Lloyd Markham and Crystal Jeans to appear at the Ilkley Literature Festival

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Lloyd Markham and Crystal Jeans to appear at the Ilkley Literature Festival

25 September 2018

Bad Ideas Chemicals Lloyd Markham NEW 2

Authors Lloyd Markham and Crystal Jeans will appear at the Ilkley Literature Festival, held between 28 September - 14 October, in various locations in Ilkley, West Yorkshire, and surrounding towns and villages.

Bad Ideas / Chemicals by Lloyd Markham won the Betty Trask Award, and was shortlisted for the 2018 Wales Book of the Year Award. Selected to the Wales Literature Exchange 2017 - 2018 Bookcase, our annual selection of Welsh literary works which we recommend for translation, the novel takes the traditional south Wales novel of urban decay into completely new territory.

Crystal Jeans won the 2018 Wales Book of the Year English Fiction category with her novel, Light Switches are my Kryptonite, published by Honno.

The Ilkley Literature Festival is the north of England's oldest and largest literature festival. The festival includes over 200 events over seventeen days including discussions, readings, performances, workshops, literary walks, poetry, festival fringe and children’s and young people’s weekend. Among the authors appearing at the festival this year are Carol Ann Duffy, Alan Bennett and John Simpson.

Wales Literature Exchange have organised the following events in association with Honno Press and Parthian Books and with support from Arts Council Wales at the festival this year:

Lemons to Lemonade: Workshop with Crystal Jeans


Award-winning, Cardiff-born novelist Crystal Jeans shows you how to turn lemons into lemonade, using real-life experiences, building on them and turning them into fresh writing. Find out how to turn nonfiction into fiction with a special emphasis on using old resentments, bitterness and pain in new ways.

Saturday, 29 September, 2pm, Ilkley Arts Studio. (SOLD OUT)


Tales of Independence and Belonging: New Writing from Wales
Three distinctive, vigorous new voices from Wales:

  • Crystal Jeans;
  • Lloyd Markham;
  • Glen James Brown.

Their work mines similar themes: dystopian and futuristic, it foregrounds working class lives. Post-Brexit and post-industrial but it’s more than ‘dirty urban’ fiction from South Wales, this work is “funny, fiery, and imagines a world where no holds are barred.”

Saturday, 29 September, 5.30pm, Church House, £7 / £5 concession.
Book tickets here

Further information regarding Ilkley Literature Festival can be found here.