Kevan Manwaring – författare

A ballad is a poem or a song that tells a popular story and many traditional British ballads contain fascinating stories – tales of love and jealousy, murder and mystery, the supernatural and the historical. This anthology brings together nineteen original retellings in short story form, written by some of the country’s most accomplished storytellers, singers and wordsmiths. Here you will find tales of cross-dressing heroines, lusty pirates, vengeful fairy queens, mobsters and monsters, mermaids and starmen – stories that dance with the form and flavour of these narrative folk songs in daring and delightful ways. Richly illustrated, these enchanting tales will appeal to lovers of folk music, storytelling and rattling good yarns.

Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross and listen to the tales of this ancient county. Hear how a King and his knights were turned to stone at the mysterious Rollright Stones; how Dragon Hill got its name; take the Devil's Highway to the End of the World - if you dare; or spend a night on the weird Ot Moor; listen in on the Boar's Head Carol; walk the oldest trackway in Europe in the footsteps of a Neolithic pilgrim; pause to try the Blowing Stone; leave a coin for the enigmatic blacksmith to shoe your horse at Wayland's Smithy; eavesdrop upon the Inklings in the Eagle and Child; and meet that early fabulist, Geoffrey of Monmouth in the city of dreaming spires. This collection will take you on an oral tour across the county - on the way you'll meet gypsies, highwaymen, cavaliers, a prime minister and a devilish mason.

Take a walk through this county in the heart of England in the entertaining company of a local storyteller. Kevan Manwaring, born and raised in Northampton, regales you with tales ancient and modern. Learn how the farmer outwitted the bogle; how a Queen who lost her head; the Great Fire of Northampton; and the last execution of witches in England. Along the way you will meet incredible characters from history and myth: Boudicca, St Patrick, Robin Hood and Hereward the Wake, Captain Slash, Dionysia the female knight, beasts and angels, cobblers and kings. From fairies to wolves, these illustrated tales are ideal to be read out loud or used as a source book for your own performances. Northamptonshire Folk Tales is a great companion for any visit to the area, for fascinating days out and for discovering exciting treasures on your doorstep. The 'Rose of the Shires' will open before you!

From Gilgamesh to Gawain and the Green Knight, the Brothers Grimm to Grimdark, the natural world has provided the backdrop for Fantasy since its earliest iterations. The playgrounds of childhood are often a writer’s first Fantasy landscape and can develop into fully fledged storyworlds. Do readers of Fantasy seek out the genre for a taste of this unsullied environment? Is it nostalgia for the lost Edens of childhood, a way to escape, or to find resilience and inspiration? And in a time of Climate Emergency, is the nature of Fantasy changing to reflect the challenges it presents? Can the blue-sky thinking of the Fantastic provide us with a useful tool for addressing what the United Nations has called ‘the defining crisis of our time’? This is a timely survey of the environmental aspects of Fantasy, with a unique focus on Fantasy sites and the real-world impact of Fantasy texts across media.

From Gilgamesh to Gawain and the Green Knight, the Brothers Grimm to Grimdark, the natural world has provided the backdrop for Fantasy since its earliest iterations. The playgrounds of childhood are often a writer's first Fantasy landscape and can develop into fully fledged storyworlds. Do readers of Fantasy seek out the genre for a taste of this unsullied environment? Is it nostalgia for the lost Edens of childhood, a way to escape, or to find resilience and inspiration? And in a time of Climate Emergency, is the nature of Fantasy changing to reflect the challenges it presents? Can the blue-sky thinking of the Fantastic provide us with a useful tool for addressing what the United Nations has called 'the defining crisis of our time'? This is a timely survey of the environmental aspects of Fantasy, with a unique focus on Fantasy sites and the real-world impact of Fantasy texts across media.

