Five Leaves Bookshop in Nottingham will put on an ambitious programme of online events between March and November 2021, thanks to generous funding from the National Lottery via Arts Council England.
These events will cover four central themes: Modern Women Artists, Autism and the Arts, Cultural Diversity in Children’s Books and Contemporary Irish Authors. Later in the year there will be six international events in collaboration with other UNESCO Cities of Literature: Seattle, Melbourne, Reykjavík, Óbidos, Utrecht and Lillehammer.
Five Leaves owner Ross Bradshaw said:
“Five Leaves Bookshop is pleased to have secured Arts Council funding for this programme.
“During lockdown we started running online events, and this programme gives us an opportunity to go in more depth into subjects we’re interested in.
“Five Leaves is amongst the first independent bookshops securing Arts Council funding for events and we are pleased that ACE now offers such support to our sector.”
The bookshop’s extensive and varied programme of live events, including poetry readings, political discussions, arts and history talks, and book launches, has enabled them to build a local community, and online events such as the book launch for House of Music, Kadiatu Kanneh-Mason’s autobiography about the Nottingham family whose seven children are all professional musicians, have encouraged audiences from around the world to join that community.
There are now nearly 50 recorded online events on the Five Leaves YouTube channel.
In the summer of 2020 Five Leaves partnered with Nottingham UNESCO City of Literature on four events featuring Ann Patchett, Tayari Jones and Kate Mosse, among others (resulting in the bookshop being mentioned on Radio 4’s Today programme).
Sandeep Mahal, Director of Nottingham UNESCO City of Literature, said:
“Five Leaves have long been brilliant at putting on fascinating, insightful and necessary events, and this season of unmissable treats is no exception.
“Five Leaves has always been an integral part of what it is to be a City of Literature, and by collaborating with our fellow UNESCO cities around the globe is wonderful proof of that. We are very much looking forward to exploring the range of events on offer, and seeing how words can really help build a better world.
“The first event series is on Modern Women Artists, in partnership with Eiderdown Books, starting on March 4th 2021.
Harriet Olsen, publisher at Eiderdown Books, says:
“I’m delighted Eiderdown Books are working with Five Leaves Bookshop during Women’s History Month this year, with talks taking place throughout March from five authors from our Modern Women Artists series.
“Each speaker will introduce the life and work of a different female artist who was working in the first half of the twentieth century, whose work might otherwise have been overlooked, overshadowed or forgotten.
“As a young, independent publishing house, collaboration is important to us, so I’m thrilled we are working alongside the Five Leaves team to share the work of some amazing female artists with a wider audience.
Attendees at all events will be given an opportunity to purchase copies of the associated books at a discounted price. Booking is currently open for the Modern Women Artists series and the Autism and Art series, and will open shortly for the Cultural Diversity in Children’s Literature series.
Pippa Hennessy, Five Leaves online events manager, said:
“We’ve seen our audience grow over the last 10 months, and our last event included audience members from across the UK, Ireland, Europe, New Zealand, Australia, USA and Israel.
“All the guests we couldn’t feature and people who couldn’t attend our face-to-face events due to their distance from Nottingham are now able to join the Five Leaves community, and I’m looking forward to seeing that continue through 2021 and into the future.”
