STANZA, the international poetry festival, has unveiled some of the headline acts for 2019.

The annual festival will take place from 6 March until 10 March in St Andrews, Fife.

Among the headline voices performing at next year's annual festival is poet, artist and film-maker, Imtiaz Dharker, awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for poetry in 2014.

She will be joined by award-winning Jamaican poet and essayist, Ishion Hutchinson and Welsh poet, playwright, columnist, and editor Menna Elfyn.

Also on the programme for 2019 is Caroline Bird, shortlisted for both the TS Eliot Award and the Ted Hughes Award in 2017.

Eleanor Livingstone, director of the festival, said: " “It is fantastic to be revealing such a diverse and talented line-up of headline acts, creating a programme which is fresh and diverse for next year’s festival. We look forward to revealing further details of our exciting 2019 programme over the coming months.”

Mairi Kidd, interim head of literature at arts funidng body Creative Scotland, added: “StAnza’s strong programming has won it a place at the forefront of Europe’s contemporary poetry scene, bringing poets from all across the world together with well-loved and emerging Scottish voices for a hugely exciting festival with cultural exchange at its heart.

"2019’s themes of Off the Page and Another Place perfectly capture what makes StAnza special, and the headline acts of Imtiaz Dharker, Menna Elfyn and Caroline Bird promise another rich and diverse programme. Live literature is hugely powerful way of bringing people together and StAnza has really taken that role to heart.”

Next year’s themes are Off the Page and Another Place.

The dedicated language focus for 2019 will be the Mediterranean and Beyond.

www.stanzapoetry.org

THE Talbot Rice Gallery at the University of Edinburgh is to stage two "politically charged shows" this autumn.

Ireland’s recent referendum on abortion provides the backdrop for Tremble Tremble, Jesse Jones’ artwork that represented her country at the 2017 Venice Biennale.

A second show, At the Gates – which runs concurrently with Tremble Tremble – brings together artists whose work, the gallery says "reflects the growing global struggle for female self-empowerment."

Tremble Tremble, a mixture of sculpture, film and theatre, centres on "a video of a giantess who prowls a courtroom, reciting testimonies from women burned for witchcraft." Her performance is projected on to two large screens in Talbot Rice’s Georgian Gallery.

The Edinburgh show contains new additions to the version that made its debut in Venice last year.

An iron muzzle – known as a Scold’s Bridle – which was used to torture women suspected of witchcraft, will be on display.

Work by Teresa Margolles takes shrouds thrown over Mexican women who have died violently and, working with other women, decorates them.

Other artists within At the Gates are Maja Bajevic, Georgia Horgan, Olivia Plender and Suzanne Treister.

The public programme of events linked to the exhibitions includes a lecture by Italian historian and feminist Silvia Federici at Edinburgh College of Art.

ww.ed.ac.uk/talbot-rice/events

THE Edinburgh International Book Festival is looked to appoint two writers in residence.

The writers will work in community and school settings as part of a new long term project called Citizen.

The deadline for applications is this Friday, 26 October.

One writers position is for schools, another for community work.

The positions are funded by the People's Postcode Lottery.

www.edbookfest.co.uk

PAISLEY Town Hall will be the venue for the only Scottish performance of The Harlem Hellfighters by Jason Moran.

The work by the composer, pianist and visual artist is inspired by James Reese Europe (1880-1919), an important figure in the evolution of African-American music who introduced France to jazz in the closing year of the First World War.

It has been jointly commissioned by 14-18 NOW, the Kennedy Center, Washington; and Serious,and the performance will take place on 4 November at Paisley Town Hall.

In it, members of Moran’s trio, The Bandwagon and a group of young British players, will perform new music by Jason Moran inspired by James Reese Europe’s original compositions.

The performance will also include contributions from filmmaker John Akomfrah and cinematographer Bradford Young,

The UK musicians include Ife Ogunjobi (trumpet); Joe Bristow (trombone); Hanna Mubya (bass trombone, tuba); Mebrakh Johnson, Kaidi Akinnibi, Alam Nathan (reeds) plus the long-established tuba player Andy Grappy as well as Tarus Mateen (bass) and Nasheet Waits (drums).

www.jasonmoranharlemhellfighters.com.