Arts Diary: Will Marriott

Clavane, author of Promised Land, which tells the three interweaving narratives of Leeds United, Jewish immigration to the city and the rise and fall of the fortunes of the city itself, is back on home soil tomorrow.

The author will be appearing at the Morley Literature Festival (Morley Town Hall, 11am) to talk about his book. The excitable Loiner also said he will discuss: "How Leeds is the epicentre of a literary revival and events like Morley Lit Fest are at the heart

of that."

Quite. Get as excited as Clavane (possibly) and buy tickets at www.morleyliteraturefestival.co.uk

We do like the good folk at East Street Arts – enough to forgive them a little prank.

Last week, the Leeds-based artist collective contacted us to say that the organisation was going to cease to exist. Turns out the japesters were just being a bit cheeky – in order to make a serious point.

The email was followed this week by another which explained: "Regarding our 'What if...' moment: Thank you for those of you who expressed concern over our imminent closure. The good news, East Street Arts is not closing, at least not in the very near future and we are doing everything we can to secure the charity into the medium and long-term. The bad news, well I think you know the bad news, there are to be cuts to arts funding over the next 12 months and beyond, and we will see smaller arts organisations facing closure."

It was a novel way to get our attention.

If you don't work in the media, you may not know what a PR person is. Their job is to get us to write about things so you can read about them. Which means one PR we've dealt with this week has succeeded – sort of.

Blake is a "classical quartet", formed after meeting through Facebook.

The Classical Brit Award-winning group is performing at Wakefield Theatre Royal next week.

The band's PR person got in touch to convince us to write about Blake because one of their number, Ollie Baines, is the great, great grandson (they later added another great to this) of Sir Edward Talbot Baines, former owner of the Leeds Mercury and whose statue stands in Leeds Town Hall.

So there you have it.

The group's at Wakefield Theatre Royal on October 23.