BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Gladstone's Library. - ECPv6.16.2//NONSGML v1.0//EN
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
METHOD:PUBLISH
X-WR-CALNAME:Gladstone's Library.
X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://dev.gladstoneslibrary.org
X-WR-CALDESC:Events for Gladstone's Library.
REFRESH-INTERVAL;VALUE=DURATION:PT1H
X-Robots-Tag:noindex
X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT1H
BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:Europe/London
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:+0000
TZOFFSETTO:+0100
TZNAME:BST
DTSTART:20240331T010000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:+0100
TZOFFSETTO:+0000
TZNAME:GMT
DTSTART:20241027T010000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:+0000
TZOFFSETTO:+0100
TZNAME:BST
DTSTART:20250330T010000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:+0100
TZOFFSETTO:+0000
TZNAME:GMT
DTSTART:20251026T010000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:+0000
TZOFFSETTO:+0100
TZNAME:BST
DTSTART:20260329T010000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:+0100
TZOFFSETTO:+0000
TZNAME:GMT
DTSTART:20261025T010000
END:STANDARD
END:VTIMEZONE
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20251009T150000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20251009T160000
DTSTAMP:20260520T011926
CREATED:20250312T152450Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250312T152450Z
UID:10000283-1760022000-1760025600@dev.gladstoneslibrary.org
SUMMARY:Talk: Necessary Women; The Untold History of Parliament's Working Women
DESCRIPTION:Necessary Women; The Untold History of Parliament’s Working Women\, with Mari Takayanagi\n3-4pm\, Thursday 9th October 2025\nWhen suffragette Emily Wilding Davison hid overnight in the Houses of Parliament in 1911 to have her name recorded in the census there\, she may not have known that there were sixty-seven other women also resident in Parliament that night: housekeepers\, kitchen maids\, and wives and daughters living in households. This talk\, with historian and archivist Mari Takayanagi\, tells their story. \nWomen have touched just about every aspect of life in Parliament. From ‘Jane’\, dispenser of beer\, pies and chops in Bellamy’s legendary refreshment rooms; to May Ashworth\, Official Typist to Parliament for thirty years through marriage\, war and divorce; and Jean Winder\, the first female Hansard reporter\, who fought for years for equal pay; the lives of these women have been largely unacknowledged – until now. \nDrawing on new research from the Parliamentary Archives\, government records and family history sources\, historians and parliamentary insiders\, Mari’s recent book Necessary Women (with Elizabeth Hallam Smith) brings these unsung heroes to life. Join Mari at Gladstone’s Library to learn about women left out of the history books – including Mary Jane Anderson\, a previously unknown suffragette. \nDr Mari Takayanagi is a historian of women and Parliament from the mid-19th to mid-20th centuries\, and Senior Archivist at the UK Parliamentary Archives. \nHer research interests include legislation affecting women’s lives and gender equality\, early women MPs\, and women staff in the House of Commons and House of Lords. Her most recent publications are ‘Suffrage Centenaries’ in the Routledge Companion to British Women’s Suffrage (Routledge\, 2024)\, and as co-editor with Erika Rackley and Rosemary Auchmuty\, Women’s Legal Landmarks in the Interwar Years (Hart Publishing\, 2024). \nHer monograph\, Necessary Women: the Untold Story of Parliament’s Working Women\, co-authored with Elizabeth Hallam Smith\, was published in 2023 by The History Press.
URL:https://dev.gladstoneslibrary.org/event/talk-necessary-women-the-untold-history-of-parliaments-working-women/
LOCATION:Chapel\, Gladstone's Library\, Hawarden\, Flintshire\, CH5 3DF\, United Kingdom
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://dev.gladstoneslibrary.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Takayanagi-WEB.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20251007T190000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20251007T200000
DTSTAMP:20260520T011926
CREATED:20250312T151225Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250312T151225Z
UID:10000282-1759863600-1759867200@dev.gladstoneslibrary.org
SUMMARY:Talk: Beyond Science vs Art with Selali Fiamanya
DESCRIPTION:‘The Diagnosis is in the Patient’s Story’: Beyond Science vs Art with Selali Fiamanya\n7pm-8pm\, Tuesday 7th October 2025\nNovelist Selali Fiamanya trained as a scientist and medical doctor\, and always found a tension between his aspirations as an artist and his life as a scientist. As he’ll suggest in this evening talk\, however\, such distinctions are thoroughly modern\, and the sciences and the arts have more uniting than dividing them. \nIn Selali’s case\, he understands both art and science as investigations into truth\, and these investigations have historically taken many forms. In his own life and work\, using the systematic skills of diagnosis and problem solving got him through the thorny aspects of writing of his novel\, whilst learning how to communicate a story in an engaging way has helped him endlessly with patients. \nIn this hour-long event Selali will reflect on doctor-writers from Anton Chekhov to Adam Kay; as well as other historical and modern thinkers\, scientists and artists\, aiming to blur the boundary between fact and fiction and suggest that each makes the other stronger. \nSelali Fiamanya is a novelist and essayist who is interested in the contradictions that define human experience. Before We Hit the Ground\, his first novel\, is due for publication in early 2025 having been runner-up for the PONTAS and JJ Bola Emerging Writer’s Prize as an unfinished manuscript. \nSelali began writing through involvement with radical zine collective Skin Deep\, where he wrote and edited fiction\, non-fiction\, poetry\, and visual arts pieces on the themes of race and culture\, which were distributed widely\, free of charge. This collaborative approach was maintained with several other zine projects such as People of Content and whut?\, all championing queer people of colour to produce collaborative\, multi-disciplinary work. \nSelali’s love for collaborative writing also took him to the traditional publishing world\, having worked with a former refugee to write a collaborative narrative non-fiction piece for the anthology Will You Read This Please? (edited by Gladstone’s Library regular Joanna Cannon) about her mental health journey.
