART MEDITATION ON BRITISH IDENTITY, FOOTNOTES IS ALTOGETHER DELIGHTFUL, AND FIENNES IS A WISE AND GENIAL TRAVELLING COMPANION”

GREGORY NORMINTON AUTHOR

© Alfonso Ninguno

OUTPOST DAN RICHARDS

2.30pm – 4pm | Sunday 17 November

Abbot Hall Social Centre | Tickets £10

Join Dan Richards as he journeys to some of the world’s lesstraveled places. An exploration of the outposts set along the edges of civilisation and the impact that visiting these has on the human spirit.

Dan explores the appeal of far-flung outposts in mountains, tundra, forests, oceans and deserts. Landscapes that speak of deep time, whose scale can knock us down to size. Their untamed nature is part of their beauty and such places have long drawn the adventurous, the spiritual and the artistic.

Following a route from the Cairngorms of Scotland to the fire-watch lookouts of Washington State, from Iceland’s ‘Houses of Joy’ to the Utah desert; frozen ghost towns in Svalbard to shrines in Japan, Richards explores landscapes which have inspired writers, artists and musicians, and asks: why are we drawn to wilderness? What can we do to protect them? And what does the future hold for outposts on the edge?

“RICHARDS’S PROSE IS BY TURNS BEAUTIFUL, FUNNY, EVOCATIVE AND LEARNED, THE PAGES ILLUMINATED BY LOVELY, WARMING FOOTNOTES” ALEX PRESTON THE GUARDIAN

THE SHARP END OF LIFE DIERDRE WOLOWNICK-HONNOLD

2.30 – 4pm | Sunday 17 November

Kendal Town Hall | Tickets £10

Join us as we welcome author, climber and mother Dierdre Wolownick from the USA to share stories and images from her new memoir The Sharp End of Life.

At 66, Dierdre became the oldest woman to climb El Capitan in Yosemite – and she reveals how her climbing achievement reflects a broader story of courage and persistence as she finds new strength, happiness, and community in the outdoors.

Diedre says, “Over the years, I’ve often heard about ‘the season’ in Yosemite. [My son], Alex Honnold and his friends and colleagues train there spring and fall each year. They make history. I’ve had many ‘seasons’ during my decades as a teacher, writer, conductor, mother. Seasons for exams. For traveling. For concerts. But my Yosemite season has been like no other. Each year, when Alex and I climb together, I think, ‘I’ll never top that!’ And each year, I do.”

“A MOTHER’S TALE OF LATE-LIFE ROLE REVERSAL, HOW SHE OPENED HERSELF UP TO LEARN IMPORTANT LESSONS FROM HER GROWN CHILDREN” OUTSIDE ONLINE

Dierdre Wolownick with her son Alex Honnold

© Amy Mountjoy

THE FRAYED ATLANTIC EDGE DAVID GANGE

4.30pm – 6pm | Sunday 17 November

Brewery Arts Centre Malt Room | Tickets £10

A brand new voice in nature and travel writing, David Gange, shares his new work, The Frayed Atlantic Edge, a whirlwind trip along Britain’s coasts from Shetland to Cornwall.

Travelling by kayak, on foot and at the end of a rope, David encounters wildcats, basking sharks and vast colonies of seabirds, as well as rich and diverse coastal communities. Spending nights in sight of the sea, outdoors and without a tent, the journey crosses hundreds of peaks and millions of waves.

The historian and nature writer set out to travel the seaboard in the course of a year. This coastline spans just eight-hundred miles as the crow flies, but the complex folds of its firths and headlands stretch more than ten-thousand. Even those who circumnavigate Britain by kayak tend to follow the shortest route; the purpose of this journey was to discover these coastlines by seeking out the longest.

“THIS BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN AND GRIPPINGLY RESEARCHED BOOK SHOWS US THAT OUR SHORES ARE THE BEGINNING, NOT THE ENDING, OF THINGS”

PHILIP HOARE AUTHOR

DIARY OF THE LAST MAN ROBERT MIHINNICK & EAMON BOURKE

4.30pm – 6pm | Sunday 17 November

Abbot Hall Social Centre | Tickets £10

We welcome Robert Minhinnick and Eamon Bourke to Kendal to share his newest volume of poetry, Diary of the Last Man, and the exceptional film that has been created to sit alongside it.

