It is nearly that time of year again when I hie me off to the lovely seaside town of Felixstowe for the Book Festival. This is now in its fourth year and such a happy and friendly occasion and a good place to be. I am very lucky to be involved and have been since Meg Reid said 'Elaine I am thinking of starting a book festival' and I said 'Can I help' and off it went.
I am highlighting some of the events taking place during the weekend of 25 and 26 June. The main events are all taking place at the Orwell Hotel where the staff are helpful and totally on board with the whole book festival which does help.
- First of all, I am introducing a few events. I have talked about the Golden Age of Murder by Martin Edwards and enthused about the Classic Crime series of books produced by the British Library. Rob Davies from the BL and Martin will be appearing and really looking forward to their talk which I think will be great fun and very interesting.
- In my post the other day when I wrote about so called beach/holiday reading I mentioned among other, Veronica Henry and Fanny Blake and they are sharing a platform and I am pretty sure this is also going to be a fun occasion.
- Then Guy Fraser Sampson and Hugh Fraser (I think I shall start calling them the Two Frasers) will be there both discussing with Yours Truly their new books. Guy has written others in different genres but this is his debut thriller, as is the book by Hugh who of course we all know as Captain Hastings from the Poirot series. Another great treat ahead of us all.
- Then Alison Weir, the historian, is writing a series of fiction books all about the wives of Henry VIII, who we are still fascinated by, and that is in the late afternoon and I have the privilege of introducing her to you all.
That ends my 'duties' if such pleasurable activities can be called that, and the rest of the Festival I shall be lurking, meeting up and chatting with other authors and generally being around and attending talks as a member of the audience so I wish to flag up a few which I think will be really good to attend.
- First up, we have Giles Merritt who has just written a book Slippery Slope regarding our future relationship with Europe. When we asked him to come and talk we thought it might be topical but then Our Beloved PM announced the date of the referendum regarding our membership of the EU and topical it certainly became with this talk 24 hours after our knowledge of the result. I think this is going to be a fascinating discussion so please do come along and hear what Giles has to say, and also to join in the discussion and pose questions if we are not all totally Brexited Out.
- Liz Calder, co-founder of Bloomsbury Publishers is a very welcome speaker. I am inserting a link her to an article about her in The Guardian which gives plenty of information and background to this extremely charismatic woman. She will be talking about her involvement with FLIP, Brazil's pioneering literary festival. So we will probably learn a great deal from her.
- I am also hugely looking forward to hearing Juliet Barker talk about the Brontes in this year of celebrating the birth of Charlotte. I have been a Bronte lover since my teens and have both this author's books on the family on my book shelves and have made sure I have a ticket for this event.
A really super fun filled weekend ahead - well cannot guarantee the sun but fingers crossed. And I shall be around all weekend promoting and talking about the launch of The Friends of Felixstowe Book Festival and am hoping to persuade lots of lovely people to join. More information on this in due course.
Au reservoir and if you are attending come up and see hello.
