Bob Fowke, Managing Editor at YouCaxton, will be chairing a workshop at the Knighton Literary Festival on Saturday 2 November at the Public Library. The workshop will provide a brief introduction to the pleasures and pitfalls of self-publishing and there will be plenty of time for further discussion and questions over coffee afterwards.
Details: from 10.00-10.45 am, Saturday 2 November, at Knighton Public Library.
YouCaxton are conducting a self-publishing workshop on Saturday 2 February 11 am to 1 pm at the Wolverhampton Art Gallery as part of the Wolverhampton Literature Festival. Admission is free and all are welcome. The workshop will provide an opportunity to learn about all aspects of self-publishing from completing the manuscript, to decisions about design and layout, through to the final print-ready files and publication. There will be plenty of opportunity for questions.
Writer Richard Hawkins has joined YouCaxton to provide a new service of advice and editing for screenplays. The service includes an honest and objective professional critique of the work, editorial support, script development and formatting, so that presentations are up to a professional standard and maximise their chance of going forward to production.
Richard has worked as a writer and producer since the late 1980s with several critically acclaimed productions to his name, including on Broadway. His first screenplay, the internationally successful The Theory of Flight, was co-produced by both the BBC and Miramax and directed by Paul Greengrass (Bourne Ultimatum, Captain Philips). It starred Kenneth Branagh and Helena Bonham Carter. Richard has also worked closely alongside the acclaimed Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski (My Summer of Love, Aida).
His own directorial debut came with the enormously well received Everything, starring Ray Winstone, which quickly became a cause celebre on the festival circuit, heralded by the Sydney Film festival as ‘The perfect model for budget feature making’ – and went on to win several international awards and a prestigious BAFTA nomination for Richard himself.
‘Everything is boldly conceived and executed, the kind of film British cinema needs more of.’ The Daily Telegraph
‘A highly promising feature debut … truthful, perceptive and moving.’ The Observer
Richard has worked recently as a creative adviser for China’s emerging film industry, playing a critical role in the establishment of several on-going, long-term relationships between American and Chinese studios. He also gives support as a specialist acting coach, taking both new and established stars and working them through various castings and/or preparing them for particular film roles. Actors worked with include Benedict Cumberbatch, Naomi Harris, Domonic Cooper, Stephen Mangan, Gugu Mbatha Raw, Ed Skrein, Danny Dyer, to name but a few.
Dianne Carrington will be speaking in Pulverbatch Village Hall on the evening of Saturday 26 January about her new book Atlantic Lady, published by YouCaxton, the story of her record-breaking row across the Atlantic. She is the oldest woman ever to undertake this extraordinary feat.
Fran Norton will be launching her new book, Isolde, Lady de Audley, published by YouCaxton, at the Castle Bookshop, Ludlow, betweeen 5.00 and 7.00 pm on Friday 23rd November. The image is of Isolde’s tomb in St Bartholomew’s churchyard, Much Marcle, Herefordshire.
In the eighteenth century some remarkable young women crossed the ocean to seek their fortunes. Margaret Maskelyne who married Clive of India and was sister to Nevil Masquelyne, Astronomer Royal, was one of the cleverest – and funniest. Bob Fowke, YouCaxton’s Managing Editor, will be speaking on Margaret Clive and her friends at Hyssington Village Hall, 7.30 Thursday 22nd November.
Peter Francis, author of Sites of Remembrance: Shropshire War Memorials, published by YouCaxton, will be giving a talk on the memorials of Mid-Wales on Thursday 22nd November at Aberhafwesp Church at 7.00 pm, between Newtown and Caersws. All welcome.
Bob Fowke, Managing Editor at You Caxton, will be talking about Robert Clive and Shropshire on Wednesday 14 November, 3.15 pm, at Shrewsbury Museum.
Robert Clive is perhaps Shropshire’s most famous son after Darwin. He was clever, absurdly brave and absurdly rich and suffered from bouts of depression. Bob Fowke pieces together the story of his long and colourful association with Shropshire and examines the importance of ‘county’ or ‘country’ in eighteenth-century life.
Clive was born at Styche Hall, the impoverished family home near Market Drayton, and it was there that he first displayed his ‘martial disposition’. On his return from India in 1760, aged thirty-four and already famous, he returned to Shropshire, rented Condover Hall and became MP for Shrewsbury. The following year, he bought Walcot Hall near Bishop’s Castle where he installed his younger brother William as MP. Later he bought Oakley Park near Ludlow where his widow Margaret continued to live after his death.
Clive’s story started in Shropshire and it ended there. He died in London, at his house in Berkley Square, probably having committed suicide, but his body was returned to Shropshire secretly and buried at dusk in an unmarked grave in Moreton Saye Church near Market Drayton.