From Gilgamesh to Gawain and the Green Knight, the Brothers Grimm to Grimdark, the natural world has provided the backdrop for Fantasy since its earliest iterations. The playgrounds of childhood are often a writer's first Fantasy landscape and can develop into fully fledged storyworlds. Do readers of Fantasy seek out the genre for a taste of this unsullied environment? Is it nostalgia for the lost Edens of childhood, a way to escape, or to find resilience and inspiration? And in a time of Climate Emergency, is the nature of Fantasy changing to reflect the challenges it presents? Can the blue-sky thinking of the Fantastic provide us with a useful tool for addressing what the United Nations has called 'the defining crisis of our time'? This is a timely survey of the environmental aspects of Fantasy, with a unique focus on Fantasy sites and the real-world impact of Fantasy texts across media.

Author of The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien, talked of 'desiring dragons'; that he would prefer 'a wilderness of dragons' to the bleak territory of the unimaginative critic. The genre of Fantasy (including Science Fiction and its various sub-genres in TV, film & computer games) has never been more popular. This book seeks to examine why this might be and why so many are tempted to write Fantasy fiction. Tolkien suggested how 'consolation' is an important criteria of the Fairy Tale: we look at how writing Fantasy can be consoling in itself, as well as a portal to Fantastic Realms for the reader. Along the way famous dragons of myth, legend and fiction will be encountered - from Grendel to Smaug. The riddles of dragons will be tackled and their hoard unlocked.

'The frisky Oss appeared - the dancers and drummers in a kind of shamanic trance (induced by a day of drumming, dancing and beer). They were wilder than ever; the atmosphere was positively Bacchanalian and I felt we had all become lost in a kind of collective folk consciousness.' On two wheels across Britain 'Bard on a Bike' Kevan Manwaring searches out the places and people who mark the seasons and cycles in their own special way - in ceremonies and festivals both private and public, large and intimate, ancient and modern. Along the way, he experiences and relates moments of sacred time found in the unlikeliest of places and circumstances, showing how it is a state of mind that can be experienced not only at sacred sites, but in the everyday. A collection of reflections about being fully alive in the Twenty First century, as much a useful guide for the curious, Turning the Wheel is a wise and witty account of a leather-clad time-traveller.

This creative writing textbook introduces students to ecofiction: narrative writing that focuses on the environment. Also known as ‘climate fiction’ or ‘cli-fi’, an increasing number of short story writers, novelists and pioneers of emerging forms such as interactive fiction are taking up the call to develop their own creative responses to the climate crisis. This guide explores a cross-section of genres and ways of writing about our world, as well as the ethical and technical challenges involved. It offers a discussion of classic and contemporary texts, literary criticism and creative writing exercises. The book covers a broad range of themes and styles of writing, from works that engage with nature and landscape writing to those that take a more activist approach to climate change. With an awareness of the Global South and the subaltern, the framing of the Anthropocene, wilderness and nature writing is challenged. Each chapter offers a new perspective on ecofiction for the creative writer, with reading suggestions and connections to other writers and texts, and writing activities. Designed for upper-level undergraduate and postgraduate writing modules on the environment, the book is also suitable for independent writers looking to expand their skillset.Featuring 20 interviews with ecofiction authors: Ana Filomena Amaral, Austin Aslan, Denise Baden, David Barker, TC Boyle, Lynn Buckle, Adam Connor, Michelle Cook, Julie Carrick Dalton, April Doyle, Anna Holmes, Somto Ihezue, RB Kelly, Gill Lewis, Anne Mordell, Anthony Nanson, Midge Raymond, Manda Scott, Mary Woodbury, John Yunker. ‘An extensive and enthusiastic guide into the wild and varied worlds of eco-fiction.’--James Canton, Director of Wild Writing MA, University of Essex, UK

Since Odysseus' curious crew first unleashed the bag of winds gifted him by Aeolus, the God of Winds, literature has been awash with tales of bad or strange weather. From the flood myths of Babylon, the Mahabharata and the Bible, to twentieth-century psychological storms, this foray into troubled waters, heat waves, severe winters, hurricanes and hailstones, offers the perfect read on a rainy day -- or night. Featuring a selection of some of the finest writers in the English language -- Algernon Blackwood, Herman Melville, Robert Louis Stevenson, Edgar Allan Poe and more -- this collection of weird tales will delight and disturb.