Vicki Genfan and Sally Barker

Genfan and Barker - Combining Sublimely !

Sally Barker (left) and Vicki Genfan

I'm very excited to be promoting an event with Sally Barker and Vicki Genfan at Wenlock Pottery on Wednesday November 20th.   

Tickets for this fab event are just £5 and will go on sale on October 1st at 9am.  

The Pottery's laid back and intimate atmosphere, with log fire, candle-light and cabaret style seating, combined with a well-stocked bar and a warm welcome from our hosts Sheila and Mike, make this a perfect venue for this brilliant musical duo.  

I first saw Sally many years ago at Shrewsbury's Jazz Club in the Buttermarket.  Since then I have seen her many times (in addition to wearing out my CDs!)  and she never fails to deliver a powerful and emotional performance.  

Here in Wenlock she has fronted the all-woman folk-band The Poozies, and appeared with Debbie Cassell and Glenn Hughes presenting the Joni Mitchell Project.

I am delighted to welcome Vicki Genfan to Much Wenlock  with Sally and look forward to a sell-out event.

 Vicki Genfan and Sally Barker met during the 2001 'Women on Stage' tour of Germany and have been firm friends ever since.  A mutual respect of each other's talents has prompted them to tour together again.  Each will perform their own show, supported by the other when called upon, and they will end the evening together with a grand finale!  A little about each artist.....

Vicki Genfan is a dazzling instrumentalist who plays and writes with her distinctive percussive 'slap-tap' acoustic guitar technique.  As an award-winning singer/songwriter with a high-energy stage presence, Vicki draws her inspiration from folk, jazz, pop, soul and world music and her distinctive style pushes the boundaries of the singer/songwriter genre to new territories.  Vicki was the first woman to win Guitar Player magazine’s Guitar Superstar Competition and was also one of the featured artists on La Guitara, a CD featuring the world’s top female guitarists across all styles.   Having performed at hundreds of venues across the US and abroad, Vicki's festival highlights include The International Montreal Jazz Festival, Germany’s Open Strings Guitar Festival and Italy’s Soave Guitar Festival.

While hopping between continents for performance and master classes, Vicki loves teaching, has three Instructional DVDs to her credit and is in high demand at clinics and music camps all over the world.

“Vicki mesmerized the audience and the judges -- not just with her stunning technique, but also with her musicality and charisma.” - Michael Molenda, Chief Editor Guitar Player Magazine

“If I could play like Vicki, I’d stay home and entertain myself.” - Steve Vai

www.vickigenfan.com

Vicki's Discography:

Outside the Box – 2001; Vicki Genfan - Live – 2003; La Guitara - 2005

Up Close and Personal – 2006; UnCovered - 2008

Instructional DVD's:

3D Acoustic Guitar; Acoustic Rhythm Guitar Survival Guide

30 Strumming Patterns You Must Know

Sally Barker is a singer's singer and a songwriter's songwriter. You will remember the very first time you heard her sing for her voice is like no other.  She has the ability to lift the words off the page and can move people to tears armed with that 'bucket-full of soul' voice.

As a singer, songwriter, guitarist and producer Sally has had a long and varied career in music. Labelled a folk artist for much of her successful career, Sally's appeal stretches across many more musical genres.  A much respected solo artist with half a dozen solo albums to her name, Sally is also celebrated for her live and studio work fronting all-female folk supergroup The Poozies.

Sally continues to tour and play at many festivals in the UK and abroad and is now working on several duo projects, including Genfan & Barker (with US guitarist and songwriter Vicki Genfan), Buck & Barker (with multi-instrumentalist Keith Buck) and Barker & Son (with her son, Dillon Wakeford).

 “her enormous vocal range and stupendous control can relax or rouse at will – she coaxes her voice from that of a mild modern English rose to raw throated blues”. -   a review of a performance at Edinburgh Fringe Festival

List of solo recordings:


Sally Barker (1988)
; This Rhythm is Mine (1990); Beating The Drum (1992)


Money's Talking/Tango! EP (1995)
; Favourite Dish (1996)


Passion & The Countess (1998)
; Another Train - The Compilation (2000)


Maid in England (2003)

with The Joni Mitchell Project:

Conversation: The Joni Tapes Vol 1 (2010)

with the Poozies:

Dansoozies (1993) – Hypertension; Chantoozies (1995) - Hypertension

Raise your head: A Retrospective (2000) - Compass

Yellow Like Sunshine (2009) – Greentrax

Florentine and Pig

illustrated by Jess Mikhail

The illustrator of the gorgeous Florentine and Pig books, Jess Mikhail, will be at Wenlock Books on Saturday 6th July as part of Independent Booksellers Week.  We are delighted to welcome Jess to Much Wenlock and we are looking forward to having a really fun and creative time with your lovely children, aged 3 - 7.  We'll make things, create a picnic, have a lovely story and have lots and lots of fun!  Read more HERE

Illustrated by Jess Mikhail

ICELAND, DEFROSTED

Iceland, Defrosted by Edward Hancox 

Book Launch at Wenlock Books, Wednesday July 3rd at 6pm All welcome - RSVP to Anna, contact details HERE

This is the story of one Englishman’s obsession with a half-frozen, roughly duck-shaped island in the cold North Atlantic.