URL:https://dev.gladstoneslibrary.org/event/talk-beyond-science-vs-art-with-selali-fiamanya/
LOCATION:Chapel\, Gladstone's Library\, Hawarden\, Flintshire\, CH5 3DF\, United Kingdom
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://dev.gladstoneslibrary.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Selali-Fiamanya-WEB.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20250904T190000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20250904T200000
DTSTAMP:20260520T011926
CREATED:20250312T135411Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250312T135411Z
UID:10000271-1757012400-1757016000@dev.gladstoneslibrary.org
SUMMARY:Talk: Equal Citizenship of the Mind with Joanna Miller
DESCRIPTION:Equal Citizenship of the Mind with Joanna Miller\n7pm-8pm\, Thursday 4th September 2025\nThis talk explores women’s fight for equality at Oxford\, from the establishment of the first colleges in the 1880s\, to 1920 when women were finally accepted as fully fledged members of the university. \nIn writing her novel\, The Eights\, writer and poet Joanna Miller gained some fascinating insights into the lives of the first women at Oxford\, and the role that suffrage and World War One played in changing male attitudes. \nFrom overbearing chaperones\, to climbing in windows and finding loopholes to beat the men at rowing\, the lives of the first women at Oxford were certainly never dull! \nJoanna Miller is a writer from Hertfordshire whose debut novel The Eights will be published by Fig Tree Penguin (UK) and Putnam Books (US) in March 2025. The novel tells the story of four women from different backgrounds who are amongst the first to matriculate at Oxford University in the shadow of the First World War. \n\nJoanna’s work explores themes around female friendship\, feminism and suffrage and is inspired by museums and local history. Joanna works part-time as a bookseller and has just completed an Undergraduate Diploma in Creative Writing at Oxford. She is also graduate of Faber Academy and Escalator\, the National Centre for Writing’s talent development scheme. \nPrior to that\, Joanna established an award-winning poetry gift business and worked as an English teacher and literacy adviser. Her rhyming verse has been filmed twice by the BBC\, and in 2015 she won The Poetry Prize\, run by Bloomsbury Publishing and The National Literacy Trust. \nPicture by Lucy Noble Photography.
URL:https://dev.gladstoneslibrary.org/event/talk-equal-citizenship-of-the-mind-with-joanna-miller/
LOCATION:Chapel\, Gladstone's Library\, Hawarden\, Flintshire\, CH5 3DF\, United Kingdom
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://dev.gladstoneslibrary.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Joanna-Miller-WEB.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20250703T190000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20250703T200000
DTSTAMP:20260520T011926
CREATED:20250317T195927Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250317T195927Z
UID:10000298-1751569200-1751572800@dev.gladstoneslibrary.org
SUMMARY:In Conversation: Muslim\, Actually\, with Tawseef Khan
DESCRIPTION:Muslim\, Actually: How We Get Islam Wrong and Why it Matters\, with Tawseef Khan\n7pm-8pm\, Thursday 3rd July 2025\nJoin Tawseef Khan for a discussion of his first non-fiction book Muslim\, Actually\, in which he looks at the Islamophobia persistent in some segments of Western society\, from its ancient origins and development\, to how it operates and manifests today. Talking to Andrea Russell\, Warden at Gladstone’s Library\, Tawseef will look to dismantle the essential stereotypes that Islamophobia is constructed around. How have Tawseef’s reflections on how the discourse on Islamophobia (and his attitudes towards it) changed since writing and publishing the book? What does he feel are the future prospects of the West embracing its Muslim communities unconditionally? And finally\, where does the conversation go from here? \nTawseef Khan is a qualified immigration solicitor and holds a doctoral degree from the University of Liverpool\, where he examined the fairness of the British asylum system. He is also a graduate of the creative writing programme at the University of East Anglia\, where he received the Seth Donaldson Memorial Bursary. His fiction has appeared in Lighthouse and Test Signal: a Northern anthology; his non-fiction in the New York Times\, The Face and Hyphen. His debut non-fiction book Muslim\, Actually was published by Atlantic in 2021. He lives in Manchester.
