With just two months to go, our committee is gearing up to launch our new schedule of author events in June. Here, they tell us about the final stages of organising our book festival – and, in particular, why gathering authors’ mobile numbers is so important!

 

 

 

 

 

Meg Reid, festival chair

‘At this stage of the festival, I’m eagerly scanning ticket sales reports to see how well we are doing. And I can reveal that tickets are selling even faster than last year! So far, we’ve sold half in the first two weeks ‘I’m also taking festival brochures with me wherever I go – even on my Mother’s Day breakfast outing – in case there is an opportunity to leave some for people to pick up. ‘There are lots of practical activities to manage at this time of the festival year. I am arranging for the chairs, platforms, and sound equipment I’ve ordered to be delivered on our “get-in” day to Harvester House on 27 June. I’m also keeping our bookseller informed about ticket sales so they know how many books to stock. ‘We promote the festival right up till the last moment, so I’m regularly liaising with our publicity team about press releases, articles and the blog. I’ve done one radio interview so far this year and, as usual, thought I had messed up! ‘As we head into May, I’ll start contacting our speakers and interviewers to give them more information about Felixstowe, if they haven’t been here before, and details of how to claim their appearance fees. ‘A priority will be to collect their mobile phone numbers. We have occasionally “lost” speakers: one who arrived but went off to have a swim; one who mistook the time; and another who mistook the day!’

Stephanie Mackentyre, publicist

‘It’s been so nice to see the local press and radio have been hugely supportive of the Felixstowe Book Festival once again, which makes writing the articles about the forthcoming events and our Patrons all so worthwhile.

‘We’ve recently had a meeting (pictured) which involved the wider group of volunteers who all help to make the festival run like clockwork. As a thank you, we enjoyed some donated wine and chocolates to make the evening go with a swing!

‘However serious business was also discussed including an update on where we are at with current publicity. Although the festival is now only weeks away, there are still plenty of authors to write about, and interviews with visiting authors to conduct, and post online.Then, as the articles appear and the interviews are played, it’s about catching all of those and recording them for the committee to view once the festival is over. That way we can continually review our marketing strategies to see if we are reaching as many book-lovers as possible each year.

‘At the festival itself I’ll be armed with a camera to capture shots of the entertainment as it unfolds each day to share and to keep for next year’s publicity. So not quite time to get out the laurels and rest upon them, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel – if I stand on a pile of books and scan the horizon that is!’

Louise Millar, blog editor

‘One of my favourite blog-slots this year has been our Where I Write series, which gives a fascinating insight into how authors work. I loved best-selling author Tracy Chevalier’s admission that she ignores her lovely writing room, and works on a corner of the sofa instead! We have four more of those blogs coming up, expertly captured on video by our publicist Steph during her interviews with writers for articles. I’ll be writing those up into copy and adding photos.

‘This week, I’ve also been commissioning blog posts from two non-fiction guests via theirpublicists. I feel that one advantage of the festival blog is how it allows us to dip into a wide range of upcoming events in advance, as we decide which events to book. Lucky for us all, our chair Meg has an excellent knack of spotting newsworthy trends months in advance, and these two books could not be more topical right now, with both authors recently appearing in the national news as expert commentators.

‘Watch this space to see who they are!’

Kerry Addison, sponsor co-ordinator

‘Recently, I have been working with our festival sponsors, checking their logo and company information is correct for our website and programme, and keeping them informed about our fantastic line-up.
‘We recently joined LinkedIn which is a good way of keeping in touch with our sponsors and supporters.  We can let others in the business community know who our loyal supporters and sponsors are, and in time we hope it will be a way of attracting more sponsorship to build on our work at the festival. We have a small but growing band of followers. If you use Linkedin, please do search for us!
‘I have also been posting updates about this year’s authors and events, hopefully reaching a wider audience.’

In the next of our series, this year’s guest Tracy Chevalier tells Steph Mackentyre why she doesn’t write novels in her home study

 

‘I have a little study, a very small room in our house, and it looks out over a very tiny garden. You would think this is where I would write, but actually I hate writing at a desk.

‘I write by hand in a notebook and then I type it into the computer at the end of the day, and so I end up gravitating to the sofa in the living room, curled up in one corner writing.