Iceland, Defrosted is less about wars over cod, flight-halting volcanoes and globe-shattering financiers, and more about relaxing in natural hot pots, sharing barbeques in howling winter storms and eating waffles and rhubarb jam while watching playful Arctic foxes. Oh, and desperately, desperately searching for the elusive Northern Lights (which might not exist anyway).

Loosely based on a circuitous route around Iceland, it concentrates on places, people and experiences, soundtracked by the coolest Icelandic musicians, all wrapped up in the warmest lopapeysa and jump-started with the strongest coffee.

It is a story that’s almost a love letter, born from a constant yearning for this special place and fuelled by a growing understanding and a desire to uncover the real Iceland.

 

About the author:

Edward Hancox lives in Shropshire with his wife and small, noisy child but spends as much time as he can in Iceland. Music – especially contemporary Icelandic music – is his other passion. He writes about both subjects for various magazines and websites, including Iceland Review, Atlantica, and the Reykjavík Grapevine, and on his blog, icelanddefrosted.com.

Edward enjoys growing plants, which, not unlike himself, are tall and thin. He has had particular success with bamboo and rhubarb. It is not possible to grow bamboo in Iceland, but rhubarb is surprisingly prevalent.

Read more HERE

Morville Festival 2013

The annual Flower Festival at Morville, between Bridgnorth and Much Wenlock on the A458, will be held on May Bank Holiday week-end, Saturday 4th - Monday 6th May, you can read all read about it HERE.

Katherine Swift's book about her garden at the Dower House, The Morville Hours: the Story of a Garden, was the bestselling book in Shropshire ever, outselling even Harry Potter. It was serialised on BBC Radio 4 as 'Book of the Week', and Katherine has recently finished reading it (unabridged) for the Royal National Institute for Blind People's 'Talking Books' scheme.

Her latest book, The Morville Year, was published two years ago, and her next book, The Morville Rose will complete the trilogy and is due to be published next year.

Jane Sebire for The Morville Year by Katherine Swift (Bloomsbury, 2011)

The Morville Year is an inspiring book, beautifully written, full of knowledge and wisdom that is written with the lightest of touches and with real grace. Katherine ranges from Bob Dylan to Gertrude Jekyll; from picking blackberries to star-gazing; from trundling around the countryside on her motor-bike to catching the stopping train (28 stations) to Cornwall. She gives us the recipes to the delicious scones she serves at her open garden afternoons, and shares the secrets of quince paste and cassis. The origins of decking our halls with boughs of holly are explored along with the druidic and Celtic rituals that still mark the turning of the seasons.

Jane Sebire for The Morville Year by Katherine Swift (Bloomsbury, 2011)

What comes across so clearly is her passion for her garden, for the little bit of earth from which she has created this exquisite, ever-changing, historically and spiritually rooted series of gardens that is the Dower House garden. Katherine mentions that it sometimes takes an artist to enable us to see what is in front of us in real life. For me, Katherine is that artist, who paints with words, and who so faithfully and remarkably pays attention to the smallest miracle and then writes about it for us, so that we can see, and share, and wonder, too.
 

Jane Sebire for The Morville Year by Katherine Swift (Bloomsbury, 2011)

We are so lucky to be in this lovely little bit of Shropshire that Katherine writes about so eloquently - the references to the wall flowers on John James garden wall in Bridgnorth; her visits to Avril’s flower shop that used to be in the High Street in Much Wenlock; her descriptions of the annual Morville Flower Festival – all so familiar to us, and now shared and enjoyed across the country, and probably around the world.

Jane Sebire for The Morville Year by Katherine Swift (Bloomsbury, 2011)

The Round House - Louise Erdrich

BOOK IN A MONTH CLUB

On June 26th at 7pm in the bookshop, we will meet to discuss Lousie Erdrich's  prize winning novel, The Round House, published by Constable and Robinson on May 16th.  

You'll have just over a month to read it!  

I have read nearly everything by Louise Erdrich, having started with Love Medicine back in the mid 1980's.  This is one of her best! (and it doesn't matter at all if you haven't read her before, it's a stand alone novel).

