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Posts Tagged ‘Susan Sellers’

If you can get to Cambridge or London this month or next, you are in luck. You have two chances to learn more about the relationship between Maynard Keynes and ballerina Lydia Lopokova, straight from Susan Sellers, author of Firebird: A Bloomsbury Love Story, which explores the couple’s love story.

Maggie Humm, whose recent novel Talland House explores the life of Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse heroine, Lily Briscoe, joins Sellers for both conversations, the first in Cambridge and the second in London.

Here are the details for both events.

A Bloomsbury Love Story

When: Sunday 24 April 2022, 10-11 a.m. BST
Where: The Cambridge Union Society, 9a Bridge Street, Cambridge CB2 1UB
Why: Part of the Cambridge Literary Festival
Cost: Tickets £12. Book here.

Susan Sellers and Maggie Humm, two world-leading experts talk about the women of Bloomsbury, and what a lifetime of reading, researching, teaching and writing about Virginia Woolf has taught them.

An Evening in Bloomsbury with Susan Sellers and Maggie Humm

When: Thursday 5 May 2022, 6.30 p.m. BST
Where: Hatchards, 187 Piccadilly, London W1J 9LE
Cost: Tickets £10 Book here.

Join Susan Sellers discussing the lives of Bloomsbury’s most unlikely lovers, Maynard Keynes and Lydia Lopokova, with Maggie Humm.

It is the winter of 1921 and Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes launch a flamboyant new production at London’s Alhambra Theatre. Maynard Keynes is in the audience, though he expects little from the evening. Despite Lydia’s many triumphs, including the title role in Stravinsky’s Firebird, Maynard’s mind is made up – he considers her ‘a rotten dancer’. Besides, Lydia has at least one husband in tow and Maynard has only ever loved men.

Tonight, however, as Susan Sellers relates, that is all about to change and while The Firebird is a fictional re-imagining, life is often stranger and more surprising. Especially, perhaps, when it comes to the lives of theBloomsbury Group.

About the speakers

Susan Sellers

Susan Sellers is professor of English Literature and Creative Writing at the University of St. Andrews. Her first Bloomsbury-inspired novel, Vanessa and Virginia, was an editor’s pick for The New York Times and has been translated into 16 languages.

Maggie Humm

Maggie Humm is an Emeritus Professor, international Woolf scholar and novelist. She has written many books on feminism, art and Virginia Woolf, and in 2020 published her debut novel Talland House, a gripping historical romance/detective fiction set in picturesque Cornwall and London during World War I. Shortlisted for several prizes including Eyelands and Impress, Talland House was chosen by the Washington Independent Review of Books as one of its ’51 Favorite Books’ of 2020.

 

When the don met the dancer – this is the story of how Maynard Keynes, the great economist, fell for Lydia Lopokova, celebrity ballerina and Russian émigrée. And it is also a story of resistances, when a different kind of woman stepped into the settled world of Virginia, Vanessa, and all the rest of their English entourage. – In Firebird, Susan Sellers restages the bright Bloomsbury years of the early 1920s as they have never been seen before. – Rachel Bowlby

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I don’t have many positive things to say about the pandemic, but I am glad of one thing. It increased the number of online programs offered by the Virginia Woolf Society of Great Britain. And they make membership in the society even more worthwhile, no matter which side of the pond you are on.

The Bloomsbury Ballerina

The most recent online program was “Lydia Lopokova and Bloomsbury,” a March 16 conversation between author Susan Sellers and Virginia Woolf scholar Maggie Humm about the fascinating Russian dancer Lydia Lopokova and her complicated relationship with Bloomsbury.

Sellers, who wrote the novel Vanessa and Her Sister (2014) has a new novel coming out. Titled Firebird: A Bloomsbury Love Story, it tells the surprising story of two of Bloomsbury’s most unlikely lovers – John Maynard Keynes, the distinguished economist, and the extrovert Russian dancer Lydia Lopokova. Weaving biography and fiction, Firebird explores the tangle of Bloomsbury’s bohemian relationships as lifestyles are challenged and allegiances shift following Lydia’s explosive arrival.

