Chagword Kicking Off The Literary Season In Devon And Cornwall
This year’s round of literary festivals kicks off this month with Chagword on the weekend of 22nd to 24th March. This will be the fourth year for Chagford’s festival and it will get off to a lively start with the wonderful Jo Brand talking about her book, Born Lippy.
Listen to Prue Leith talk about her life and career, David Archer (otherwise known as Timothy Bentinck) reveal behind-the-scenes anecdotes from The Archers and Michael Morpurgo read from In the Mouth of the Wolf which tells the story of his two uncles during World War II.
Perhaps appropriately the weekend’s Great Read is Salley Vickers’ The Librarian, about a young woman in the 1950s who moves to a market town to start work as a children’s librarian. Scattered throughout the book are references to the author’s favourite novels (with a helpful list of the books referred to!).
And Andrew Miller, who wrote Pure, will be talking on Sunday about his most recent novel, Now We Shall be Entirely Free, a story of a traumatised soldier returning from Spain fighting against Napoleon’s forces.
And for the first time there will be a Chagword Children’s Bookfest taking place on 9th March
Tickets will be on sale from 2nd March from the festival’s box office at The Three Crowns in Chagford.
The Fowey Festival of Arts & Literature follows in May, from the 10th to the 18th. The full programme for the event will go live on 8th March but details of an adult short story competition and young writers and artists awards have already been revealed. The closing dates for entry are 17th March and 8th March respectively.
Probably getting a bit ahead of myself but other literary festivals to look out for in the year are:
- The Bodmin Moor Poetry Festival, 24th to the 26th May. Details to be revealed at a later date but there’ll be readings, workshops, talks, film, music, theatre, exhibitions and a poetry walk.
- The tenth Charles Causley Festival in Launceston, 7th to 9th June. The organisers are hoping to have Penelope Shuttle, Patrick Gale and Jim Causley headlining the event but details are yet to be confirmed.
- Ways With Words at Dartington Hall, 5th to 15th July. The full programme will be launched in May.