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Metal’s Salon series of six literary evenings at Chalkwell Hall bring some of the UK’s most exciting writers and creative thinkers to Southend on Sea. Book your tickets now for 2 June.

The next Salon will include BBC oral historian Alan Dein, poet Stephen Watts and film-makers Phill Maxwell and Hazuan Hashim.  Tickets cost £5 which includes a light meal and two drinks.  The event starts at 8pm, with an opportunity to see the latest film by Phill Maxwell and Hazuan Hashim earlier at 7pm.

Phil Maxwell and Hazuan Hashim
Hazuan Hashim is a filmmaker and video artist. Phil Maxwell is a photojournalist, filmmaker, visual artist and writer. Exhibited all over the world including the Middle East, their work covers documentary and experimental film. They have collaborated with composers Michael Nyman, Lola Perrin, Deirdre Gribbin and Simon Rowland-Jones, theatre director Lou Stein, dancers Mavin Khoo, Seeta Patel and Kamala Devam and painter Alice Sielle. Their recent documentary, Not in Our Name explores the response of artists to war. Featuring the President of Stop the War Coalition, Tony Benn, the film was shot in 14 countries including Iraq. Both are currently artists in residence at the Wilton’s music Hall. Their latest film Moon Love, will see its world premiere at the 24th BFI London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival on 25th March 2010.

Alan Dein
Alan Dein has worked as a freelance oral historian and broadcaster for over 15 years. He has presented documentaries for BBC Radio 4 and has conducted interviews for museums, galleries and the British Library National Sound Archive, including a major oral history of the British Steel Industry. Alan is also tour guide and social historian of London’s East End and for the last four years has been living with his family in Kentish Town.

Stephen Watts
Stephen Watts was born in London in 1952: his father’s family came from Stoke-on-Trent, his mother’s from the Swiss-Italian Alps and he has cultural roots there and in Scotland. In the early 70’s he lived on North Uist working as a shepherd and since 1976 has been in Whitechapel in the East End of London. He has published three books of poetry—The Lava’s Curl (Grimaldi Press, 1990), Gramsci & Caruso (Periplum, 2003), The Blue Bag (Aark Arts, 2004) and edited several anthologies—Houses & Fish (a book of drawings with writing by 4 & 5 year olds, Parrot Press, 1991), Voices of Conscience (an international anthology of censored poets, Iron Press, 1995), Mother Tongues (a special issue of Modern Poetry in Translation, 2001), and Music While Drowning (an anthology of German Expressionist poems that accompanied an exhibition at the Tate Modern in London, Tate Publishing, 2003).

SALON is a series of six literary evenings with guest speakers at Chalkwell Hall on the first Wednesday of every month (except August) over the summer of 2010. Developed in collaboration with acclaimed Southend-based author Rachel Lichtenstein, the evenings will be reminiscent of the informal gatherings once held in Rachel’s grandparents house on the nearby Chalkwell Hall Estate when they would invite the poets, writers and artists of the pre-war Jewish East End into their tiny front room to talk and debate.

Next Salons are:

Wed 7th July
Speakers:   Oreet Ashery, Naomi Alderman, Samantha Ellis
Tickets on sale 3rd June – price: £5

Wed 1st Sept
Speakers:    Robert MacFarlane, Ken Worpole
Tickets on sale 8th July – price £5

Wed 6th Oct
Speakers:   to be confirmed
Tickets on sale 4th Sept – price £5

Wed 3rd Nov
Speakers:   to be confirmed
Tickets on sale 7th Oct – price £5

BOOK tickets on EventBrite HERE or by calling Metal on 01702 470700.

METAL / Chalkwell Hall, Chalkwell Park, SS0 8NB WEBSITE