Today sees the start of two weeks of literary festivities in Manchester with the start of this year’s Manchester Literature Festival.
Among the highlights are Peter Blake on Dylan Thomas, afternoon teas at the Midland Hotel with Lynn Barber and Margaret Drabble, Sarah Waters reading her eagerly anticipated new book The Paying Guests, and Michel Faber launching his wonderful new novel The Book of Strange New Things.
Running across the fortnight is Tales from the Towpath, which invites the visitor on a self guided tour to explore hidden, lost and imagined lives of Manchester with a story that links its waterways to The Royal Exchange and Midland Hotel.
The tour uses GPS, QR codes, micro-projection and micro-print publication for a multi-sensory experience.
The trail was created by Maya Chowdhry, Sarah Hymas, Michelle Green and Helen Varley Jamieson and came out of a desire to create an immersive piece of literature focusing on Manchester’s waterways.
For more information and a listing of all the festival’s eighty events visit the festival website
