The Big Gay Read...

[michele cryer]

The Big Gay Read goes to York!



THE BIG GAY READ AT YORK LESBIAN ARTS FESTIVAL
Information Stand Fri 28- Sat 29 October 2005
Workshop 10-11am Fri 28 October 2005
YLAF Book Festival
York Racecourse
York

York plays host to the York Lesbian Arts Festival from 27-30 October 2005. As part of the YLAF Book Festival, The Big Gay Read will be there to run an information stall on Fri 28 and Sat 29 October. Come on down and meet some of the people behind the campaign to find Britain’s favourite novel. For full programme details and ticket information go to: www.ylaf.org.uk.

Join Cathy Bolton (Commonword) and Janet Swan (Salford Libraries) in a workshop discussion about The Big Gay Read between 10-11am on Friday 28 October 2005. Share recommendations of your own favourite novels and maybe meet your reading soul mate!


The Big Gay Read website is now LIVE!


From the personal testimonials of celebrities, artists, and authors to the heated discussions on the forums, there are now more opportunities than ever to join the debate at www.biggayread.com.

What book does Amy Lame think should win? Ben Summerskill? Sadie Lee? Have a look around the reading list sections and find out.

What book do YOU think should win? Join the forum and champion your favourite book.

Read the comments, read the books and cast YOUR all-important vote at: www.biggayread.com!


Jake Arnott appears at Chester Literature Festival


Tue 8 October 2005
7.45pm
Bink’s Lecture Theatre,
University Of Chester
Tickets £6 on door

Jake Arnott, author of The Big Gay Read recommended novel, The Long Firm, will be speaking about his work at the University of Chester next Tuesday evening, as part of the Chester Literature Festival.


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Also this month, not queerupnorth events but worth checking out...

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Patty Chang Solo Exhibtion

Special Preview Invite for the queerupnorth mailing list



PATTY CHANG SOLO EXHIBITION
Preview
Thur 20 October 2005
6pm-8pm
Chinese Arts Centre
Thomas Street
Manchester

The Chinese Arts Centre would like to invite you to a special preview of a new exhibition from Patty Chang on Thursday 20 October 2005.

Continuously toying with the idea that ‘seeing is believing’ Patty Chang’s video work plays with integrity and unreliability. Never conventional, Patty came to explore video’s ability to create illusion through her work at a cyber-sex company in New York, she exploits the flatness of video to make the audience, at first encounter, see and believe that something other than what is actually going on is happening. Her work exists between live performance and its documentation.

If you would like to receive an invitation to this special preview via post please email your contact details to [e-mail] and use the subject heading 'Chang invite'.

The exhibition runs from Fri 21 October – 23 December 2005. For further details please go to www.chinese-arts-centre.org or call 0161 832 7271.

"Patty Chang’s visually arresting, and at times disturbing videos and performances, simultaneously titillate and cause discomfort" Euridice Arratia, Art Asia Pacific


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proudWORDS Creative Writing Festival 2005


QUEER I.E.
Fri 14– Sat 22 October 2005
Various Locations
Newcastle/Gateshead

How do we identify as gay? Is sexual identity a way of sticking a label on ourselves that tells others which group we belong to? What makes us gay? Should we be classed as another demographic group or have we transcended borders and merged with the mainstream? Gay identity is the theme of this year’s proudWORDS Creative Writing Festival: a week of workshops, discussions and events in the Newcastle/Gateshead area.

With Rhona Cameron, Peter Tatchell, Joan Opyr (Idaho Joan), Jenny Kitzinger, QBoy, The Gay Genes Project, V.G.Lee, Helen Shacklady, a Derek Jarman Film Night, a digital film-making workshop, a Big Gay Breakfast and Ophelia Balls.

For further information go to: www.proudwords.org or call 07973 894912


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[michele cryer]

Join The Big Gay Read for the opening night of Brokeback Mountain at Manchester’s Cornerhouse in January



Brokeback Mountain is now an award-winning motion picture (starring Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhall, Michelle Williams, & Randy Quaid) and comes to Manchester’s Cornerhouse from Fri 6 – Thu 19 January 2006.

Come and join The Big Gay Read for the first night screenings on Friday 6 January 2006 where you can cast your Big Gay Read vote and have the chance to win a complete set of the Recommended Reading List Books. The screenings take place at 5.50pm/8.30pm and tickets are £5.10/£3.70 conc.*

In Ang Lee’s moving adaptation of Annie Proulx’s short story, cowboys Ennis (Ledger) and Jack (Gyllenhall) are taken on as ranch hands at a Wyoming ranch. Sent to a remote outpost, they form a friendship that develops into deep love. But summer ends and they fade back into the lives they’re expected to lead: finding wives, raising families. Years later, they meet again. Lee lassos the underlying romantic homo-tendencies of numerous Westerns and yanks ‘em to the forefront, with openly gay love scenes between the leads.

“Heath Ledger’s wrenching performance is the stuff of Hollywood History” Newsweek

Brokeback Mountain (15), 136min

For more info please go to: www.brokebackmountain.com/

Cornerhouse, 70 Oxford Street, Manchester, M1 5NH. Box Office tel: [phone].

***SPECIAL TICKET OFFER***

Thanks to our lovely friends at Cornerhouse, if you quote BIG GAY READ OFFER when buying your ticket for either the 5.50pm or 8.30pm screenings of Brokeback Mountain on Friday 6 January 2006, you will receive £1 off the ticket price.

This offer is strictly limited to 2 tickets per person and is restricted to the first 100 tickets sold to Big Gay Read Subscribers. So get there early!

*Proof of concession = unemployed, students, disabled, OAP



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Don’t miss in December...
All We Were Saying. A happening at the Apartment by Ken Chu.



Same sex civil partnerships will be legally recognized in England and Wales on 21 December 2005. All We Were Saying is a one-day performance work with two men in bed knitting for peace. All is looking to provide a public forum for ordinary queer citizens and their friends to respond to this momentous occasion in our history.

The Apartment will be opened from 3 – 8 pm for the community to gather in support of the knitters. There will be song singing, spontaneous camp, kiss-ins, reunions, sound bites, mapping a timeline, a moment of silence in memory of lost colleagues, and other communal activities through the course of the evening. The work is informed by the Yoko Ono/John Lennon 1969 Amsterdam 'bed-in' for peace.

All We Were Saying is a grassroots effort in association facillitated by the Apartment, Castlefield Gallery, Chinese Arts Centre, and queerupnorth.



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If you do not wish to receive these bulletins, please send an email with the subject UNSUBSCRIBE to [e-mail]. Please accept our apologies if you receive this email more than once. If you continue to receive duplicates or if you would like to correspond with a member of our staff, please do not reply to this email, but instead contact our Administrator at [e-mail]

queerupnorth (IQUN Ltd) 5 Oak Street Manchester M4 5JD
phone [phone] fax [phone]
Registered Charity 1105510