‘I often feel a bit guilty, like, ‘Tracy, you have a study, you should really be using it’, but the desk is for work work, like paying bills and reading things that I have to edit, and using the computer, whereas writing for me, writing novels, is very much about pen to paper.

‘It takes me longer to write than to type. I think a sentence out slowly, and that seems to fit the time that it takes me to write it out by hand so I really prefer that.’ ‘I can’t really write in cafes the way other writers do. Sometimes I go to the British Library and write, and that’s really good because you’ve got all these people around you, really silent. Everyone’s really focused, like one big community focused on work –and that can be very helpful – but mainly it’s on the sofa in the living room.’

Tracy Chevalier will discuss her new novel, The Glass Maker, with Esther Freud on 28 June at 1pm

Julia Jones’s new book Stars To Steer By celebrates women’s involvement with sailing and the sea in the 20th century. To celebrate International Women’s Day, Julia, a guest at this year’s festival, tells us what inspired her to write about this subject

Through much of the 20th century, recognition for women in sailing was rare. When I took over the book pages at Yachting Monthly magazine, I inherited a popular feature called ‘A Book at Bunk Time’, for which an extract is chosen from any sailing book the editor thinks readers would enjoy. Of the 46 titles previously chosen, only two were by women. I was determined to change that proportion. I leafed through issue after issue of the 20^th century magazine finding almost no articles by women, no letters from women, no reviews of books by women. Did that mean that 20^th century women didn’t go sailing? Weren’t interested in boats? Or couldn’t write?

I didn’t need to wait for Caroline Criado-Perez’s Invisible Women or for Mary Ann Sieghart’s The Authority Gap to know this absence of women was both unfair and untrue.

I was born midway through the 20^th century in 1954 and was taken sailing from carry cot to teenage years. I’ve a sneaking suspicion I might even have been conceived on board… my mother and father had sailed their small yacht to take part in the July 1953 Coronation Review and had remained afloat for much of August.  I was born the following April. There were plenty of other girls and women on the River Deben when I was growing up, but somehow it was men who dominated the sport, owned the yachts, ran the clubs, wrote the books and articles.

The public face of 20^th century British society was male. Men ran the government, the professions, owned most of the national assets. Sailing seemed to take that imbalance to extremes, with women often actively excluded. In 1876, Anna Brassey and her husband Thomas had started their circumnavigation from the Royal Yacht Squadron in Cowes where he was a member. Women were not admitted as members until 2013, almost 200 years.

Anna wrote a book about their 11-month voyage, which was published in 1878 and became an international bestseller. Had it been published a decade earlier, before the introduction of the Married Women’s Property Act (1870), her earnings would have belonged to her husband. The book’s success was unlikely to have made any material difference to Anna Brassey’s life – the Brasseys were already rich – yet successful authorship brought her deep personal satisfaction, gave her a sense of purpose and ensured that she was acknowledged and remembered, in the sailing world at least.

As society slowly changed, with the achievement of women’s suffrage, with the opening up of education, access to the professions, the concept of equal pay for equal work, changes in women’s control over their own bodies, so sailing changed.

The century ended with public delight at the achievement of Ellen MacArthur, who finished second in the extraordinarily difficult and prestigious Vendée Globe, at the age of 24. Tiny, determined, successful, four years later she broke the speed record for a single-handed, non-stop circumnavigation. And there were so many others.

In Stars To Steer By, I wanted to write about those women in the 20^th century who wanted to take the helm into their own hands, to be in charge of their own adventures. The women who are the ‘stars’ of my book are truly inspirational for their individual tenacity in the face of social opposition, as well as for their courage and skill at sea.

Julia Jones will be discussing Stars To Steer By on June 29^th at 4.30pm. International Women’s Day 2025 is on March 8^th.

Elly Griffiths discusses her new Victorian novel The Frozen People at this year’s festival. Steph Mackentyre asked the best-selling crime author about her work space.

Elly, can you tell us a bit about where you write?

‘Well, I’m talking to you from my writing shed, which is at the top of my garden! I live just outside Brighton. I can see a little bit of the sea from my writers shed. I swim every day. I’ve already swum today. Sometimes in the sea – there’s an open air pool as well. Today I was in the pool, which is colder than the sea, I have to say!

