Here we go again with the third Felixstowe Book Festival which is going strong and hoping that this will continue for years to come. It will be held at the Orwell Hotel as before on 27 and 28 June. More details will be available when the full programme is published and I will let you know when this happens.
In the meantime I am posting today to give you a taster of what is to come:
Oggy Boytchev was John Simpson's producer at the BBC and his book Simpson and I about his travels alongside the reporter should be fascinating. Oggy has already appeared at the Edinburgh Book Festival and his talk was a great success so we are looking forward to having him at Felixstowe.
Patrick Gale, whose new novel A Place Called Winter, is published in March 2015 is appearing, as is Esther Freud, Elly Griffiths, Sara Sheridan, Ruth Dugdall, Nicola Upson (a firm favourite with the Felixstowe audiences), Liz Trenow returning to the Festival once again to talk about her latest book The Poppy Factory, Emma Healey (winner of the Costa First Novel award 2014) and Rick Stroud who will be telling us all about his book Kidnap in Greece, the true story of the abduction of a Nazi General.
Then we have a joint appearance of mother and daughter writers, Adele Geras and Sophie Hannah, talking about their writing. Sophie has just published a new Poirot story and Adele has written four novels for adults and over 90 for children and young adults.I am looking forward to this one.
One of my own personal favourites is coming along. Martin O'Brien who writes the most terrific stories about his detective, the fascinating Jacquot, set in Marseilles and dripping with atmosphere and full of excitement. Here is a review of one of his books so if any of you have not read them you can nip off tout suite and get them. Vite vite!
In 2010 I posted here about Cynthia Harrod-Eagles and the Morland Dynasty as her publishers were pulling out of taking any more in this wonderful series. I got in touch with Cynthia and she told me that there was the possibility of another two or three and then after that it was in the lap of the gods. That post has, so far, garnered over 230 comments and I am sure this is just the tip of the iceberg regarding those of us who would like to see the Morlands brought up to the present day.
Well you will have your chance to see Cynthia speak this year as I have kept in correspondence with her and, on the off chance, asked if she would come to the Felixstowe Book Festival and she said yes. She will give a talk on her writing career and there will be time for questions at the end. So if you are a Morland fan, or a Bill Slider fan (her detective novels which are wonderful) then please do come along. I am thrilled to bits that she has agreed to appear and cannot wait to meet her.
Alongside all these wonderful speakers we have writing workshops, reading workshops, a talk on audio books, Alexandra Pringle senior editor at Bloomsbury telling us all about her job and loads more. It is a wonderfully eclectic mix and it should be great fun.
So keep the dates in your diary and hope to see you there.
