Tuesday, May 14, 2013

The Finno-Ugrian Vampire reaches New York!


13th May, 2013

We are now all back from the exciting times we had in New York at the Pen World Voices Festival. Our author, Noemi Szecsi, was invited to the festival, and her travel and hotel were supported by the Balassi Institute in New York, the Hungarian Cultural Association.

The first event (well, really is was a multiple event) was completely novel in format - the festival persuaded twenty or so apartment dwellers, all artists resident at the Bethune Street, Wesbeth Center for the Arts, to open their own homes to writers and their audiences. Noemi gave two talks at the home of Bea Kreloff, who introduced her, with Edith Isaac Rose, and despite interruptions from one very excited daschund, Lucy, the events went well. So in the space of two hours, the audience could rush to four apartments and hear four writers reading from their works, with a short time for questions. At the end there was a reception in the foyer.

A really novel and exciting format, which I hope we can bring to London - well done to Pen World Voices for achieving all the organisation.

Above are photos of Noemi with Bea, and with her translator, Peter Sherwood, who came to New York with his wife, Julia. Thank you also to Peter & Julia, for all their support and help, and for making the trip so worthwhile.