An imaginative, intimate portrait of the writer Robert Minhinnick, created by director Eamon Bourke, the film charts a walk between the mouths of the rivers Cynffig and Ogwr on the south coast of Wales. A beguiling cinematic experience that shifts and turns with the tide following the poet and his alter egos deep into the hidden landscapes illuminated in this award winning collection. The opening poem sequence sets the tone for the collection, a celebration of the dwindling Earth, an elegy, a caution. The sequence remembers all the geographies of his earlier work, old and new world, but now unpeopled and the lonely spirit free to go anywhere, do anything, but meaning with mankind has drained away. Yet still alive, and still with language, registering.

“BLEAKLY ELEGIAC, ENVIRONMENTALLY POLITICAL, VITAL AND VISIONARY, HIS POEMS CAST AN EXTRAORDINARY LIGHT OVER OUR DARKENING LANDSCAPES”

CAROL ANN DUFFY POET

THE CHILDREN’S LITERATURE FESTIVAL

PROUDLY SPONSORED BY

From picture books to novels, stories can help build empathy and understanding of the world around us. We are proud to introduce a literature programme for young people to Kendal, featuring six inspiring authors suitable for ages six to fifteen.

THE LOST BOOK OF ADVENTURE TEDDY KEEN

10 – 11am | Saturday 16 November

Brewery Arts Centre Children’s Story Camp | Tickets £5 / U16s £1

Be transported by riveting adventure tales from around the globe; like being dragged off by a hyena in Botswana, surviving a Saharan dust storm, being woken by an intrepid emperor penguin in Antarctica, and coming face-to-face with a venomous bushmaster (one of the most dangerous snakes on the planet) – all told in lyrical prose and illustrations that wonder at the mysterious beauty of the wild.

KIDS FIGHT PLASTIC MARTIN DOREY

12 – 1pm | Saturday 16 November

Brewery Arts Centre Children’s Story Camp | Tickets £5 / U16s £1

Have you got 2 minutes? That’s all the time it takes to become a #2minutesuperhero. We need superheroes to fight plastic and help save our oceans. This essential book shows how you can become a #2minutesuperhero by completing 50 missions to fight plastic at home, school and on your days out. This guide for children is written by Martin Dorey, anti-plastic campaigner and author of the bestselling No. More. Plastic.

ASHA AND THE SPIRIT BIRD JASBINDER BILAN

1.45 – 2.45pm | Saturday 16 November

Brewery Arts Centre Children’s Story Camp | Tickets £5 / U16s £1

Asha lives in the foothills of the Himalayas. Money is tight and she misses her papa who works in the city. When he stops sending his wages, a ruthless moneylender ransacks their home and her mother talks of leaving. Asha makes a pact with her best friend, Jeevan, to find her father and make things right. But the journey is dangerous: they must cross the world’s highest mountains and face hunger, tiredness – even snow leopards. And yet, Asha has the unshakeable sense that the spirit bird of her grandmother – her nanijee – will be watching over her.

EVEREST ALEXANDRA STEWART AND JOE TODD-STANTON

3.30 – 4.30pm | Saturday 16 November

Brewery Arts Centre Children’s Story Camp | Tickets £5 / U16s £1

Everest tells the story of how Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay made their mark on the world from birth right up to their final days and the impact they’ve had on Nepal today. This brilliant book combines fresh and contemporary illustrations by Joe Todd-Stanton with Alexandra Stewart’s captivating writing and publishes in time to celebrate the centenary of Edmund Hillary’s birth.

BOOK LAUNCH!

FANTASTIC FEMALE ADVENTURERS LILY DYU

5 – 6pm | Saturday 16 November

Brewery Arts Centre Children’s Story Camp | Tickets £5 / U16s £1

Fantastic Female Adventurers is a collection of exciting and inspirational stories about women. Join Lily on awesome adventures with Anna McNuff, Sarah Outen, Misba Khan and more taking you from Everest to the South Pole and all the places in between.