URL:https://dev.gladstoneslibrary.org/event/in-conversation-muslim-actually-with-tawseef-khan/
LOCATION:Chapel\, Gladstone's Library\, Hawarden\, Flintshire\, CH5 3DF\, United Kingdom
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://dev.gladstoneslibrary.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Tawseef-Khan-WEB.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20250619T190000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20250619T200000
DTSTAMP:20260520T011926
CREATED:20250317T195044Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250317T195044Z
UID:10000297-1750359600-1750363200@dev.gladstoneslibrary.org
SUMMARY:Talk: Writing Yourself Well\, with Caroline Crampton
DESCRIPTION:Writing Yourself Well\, with Caroline Crampton\n7pm-8pm\, Thursday 19th June 2025\nWriting about illness is an entire genre unto itself — memoirs of extraordinary pain and survival against the odds are regulars on bookshop shelves and bestseller lists alike. But what is it actually like to write about your illnesses\, and how can it impact how you feel?  \nIn order to write her book A Body Made of Glass: A History of Hypochondria\, writer and podcaster Caroline Crampton spent five years immersed in stories about illness from writers like Philip Larkin\, Charles Darwin\, Virginia Woolf\, Charlotte Brontë\, Jane Austen and many others. Over time\, this intimacy with all of the different ways to be unwell actually began to have a positive effect on Caroline’s own hypochondria and her relationship with her health.  \nBy sharing these literary stories from the past and recounting the techniques involved in crafting her own story\, Caroline’s talk discusses how the ways we read – and write – about our illnesses can impact the way we experience them.  \nCaroline Crampton is a writer and podcaster whose work aims to bring people closer to material they may never have considered approachable before. As she says\, ‘I like to combine autobiography\, deep research\, careful structure and considered prose to produce work that will\, I hope\, inform as much as it entertains or delights’.  Caroline’s first book\, The Way to the Sea: The Forgotten Histories of the Thames Estuary (2019) combines the unusual personal story of her parents’ emigration to Britain on a small boat with travelogue\, history\, literary criticism and a portrait of an unusual landscape. \nHer next book\, A Body Made of Glass: A History of Hypochondria (2024)\, is a chronological narrative of health anxiety spanning from the very earliest humans to today. Critics hailed it as a ‘landmark’ book for its examination of what this universal doubt and fear can tell us about life and medicine in every age\, as well as relating Caroline’s own experiences as a teenage cancer survivor who perpetually fears she will be sick again.   Alongside her book projects\, Caroline produces a fortnightly podcast\, Shedunnit (BBC Sounds); each episode looks at an aspect of golden age detective fiction\, covering everything from Agatha Christie’s skill at archaeology to the influence of science on whodunnits.
URL:https://dev.gladstoneslibrary.org/event/talk-writing-yourself-well-with-caroline-crampton/
LOCATION:Chapel\, Gladstone's Library\, Hawarden\, Flintshire\, CH5 3DF\, United Kingdom
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://dev.gladstoneslibrary.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Caroline-Crampton-Talk-WEB.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20250524T170000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20250524T180000
DTSTAMP:20260520T011926
CREATED:20250317T193453Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250324T141636Z
UID:10000295-1748106000-1748109600@dev.gladstoneslibrary.org
SUMMARY:Lecture: 'More Matter for a May Morning': Shakespeare's Twelfth Night and the Thresholds of Foolery\, with Emma Rees
DESCRIPTION:‘More Matter for a May Morning’: Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and the Thresholds of Foolery\, with Emma Rees\n5pm\, Saturday 24th May 2025\nThe 1623 First Folio labels Twelfth Night a comedy. But how comfortably does this chaotic and subversive play actually sit in that genre? Do modern sensibilities demand a more nuanced interpretation of it? \nIn thinking about comedy’s limitations and the thresholds of foolery\, Emma Rees will use Trevor Nunn’s glorious 1996 film adaptation as a springboard into considering the shadows that haunt three of the play’s characters: Feste\, Malvolio\, and Antonio. Is this a comedy suited\, as the roguish servant Fabian suggests\, to the folly of a bright May morning\, or is it more properly placed\, as its title proposes\, firmly in the melancholy darkness of January? \nIn 2016 Emma Rees was Gladstone’s Library’s first Political Writer in Residence. She is Professor of Literature and Gender Studies at the University of Chester where she has taught Shakespeare’s works for a quarter of a century. In 2017 she finally achieved her goal of seeing every one of Shakespeare’s plays live on stage at least once\, and she ran her first residential Gladstone’s Library Shakespeare course in 2018\, on The Taming of the Shrew. She returned in 2019 with The Merchant of Venice; led a weekend course on Macbeth in 2023; and on The Tempest in 2024. She’s delighted to be returning in 2025 with Twelfth Night. \n 