Read about her winning the USA National Book Award last November HERE

And now, Louise Erdrich has picked up the prestigious US Indies Book Choice Award, read more HERE

The book will be available at the special price of £14.99 and can be  PRE-ORDERED from Wenlock Books   

Join us for a glass of wine, nibbles, and some good book chat!  All welcome, £5.

R4 Open Book Louise Erdrich http://bbc.in/12rgemK

Hailed in the US as a Native-American To Kill A Mockingbird, and winner of  the US National Book Award, The Round House is Louise Erdrich's undeniable - and unmissable - masterpiece.

One Sunday in the spring of 1988, Geraldine Coutts is brutally attacked on her North Dakota reservation. At first her thirteen-year-old son, Joe, tries to heal his mother. But she will not leave her bedroom; traumatised and afraid, she simply shuts the door, shuts down, and shuts everyone out. Increasingly alone, Joe finds himself thrust prematurely into an adult world for which he is ill-prepared.

Just ahead of publication, a major national interview with Louise Erdrich was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 Open Book on 15th May; the book was also reviewed on BBC Radio 4 Saturday Review on 18th May. Reviews have already appeared in The Times, The Sunday Times, Independent on Sunday, Scotland on Sunday and Glasgow Herald with further widespread national coverage guaranteed in the Guardian, Daily Mail, Metro, Sunday Express, TLS, New Statesman, Intelligent Life, Prospect, Good Housekeeping, Easy Living, Red, Woman & Home, Mslexia.

The Times, ‘A fascinating reminder of another side of America’

Independent on Sunday, ‘Extraordinary, engrossing novel which should live long in the memory’

Literary Review, ‘Extraordinarily fresh … complex and probing’

Scotland on Sunday, ‘Indelibly real … powerful novel’

Glasgow Herald, ‘Erdrich is a fine writer’

The Guardian featured The Round House by Louise Erdrich as one of its literary bookmarks for the year.

Picked as part of Charlotte Heathcote’s 2013 Book Guide in the Sunday Express.

..

Dot to Dot.

Half Term Treat! "Bringing Books to Life"

Join us - you'll be made very welcome!

 Malcolm Cossons will lead an activity session and reading for 5 - 7 year olds

at Wenlock Books on Tuesday 28th May
at 11 o'clock. (RSVP)

Please bring your 5 - 7 year olds to explore story-making and story-telling with Malcolm.  We ask that parents stay in the shop while the children enjoy their activity session - but the coffee will be on and we will make you very welcome.  (Alternatively, the Deli next door and the Copper Kettle across the road will both be open and are near enough that we can call you back if needed!)  The session will last about an hour. This is a FREE session; the book will be for sale and Malcolm will be delighted to sign copies. Do please let us  know you are coming so we can prepare the space!
 
More details from the bookshop on 01952 727877 or info@wenlockbooks.co.uk

Malcolm Cossons is the author of Collect Contemporary Photography and Collect Contemporary Jewelry, both published by Thames & Hudson. Neil Stevens, the illustrator, has had work featured in the Guardian, Wired and Ammo.

Perch Talks

As part of the Wenlock Poetry Festival,  Twenty Twenty Gallery is presenting:

Perch Talks

Twenty Twenty Gallery

Sunday 7th April, Twenty Twenty Gallery

10am, 11am and 12 midday. £5 for each talk (cash on the door)
Please note: limited number of seats
Short, sharp, inspiring, talks by artists and makers on the Perch Bench at Twenty Twenty Gallery.

10am John Neilson (stonecarver)
…will talk on the relationships of poetry and letter carving and his experience of using poetry in public art commissions.

11am Edward Wates ( bookmaker)
… will talk about some recent collaborations with poets and will reflect on his own personal approach to writing and book-making.

12 midday Steve ’The Ukulele Man’
….why play the Ukulele?

Venice - photos of our Reader's Tours

Wenlock Poetry Festival Youth Reviewer

Are you 16-20 years old and appreciate poetry and writing? If so this could be the opportunity for YOU!

The Wenlock Poetry Festival is looking for young people (aged 16-20), who are available on Friday 5^th and Saturday 6^th April.  The volunteer work is comprised of attending poetry performances, interviewing poets and writing a piece, ‘The Wenlock Poetry Festival Gazette’. You will then assist in compiling The Gazette, which will be distributed to festival goers on Sunday.

In return some of your expenses will be paid and you will have free tickets to see the shows you review.  HURRY places are limited.

If you would like to be considered for the role of a Wenlock Festival  Youth Reviewer please contact youth worker: Melanie Revolta 

Melanie-sya@hotmail.co.uk 

Mobile 07582 407459 

or via Shropshire Youth Association HQ on 

01743 254687.