Humm’s many publications on Bloomsbury include her acclaimed novel Talland House (2020), inspired by Woolf’s To the Lighthouse.

I missed the March 16 conversation, but because I am a member of the society, I can access it online as a YouTube video, via a link sent to members only.

Join up

Membership to the society for UK residents is £20, or £10 for full-time students. There are also memberships for those of us outside the UK. It is well worth it. Membership includes the following:

  • FREE Virginia Woolf Bulletin three times a year, containing articles, reviews and previously unpublished material by Woolf herself (normally £5 each)
  • Discount on Birthday Lecture: annual talk by a Woolf scholar or author, held on the Saturday nearest to 25 January
  • FREE Regular email updates, with information and news of upcoming Woolf events
  • Discount on member events: e.g. day conferences; study weekends, talks, visits; guided walks in an area connected with Woolf
  • FREE online talks and events: live and recorded events accessed by web link (members only)

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Susan Sellers moves from essay writing to creative writing with her next workshop from Literature Cambridge.

Susan Sellers

The program’s Creative Writing Workshop will be May 13, 2-6 p.m. at Stapleford Granary, Cambridge. The fee is £75 and includes afternoon tea.

Susan Sellers is well known to Woolfians for her academic work, and also as the author of Vanessa and Virginia, a remarkable novel about the sisters’ relationship.

The workshop will allow writers to improve their writing skills and learn more about available  publication opportunities for writers of fiction.

Literature Cambridge is also offering two Woolf courses for summer 2017.

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susan sellers

Susan Seller

Susan Sellers will present “Virginia Woolf and the Essay” Wednesday, April 26, at 1 p.m. as part of the Virginia Woolf Talks, Cambridge, presented by Literature Cambridge and Lucy Cavendish College.

The talk will be held at Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge. It is free and open to all, town and gown. Enquiries: tt206@cam.ac.uk

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woolf course

Can it get any more exciting than this? Literature Cambridge is offering a summer course on Virginia Woolf this July.

Here is the information that Trudi Tate, Director of Literature, Cambridge, and a lecturer at the summer course, sent Blogging Woolf, along with fee details I copied from the website:

Summer Course: Virginia Woolf in Cambridge, 18-22 July 2016

Literature Cambridge offers specialised summer courses in the beautiful university city of Cambridge. In 2016, our special author course is on Virginia Woolf. This is a rare opportunity to immerse yourself for five full days in Woolf’s writings and her context.

Each day we will have an expert lecture, followed by questions and discussion. On four days, there will be a Cambridge-style supervision. Students work in pairs, discussing the text of the day for an hour with an experienced Cambridge supervisor.

Susan Sellers will be a lecturer at the Cambridge summer course.

Susan Sellers, author of Vanessa and Virginia (2009), is one of several lecturers at this summer’s Literature Cambridge course.

There will be guided excursions to places of interest, including Girton and Newnham Colleges (where Woolf gave talks that became A Room of One’s Own), Grantchester (where Woolf met Rupert Brooke), and Bloomsbury in London.

In the evenings there will be literary readings or talks, as well as time to read further, explore Cambridge, and to reflect.

In 2016, we will be based in Homerton College, a lovely Victorian campus with beautiful large gardens, 10 minutes by bus from the city centre. Students live, take classes and take most of their meals in college, with opportunities to explore the rest of Cambridge. (It is also possible to come as a non-residential student: see the website.)

There are no prerequisites, but students must be over 18. At present we do not have the capacity to offer undergraduate credits, but we will explore this for 2017 and beyond if there is a demand.

I am really delighted to offer this unique opportunity to study Woolf in depth in the company of Woolfians from all over the world – teachers, students, scholars, and ‘common readers’. We are all her common readers and I look forward to working with you.

Fees

The course fee of £875, covers lectures, supervisions, course materials, excursions and talks. The residential fee of £570, includes six nights bed and breakfast (ensuite), four evening meals, plus one formal dinner. Non-residential students are welcome; evening meals and formal dinner may be paid for separately if desired.

An early bird discount of 5% will be offered for those booking by 15 January 2016.

More details

For more information, email info@literaturecambridge.co.uk

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