Gibraltar Literary Festival 2018

In this discussion-based session, Lucy Atkins offers techniques, tips and tactics for aspiring authors. Lucy talks about how she crafts her own ‘noir’ fiction, exploring her writing process - from plotting (or not) to researching beetles for The Night Visitor, and getting up at 5am to write. She will focus specifically on techniques for creating suspense and tension - and why every author needs them. The session will include information for aspiring authors on how to find a literary agent, and how to get a book published.

How many plays did Shakespeare write? Which feature ghosts? Which are non-fiction and which are made up? Celebrate the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare with festival favourite Christopher Lloyd and a giant version of his What on Earth? Wallbook of Shakespeare, published in collaboration with The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. This unique voyage through the plays of Shakespeare is suitable for all ages and explores the world of human emotion using different colours to represent jealousy (green), anger (red), riches (gold), love (purple), terror (white) and magic (black). Using a series of props hidden inside a coat of many multi-coloured pockets pockets, the audience explores the world of Shakespeare as a gateway to the entire spectrum of human nature.

Whether we happen to be a CEO, a parent or the President of the United States of America, unless we know how to lead ourselves we will be unable to lead others. The Hero and the Villain Within takes you on an exciting journey of self-discovery, showing you where your habits and beliefs come from and the massive impact social conditioning has on our lives.

Society tells us that there is only one way to live, succeed, grow old, get sick and die. After a certain point, we are told, change is neither prudent nor possible. But society is wrong. It is always the right time to make changes and create a financially sound, physically fit and psychologically fulfilling life.

Social conditioning passed down from generation to generation forces us to participate in a collective fiction, which often leads to limitation and fear and ultimately deprives us of our freedom.

This book enables you to win at the game of life and recapture that freedom.

Deepak Chopra said the following: “Kenneth Castiel eloquently shares in The Hero and the Villain Within, the benefits of making lifestyle changes for a healthy body and an extraordinary and happy life.”

Entertainer Nicholas Parsons brings some guests, including Sheila Hancock, Jan Ravens, Robert Daws and Felix Francis for a special festival version of the long-running BBC Radio 4 show Just a Minute.

Panel members are challenged to speak for one minute without repetition or deviation on any subject that comes up. Be prepared for the sort of entertainment that has kept the BBC show going for more than 900 episodes over the last 60 years.

Parsons first came to the fore in the late 50s in a comedy partnership with Arthur Haynes. Alongside Just a Minute, he is well known for presenting Sale of the Century and for his chat show at the Edinburgh Fringe, which has run for 13 years. He has presented Just a Minute for the last 50 years without a break. His West End roles include Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods and The Rocky Horror Show.

Join best-selling non-fiction author Christopher Lloyd on his latest and greatest voyage through the 13.billion year story of Absolutely Everything! from the beginning of time to the present day. Using a giant 8m-long timeline as a backdrop, and his signature coat of many pockets, Christopher will stop off at 15 defining moments that have shaped all history – natural, stone age, ancient and modern. Each moment is represented by a different everyday object that represents a theme as significant to explaining the past as it is pertinent to determining the future.

“Taking a step back, is often far more valuable than racing two steps ahead”, says the author, who is famous for enthralling audiences all over the world with his highly interactive talks. “And when you take that step back and see how knowledge connects together you’ll discover how the real world is far more amazing than anything you can make up!” Christopher’s Absolutely Everything! roadshow celebrated the launch of his new ,easy-to-read page turner with more than 200 pictures and maps book that steps through the history of everything for all readers aged 9-99.

“ABSOLUTELY AMAZING ... Children will love it – and adults too!” – JACQUELINE WILSON, Tracey Beaker

Donald Trump isn’t a despot. But he is increasingly acting like a despot’s apprentice. Whether it’s attacking the press, threatening the rule of law, or staffing the White House with family members and cronies, Trump is borrowing moves from the world’s dictators. The president’s bizarre adoration of global strongmen has also transformed US foreign policy into a powerful force cheerleading some of the world’s worst regimes.

An expert on authoritarianism, Brian Klaas is well placed to recognise the warning signs of tyranny. He argues forcefully that with every autocratic tactic or tweet, Trump further erodes democratic norms in the world’s most powerful democracy.

The Despot’s Apprentice is an urgent exploration of the unique threat that Trump poses to global democracy—and how to save it from him before it’s too late.

Johnny will show just how simple our mathematical world could and should be, if it were explained in his uncluttered and enthusiastic style. We start with Russian Multiplication which he met aged 8, but which has its basis in Binary Maths, which underpins all of today’s modern communications technology, but is seldom taught or even explained.

His story of the history of mathematics finds links to our modern world, time after time. A sailor might work out how far the horizon is without realizing the same maths guides a cannon ball to its target or a space craft to Mars.

But Mathematics is only part of this rich and varied talk; Johnny features a globe and shows how Columbus had no idea how big the world was, but that with a globe in our homes for easy reference, we would all soon understand the world to a far greater extent.

He shows how genius is within us all, which is why an artist who had never built anything erected the largest masonry dome in the world which builders had declared impossible, while a more famous artist discovered maths and could no longer stand the sight of a paint brush. Finally, he shows that possibly our greatest scientific genius, in making his greatest ever discovery, universal gravitation, actually read just two books.

“Of all the books in the world ~ the best stories are found between the pages of a Passport”

One sunny morning in the spring of 2012, whilst sifting through a pile of old, uncompleted poems and song lines, scribbled over the years onto patchy scraps of paper, then stacked away and neglected inside an even older shoe box, I came across my first passport.

As I riffled through its pages, each pair of ‘Entry and Exit’ rubber-stamp, inked impressions seemed to be calling for its story to be told; each wanting clarification on the comings and goings of its intermezzo.

And as the fountain of interwoven memories began to sprout the minutiae of my everyday existence, it became clear to me how significant these dates had actually been at that stage of my life. Each stamping represented a reflection of an episode, a time, which had been lived through at an age where much raw experimentation and discovery had been carried out.

As I began the task of chronicling the stampings, I realized that more needed to be said about my early life. And so, the more I tapped on the keypad, the more I found myself being captivated by the experience of going back in time and reliving events that had taken place so, so long ago.