TALKS about regional identity and North East literature are to take place next month under the heading True North: Writing and the Region.

The talks, part of a British Academy-funded project, are among the highlights of the spring public events programme of Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts (NCLA), based at Newcastle University.

Writers Michael Chaplin and Christy Ducker, who collaborated on the book Tyne View, get things under way on February 13 with a talk related to their walk along banks of the river.

On February 20, John Tomaney, professor of urban and regional planning at University College London and at Newcastle, will offer a defence of parochialism. Then on February 27 David Almond, author of Skellig and other award-winning novels, will give a talk entitled How Long Does it Take to Reach the North?

All the talks are at 5.30pm in room G13 in the university’s Percy Building. They are free and open to all but book a place at www.ncl.ac.uk/ncla or call 0191 222 7619.