SNOW LEOPARD: GREY GHOST OF THE MOUNTAIN JUSTIN ANDERSON

12.30 – 1.30pm | Sunday 17 November

Brewery Arts Centre Children’s Story Camp | Tickets £5 / U16s £1

A spellbinding new Nature Storybook about snow leopards, with words by Planet Earth producer and first-time children’s author Justin Anderson and pictures from award-winning artist Patrick Benson.

Join us on a journey high into the snowy peaks of the Himalaya, and discover the secret world of a rare and utterly majestic creature – how it has adapted to the harsh environment it lives in and how it looks after its young.

SPYLARK DANNY RURLANDER

2 – 3pm | Sunday 17 November

Brewery Arts Centre Children’s Story Camp | Tickets £5 / U16s £1

Ever since the accident, Tom’s struggled to walk. But he has a secret escape: Skylark, his drone.

Through this technology, he can fly above his Lake District home, exploring his world from a totally different perspective. But when he stumbles upon a terrorist plot, he must find a way to stop it... before it’s too late.

KENDAL FOR SCHOOLS

Friday 15 November | Kendal Leisure Centre

Following the success of last year’s expanded Kendal for Schools sessions, we are delighted to once again offer free access for local schools.

This will be an amazing opportunity to hear from real life adventurers and explorers including science presenter Huw James, adventurer and environmentalist Cal Major and The Lost Adventurer author Teddy Keen. There will also be an exciting selection of adventure films to be enjoyed! It promises to be a fun, engaging and interesting event for teachers and students alike!

FREE FAMILY SESSIONS

ALFRED WAINWRIGHT’S MOUNTAIN GUIDES

FREE SESSIONS FOR FAMILIES

Saturday 16 November | Kendal Library

One hour sessions at 9.45am, 11.15am, 1.45pm & 3pm

In this 60 minute interactive session for families, explore how Alfred Wainwright produced his guidebooks. You can create your own Wainwright illustrations too!

Sessions at Kendal Library, Stricklandgate, Kendal, LA9 4PY.

Tickets are free, but need to be booked via the our website. Children under 8 must be accompanied by a responsible person. These family sessions are provided by Cumbria Archive Service and Kendal Library.

ART AT KENDAL MOUNTAIN FESTIVAL

Art remains an integral part of Kendal Mountain Festival and we have worked closely with the Brewery Arts Centre to curate a diverse range of artwork from talented local and national artists. Dive in and enjoy each artist’s contribution to the ‘Outdoor’ genre and their personal celebration of landscape, nature and place.

BREWERY ARTS CENTRE

RACHAEL KIDD OPEN OUT / OPEN IN

Sugar Store Gallery

Rachael Kidd’s work is primarily about the landscape and how we fit within it. She digs deep into ‘Landscape’ as a subject as she attempts to move away from seeing her environment as a simply framed and romanticised place, and more towards it being a complex structure for experience – a cognitive landscape – a sensuous and animate world.

With this body of work she asks; What is the unseen landscape? What lies beyond the surface and is this where true wilderness resides? Is the world perceiving itself through us, as we do through it?

Drawing upon a range of mediums, her work is an inquiry into the surface of things as points of direct proximity and exchanges between ourselves and our environment, celebrating how our mind and body are able to open up infinitely as a we explore our surroundings and imagine what lies beyond.

Main image: Extinction Rebellion, oil on canvas

Image above: Section of Earth, 2013

KENDAL MOUNTAIN FESTIVAL PHOTOGRAPHY COMPETITON

Intro Bar

Welcome to the Kendal Mountain Festival Photography Competition. We are delighted to have Heart of the Lakes as our 2019 Photography Competition presenting partner. Now in its 12th year, this prestigious competition has cemented a reputation for discovering new talent and celebrating some of the most captivating imagery from the world of outdoor adventure.

Henry Iddon, our Arts Officer and professional photographer, says: “This year we are looking for images from the world of outdoor adventure that fit with our Festival theme of ‘Openness’. A call to the Festival, audiences and adventurers to be open to all people, places and ideas. With this theme in mind, we encourage entries that celebrate a wide variety of adventures and a wide variety of landscapes. From the shores of an isolated tarn here in the Lake District, to a paddle down an urban canal to the solitude of a high alpine peak. We want to see what adventure means to you!”