 

 

 

 

 

 

‘So it’s a little writing shed, just room for my desk and my chair, and very importantly a chair for Pip the cat, and bookcases. I try to come up here and do my 1000 words a day. Pip is very good, actually, because he usually comes up to the shed about 9am and sits outside, looking hopeful. He’s kind of like my conscience. He sort of says to me, it’s time to start writing!

‘I am not one of those writers who writes on planes and trains and automobiles, although I know some great writers who do that, or who go to cafes and like a bit of ambient noise. I really like here it in the writing shed, the silence… Apart from the cat. He’s not always very silent!’

Are there any other writers who inspire you, whose books you have around you?

‘I have a lot of friends who are writing at the moment. Crime writing is a really warm community. A lot of us are very close – we share our writing woes and triumphs. I’ve got two very close writing friends, Lesley Thomson and William Shaw [speaker at the 2024 Felixstowe Book Festival], and we often talk, and say where we are with our books.

‘But I have to say, inspiration-wise, particularly for this book, it was Victorian writers. My favourite writer of all time is time is probably Wilkie Collins. So I think about Wilkie Collins, and him writing those amazing books, in long-hand, and writing in serial form so people read them every week, and wanted more. So I think, probably, if I could be half the hard worker Wilkie Collins was, I’d be happy!’

Elly Griffiths will be appearing on Sunday 29 June 2025 at 4.30pm

With tens of thousands of new books published in the UK each year, how do literary festival programmers choose? Meg Reid tells Louise Millar about the three twists of fate that led to biographer Ian Collins speaking about Ronald Blythe at the 2025 festival.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ronald Blythe, who died aged 101 in 2023, is known to many of us as the writer and essayist who chronicled rural life in Suffolk. His best-known book, Akenfield: Portrait Of An English Village, a fictionalised account of agricultural life in the first half of the 20th century, inspired Peter Hall’s 1974 film Akenfield.

Festival director Meg Reid has been a longtime fan of Blythe’s The Time By The Sea: Aldeburgh 1955-58. The detailed account of his life in the town includes a strange encounter with fellow writer EM Foster.

‘It gives you such a sense of the landscape, and stories of Suffolk,’ Meg says of the book. ‘Blythe brings the past alive.’

Yet, she reveals, it was only while shopping in Felixstowe last year that her interest in Blythe’s wider work really reawakened.

‘I saw a stack of Blythe’s books in the window of [secondhand bookshop] Treasure Chest,’ she says. ‘I bought them all, and started to re-engage with his writing.’

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In a second twist of fate, when Ian Collins’ new biography, Blythe Spirit: The Remarkable Life Of Ronald Blythe, came to Meg’s attention, she remembered that the author had also written about James Dodds, an artist whom she had taught at school as a teenager. Already aware of Ian’s talent as a biographer, as a result, she was keen to read his new work, which tells his friend Blythe’s story for the first time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

‘Ian has had unparalleled access to Blythe’s letters and notebooks, and has had conversations over decades with him,’ she says. ‘In the biography, Blythe talks about the process of being a writer, how he came to it.’

And in a third twist of fate, Meg discovered that the festival has another unexpected connection to Ronald Blythe. ‘In The Time By The Sea, Blythe talks about going to a teashop in Aldeburgh,’ she says. ‘And it turns out it was run by the aunt of our festival treasurer, Jez!’

It was obviously all meant to be!

Ian Collins will discuss his new book with novelist Nicola Upson, on 29 June at 12pm, with a book signing to follow.

We asked our Felixstowe Book Festival patrons Esther Freud, Sir Terry Waite KCMG CBE and Robin Ince, and festival chair Meg Reid, which books they’ll be reading and buying for family and friends this Christmas – and hoping to receive!

ESTHER FREUD

Which book would you like to receive this Christmas?

I have asked for Sally Rooney’s Intermezzo. I’m curious to see how she’s developing her talent and her voice.

 

Which book would you give others at Christmas?

The book I give really depends on the person receiving it, and I make notes through the year. Our Evenings by Alan Hollinghurst, or books for the children in my life: Hannah Gold’s Turtle Moon and Katherine Rundell’s Impossible Creatures.

 

Is there a book you love to re-read at Christmas?

