DMU has been revealed as the main backer and organiser of this year’s prestigious Everybody’s Reading festival in Leicester.
The festival is city-wide and last year saw more than 100 events take place at 40 venues throughout Leicester, involving everyone from children to grandparents on many of the city’s estates.
This year the festival has been extended from nine days to cover the whole of October – and the aim is to include a series of events across the DMU campus during that time.
Staff and students are being invited to come forward with ideas for reading events and to apply for up to £200 in funding for their plans.
Event co-ordinator Jess Bogic said: “The event’s aim is to take reading out to the wider community in Leicester so that children, parents, grandparents and the people of Leicester have an opportunity to come to events inspired by books, reading and words.
“But we also want DMU to play a leading role this year and would like as many staff and students as possible to come forward with their event ideas to get everybody reading on the campus.”
The festival started in 2010 and has hosted world-famous authors such as Michael Rosen, Helen Skelton and Michael Morpurgo at events. Local writers and performers including poet Jess Green, writers Bali Rai and Rod Duncan, and all-round wordsmith Carole Leeming have also made appearances.
In the last five years, more than 24,500 people have attended 580 events.
Those wishing to stage events for the Everybody’s Reading 2019 festival and apply for the £200 fund should fill in the application form (available here) and return it to local@dmu.ac.uk by 11.59pm on Wednesday 19 June.
Posted on Wednesday 22 May 2019