The twelve shortlisted images will be displayed for six weeks in a prestigious exhibition at the Brewery Arts Centre, including over the Festival weekend. The winner will be announced at the Awards Ceremony on Saturday 16 November at 7.30pm in the Basecamp Village. The winner will receive a £500 voucher to spend on a holiday with Heart of the Lakes, plus one of our world-renowned ‘Kendal’ awards, produced by Andy Parkin.

To enter visit kendalmountainfestival.com Entries close on 2 November 2019.

2018 Grand Prize Winner: George Karbus

2018 Runner Up: Ben Tibbetts

ARTSPACE AT THE FACTORY, KENDAL

TOPOG FOUR ARTISTS AND THE IDEA OF A PLACE

ARTSPACE at The Factory, Aynam Road, Kendal LA9 7DE

15 – 17 November 10am – 4pm

Whether it’s mountains, lakes or towns, this exhibition celebrates the artists’ individual and idiosyncratic views of their subjects. Working in a variety of media – paint, print, drawing, collage and installation – these four artists are passionate about the landscapes they portray.

Pam Williamson continues her explorations of environment and climate; Linda Gray presents her sharply observed townscapes; and David Penn’s vigorous on-the-spot mountain drawings contrast with Nancy Gray’s contemplative lakes-inspired collages.

Main image: David Penn Bessyboot and Rosthwaite Fell

Left top: Pam Williamson Dove Crag

Left bottom: Nancy Gray Lakescape

HEATON COOPER STUDIO GALLERY

LOUISE ANN WILSON ‘MOMENTS OF BEING’: MOUNTAIN, CAVE, COAST WALKING-PERFORMANCE IN RURAL LANDSCAPES

Heaton Cooper Studio Gallery, Grasmere, LA22 9SX

7 – 27 November 2019

‘Moments of Being’: Mountain, Cave, Coast, is an exhibition of walking-performance in rural landscapes created by Louise Ann Wilson.

The exhibition is about how, by using alternative viewpoints and perspectives, Louise’s work invites us to look at the landscape differently in order to transform the way we think about ‘missing’, marginal or challenging life-events. Familiar and much loved sites including mountains, caves and coast, become places where both personal and public issues can be addressed. The expression, ‘moments of being’ was used by Virginia Woolf to describe sudden revelatory shocks that are counterpoints to what she referred to as ‘non-being’ and have the effect of ‘puncturing the cotton wool of daily life that renders one blind to the particular and the common place.’

Louise is an artist, scenographer and researcher who creates site-specific walking-performances, films, installations and books that give-voice to significant life-events – with transformative and therapeutic outcomes.

Showing film, photographs, objects, drawings, poems and texts ‘Moments of Being’: Mountain, Cave, Coast draws on the body of work Louise has created over the last decade. These works have been staged in the Lake District, Cornwall, Snowdonia, the Trough of Bowland, the Ingleborough Fells, and Morecambe Bay.

The exhibition is part of Kendal Mountain Festival, in partnership with Lancaster University. Visit heatoncooper.co.uk for more information.

Main image: Jack Scout (2010) created by Louise Ann Wilson and Nigel Stewart.

Photo © Nicola Tarr

Above: Fissure (2011) created by Louise Ann Wilson.

Photo @ Bethany Clarke

OPEN MOUNTAIN: INCLUSION & CONNECTION

Supported by

‘Open Mountain: Inclusion and Connection’ is Kendal Mountain Literature Festival’s initiative to give a platform to under-represented writers of outdoor and mountain literature. This summer our open call for entries invited people to respond to the following questions:

How and where do you experience the natural world?

What does the idea of Open Mountain mean to you?

What are your experiences of exclusion and inclusion in the landscape?

What shuts you out of certain places or welcomes you?

We were thrilled with the quality, variety and standard of entries – five submissions were selected to be showcased at the Open Mountain event (see page 24) on Saturday 16 November.

Here’s a few extracts from some of those submissions!

ASIM KHAN

To exist within a natural space and then be unacknowledged or excluded from its narrative is a form of annihilation. To be considered insignificant through the scale of a system is to disregard its interdependence and to fetishize fragility. It is allowing a certain type of language to claim ownership over the landscape and what it is to be. It is my voice in a forest, expressing how I feel, only to be drowned out by the sound of a nearby car, and its colour being the only detail remembered…

Poetry provides me a way of engaging with the natural world. In truth, I cannot describe what it means to me. Growing up in Birmingham, I have always felt exterior to the English landscape whilst being troubled by my own climate anxiety.