URL:https://dev.gladstoneslibrary.org/event/lecture-more-matter-for-a-may-morning-shakespeares-twelfth-night-and-the-thresholds-of-foolery-with-emma-rees/
LOCATION:Chapel\, Gladstone's Library\, Hawarden\, Flintshire\, CH5 3DF\, United Kingdom
CATEGORIES:Open Lecture
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://dev.gladstoneslibrary.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Emma-REES-Llandanwg-beach-photo-e1742240072916.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20250501T190000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20250501T200000
DTSTAMP:20260520T011926
CREATED:20250317T172122Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250317T172122Z
UID:10000288-1746126000-1746129600@dev.gladstoneslibrary.org
SUMMARY:Talk: The Home Child with Liz Berry
DESCRIPTION:The Home Child\, with Liz Berry\n7pm-8pm\, Thursday 1st May 2025\nJoin award-winning poet Liz Berry for an evening of readings based around her latest book\, The Home Child. Called ‘ground-breaking’ by Benjamin Zephaniah\, The Home Child is inspired by the life of Liz’s aunt and tells the story of Eliza Showell\, sent to Canada for a ‘better life’ in 1908. \nAs well as weaving poems with Eliza’s story\, Liz – whose poems are known and loved for their use of vernacular language – will think about the use of regional or ‘home’ language\, particularly how using such language vividly conjures story and emotion. In previous performances\, audience questions have led to deep and moving discussions about family histories\, social justice\, looked-after children\, how writing might play a role as witness or agent of change\, and (of course) love. \nThis is sure to be an evening full of poetry and warm discussion – not to be missed! \nLiz Berry is an award-winning poet and author of the critically acclaimed collections Black Country (Chatto\, 2014); The Republic of Motherhood (Chatto\, 2018); The Dereliction (Hercules Editions\, 2021) a collaboration with artist Tom Hicks; and most recently The Home Child (Chatto\, 2023)\, a novel in verse. \nLiz’s work\, described as “a sooty soaring hymn to her native West Midlands” (The Guardian)\, celebrates the landscape\, history and dialect of the region. Liz has received the Somerset Maugham Award\, Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize\, Eric Gregory Award and two Forward Prizes. Her poem ‘Homing’\, a love poem for the language of the Black Country\, is part of the GCSE English syllabus. Liz is a patron of Writing West Midlands and holds an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Wolverhampton for services to literature. 
URL:https://dev.gladstoneslibrary.org/event/talk-the-home-child-with-liz-berry/
LOCATION:Chapel\, Gladstone's Library\, Hawarden\, Flintshire\, CH5 3DF\, United Kingdom
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://dev.gladstoneslibrary.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Liz-Berry-Headshot-23-scaled.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20250426T191500
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20250426T201500
DTSTAMP:20260520T011926
CREATED:20250317T194126Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250317T194126Z
UID:10000296-1745694900-1745698500@dev.gladstoneslibrary.org
SUMMARY:Lecture: The Last Enchanted Places? A Journey Through the Spa Towns of mid-Wales\, with Ian Bradley
DESCRIPTION:The Last Enchanted Places? A Journey Through the Spa Towns of mid-Wales\, with Ian Bradley\n7.15pm\, Saturday 26th April 2025\nThere is a Brigadoon-like quality about the four spa towns in the old Welsh county of Radnorshire\, now part of Powys. Llandrindod Wells\, Builth Wells\, Llanmarach Wells and Llanwrytd Wells seem to be lost in the mists of time\, just as they are frequently also lost in the mists and rain that often descend on the green hills and valleys in this part of mid-Wales. Between them\, they have the most varied and unusual natural mineral water springs of anywhere in the British Isles. The legendary origins of these health giving springs derive from Celtic mythology. Once thriving health and holiday resorts\, the mid-Welsh spas retain a bewitched and intriguing atmosphere – are they\, indeed\, among the last enchanted places left in Britain? \nThis talk is given by Ian Bradley\, author of forty-six books on Theology and related subjects\, and frequent course leader at Gladstone’s Library.
URL:https://dev.gladstoneslibrary.org/event/lecture-the-last-enchanted-places-a-journey-through-the-spa-towns-of-mid-wales-with-ian-bradley/
LOCATION:Chapel\, Gladstone's Library\, Hawarden\, Flintshire\, CH5 3DF\, United Kingdom
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://dev.gladstoneslibrary.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Llandrindod-Wells-CC-Ian-Bradley-Enchanted-Placed-WEB.png
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR