Stories and poems

Beryl Bainbridge's black comedy takes as its setting a noisy, argumentative working class family in Liverpool, getting ready to see a pantomime based on Peter Pan.

'Weekend' is a short story by the author Fay Weldon, and published by Penguin in 'Modern British Short Stories'. It originally appeared in 'Cosmopolitan' magazine in 1978.  This version of the BritLit kit was significantly revised in 2009.

The story ‘Moses's Little Brother’ was writer by Ron Butlin, who is from Scotland. The activities that go with it are suitable for secondary age students.

'The Hand that Feeds Me' is a story by the American born writer Michael Z. Lewin, who lives in Bath in England. The narrator has a different view of the city from most people. This kit was written by a group of teachers from Italy, Spain and Portugal who attended the NILE (Norwich Institute for Language Education) course in Norwich in August 2008.

The traditional story of Little Red Riding Hood receives a curious twist in this offering by Louise Cooper. The kit has been produced by teachers from Italy, Spain and Portugal and is suitable for a range of abilities and ages.

These three short kits were the result of a collaborative event in Segovia, Spain, between the organisers of the Hay Festival Segovia 2008 and the British Council, Spain. Teachers and teacher trainers from the Comunidades de Castilla León and Madrid were invited for a one day event which melded specialist BritLit workshops and events with public events featuring authors.

The kit is based on the short story of the same name by author Andrea Levy. The story was first published in ‘The Independent on Sunday' and later in the anthology ‘Underwords - The Hidden City' published by Maia Press Limited.

The Landlady is a short story by Roald Dahl. It was first published in ‘The New Yorker' magazine in 1959, and has since appeared in many anthologies of Dahl's stories, the first of which was ‘Kiss, Kiss' (published by Michael Joseph). The story is used here by kind permission of Penguin Books.

This project is something out of the ordinary for BritLit as it supports a major piece of performance poetry. The materials here have been designed to support a series of workshops and performances of ‘Chinese Whispers' by Francesca Beard, one of the UK's leading performance poets.