Equinox

this note on the plume of a stemdroops to mirror action -

might choose my haunted bodyto become a thin breath -

KATE DAVIES

Through disability I have been forced to acknowledge my own implicit ableism, and to reflect on the ableist perspectives of so many of the nature writers whose work I’d previously enjoyed.

In so much writing about landscape and the natural world, walkers are represented as autonomous agents with undemanding bodies, and walking itself is written about as a sort of democratic passport to independent selfhood. Pick up your coat. Head out the door. Put one foot in front of the other. Just go for a walk.

The experience of stroke and disability made me realise how little nature writing ever engages with ideas of limitation, or with questions of what might being a pedestrian might mean when landscapes are inaccessible.

What do purportedly “accessible” outdoor spaces mean to those for whom walking is more of a matter of impediment than freedom?

FESTIVAL BOOKSHOP

Our Festival Bookshop is bigger than ever this year. Situated at the Brewery Arts Centre, visit our cosy bookshop for author signings, to browse our wide collection of outdoor and mountain literature, children’s books, journals and magazines, guide books and more. There will also be books available for purchase and signing after each book event.

10K WALK WILDLIFE, WOODS AND SCARS

Blow off the cobwebs with a wildlife hike led by Jamie, Cumbria Wildlife Trust’s education officer. He’ll guide you over nearby farmland, fell, woodland and even two ‘outlying’ Wainwrights. Highlights include excellent views and seasonal wildlife on the limestone and woodland habitats.

Tickets limited – book at kendalmountainfestival.com

This event is presented by

BOOKING INFORMATION

You can book tickets online, over the phone or in person:

Online Select events at kendalmountainfestival.com

Booking is completed at breweryarts.co.uk

Call 01539 725133

Visit Brewery Arts Centre Box Office 122A Highgate, Kendal LA9 4HE

Box Office Opening Hours

Prior to the Festival

Sunday to Wednesday 12 – 8pm

Thursday – Saturday 12 – 8:30pm

Over the Festival

Thursday 15 – Sunday 17 November 9am until 15 minutes after last event of the day

REFUNDS

Tickets cannot be exchanged nor money refunded unless an event is cancelled or substantially changed. Where demand is high for sold-out events, we may take tickets back for resale at our discretion – tickets must be returned to the Box Office and, if resold, refunds will be made to the original payment method.

EVENT WAITING LISTS

If an event has sold out, please contact the Box Office to be added to the waiting list.

PLEASE NOTE:

2

8 LITERATURE FESTIVAL VENUES

VENUES

Brewery 1 3 4

6

7

5 6 7 8 1

Kendal Leisure Centre

Kendal Library

Shakespeare Centre

Ye Olde Fleece Inn

3 4 2 5

THANK YOU TO OUR PARTNERS

PRESENTING PARTNER

SUPPORTING PARTNERS

MAJOR PARTNERS

CHILDREN’S LITERATURE PARTNER

MEDIA PARTNERS

ACADEMIC PARTNER

PRINT PARTNER

SUPPORTERS

Top Performers

Lancaster University is a home for literature and the arts. Our degree programmes aim to turn highperforming students into successful professionals in creative and heritage industries, the media, and large corporations.

We challenge our students. We engage in ground-breaking research and use it in our teaching. Our academics include award-winning writers such as Paul Farley and Jenn Ashworth, and leading literary figures such as acclaimed critic Terry Eagleton and Poet Paul Muldoon.

When it comes to literature and the arts, we perform.

So it’s little wonder that Lancaster is ranked in the world top 50 for Arts and Humanities in the Times Higher Education World Subject rankings 2019.

www.lancaster.ac.uk

Proud to be a partner of Kendal Mountain Literature Festival English at Lancaster University was ranked 3rd in the UK for research power in the most recent national Research Exercise (REF 2014).

Get Inspired Get Outside...

Proud partners of Kendal Mountain Literature Festival

For a wide range of mountaineering and climbing literature, guide books, maps and more visit

georgefisher.co.uk

@georgefisheruk

nature is waiting

Trekking with Fjällräven since 1960

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