I’m not a great re-reader – too many new books. But if I had to choose, it would be A Winter Book by Tove Jansson.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SIR TERRY WAITE KCMG CBE

Which book would you like to receive this Christmas?

Fyodor Dostoyevsky had a profound understanding of the working of the mind. Although I have read most of his works, I could easily re-read any one of them. Crime And Punishment is one of his finest writings.

 

Which book would you give others at Christmas?

The two volumes entitled The Matter With Things by Iain McGilchrist. Oddly titled, but a fascinating study of the brain and how contemporary life is being shaped by over-concentration on the left hemisphere.

Is there a book you love to re-read at Christmas?

Anything by Charles Dickens to remind me of Christmas as it was in Victorian times

 

 

 

 

 

 

ROBIN INCE

Which book would you like to receive this Christmas?

My dream Christmas book is Practically True by Ernest Thesiger, an actor and embroiderer best remembered now for [the 1935 film] Bride Of Frankenstein. It is a delightfully catty book, full of wit, but it is very hard to find. I have held a copy in Exeter Library. My guess on its rarity is that anyone mentioned in it would buy every copy they could find and burn it.

 

Which book would you give others at Christmas?

I will give Alexis Pauline Gumbs’ Survival Is A Promise, a biography of Audre Lorde. Boy oh boy, does it fizz and spark and inspire. In these bleak times, with the far right gaining immense power, hearing a voice of poetry and passion like Lorde’s fed through the mind of Gumbs, a great poet herself, is just the dynamite we need.

 

Is there a book you love to re-read at Christmas?

I am going to re-read the first short story collection by Camilla Grudova, The Doll’s Alphabet. Her imagination was where my year began and I will return to it to end my year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MEG REID

Which book would you like to receive this Christmas?

Long Live Great Bardfield, the autobiography of Tirzah Garwood. I find Garfield’s paintings and woodcuts completely captivating and I want to know how she managed an artistic life despite domestic constraints. It’s a bonus that it is published in the elegant Persephone Books edition.

 

Which book would you give others at Christmas?

I love to give the latest in any series my 11-year-old granddaughter is reading. She always wants me to read them after her, and I know I will enjoy them. The latest is the Crookhaven The School For Thieves series by JJ Arcanjo, which are as thrilling as any adult thriller.

 

Is there a book you love to re-read at Christmas?

Christmas At Timothy’s by Gee Denes, the story of a girl, Jennifer, visiting her cousins for Christmas. Buying presents, shopping in a pea soup fog, choosing the tree, putting up paper chains, all on Christmas Eve. It’s a reminder of my 1950s childhood and long-ago Christmases.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We would love to hear about the books you plan to give, re-read and hope to receive this Christmas, too – please share with us!

The Felixstowe Book Festival committee members recall the early stories that turned them into lifelong readers. We’d love to hear about yours, too, in the comments below!

 

Meg Reid

Minnow On The Say by A Philippa Pearce, illustrated by Edward Ardizzone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is a favourite book from my childhood and beyond. David finds Minnow, a canoe, on the River Say behind his garden. Disobeying his parents, he sets off in it to find its owner. This leads him to Adam, who lives with his aunt and grandfather in a dilapidated old house. When the boys find a clue, they take Minnow down the river on a treasure hunt. It’s an exciting and believable adventure story, as much about the boys’ friendship as what they discover. This summer I read it to my two youngest granddaughters, and they couldn’t wait for the next visit to find out what happened next.

 

 

Louise Millar

Grimm’s Fairytales by the Brothers Grimm

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I can still remember opening the Christmas present from my Glaswegian grandmother, Kathleen, and seeing this magical book appear. Kathleen was a wonderful natural storyteller. We’d often curl up in her huge 1930s armchairs on a rainy day, the electric fire on, as she made up story after story about knights and castles and queens and faraway lands. This book was the perfect place for me, as a child, to explore further that world of fantasy she’d inspired in my imagination, and also, through the book’s dark fables, start gently to understand the perils of the world that lay beyond the innocence of childhood. I read it so many times, the cover broke, but it still sits on my bookshelf, one of my most precious possessions.

 

Stephanie Mackentyre

The Famous Five Collection by Enid Blyton

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The vivid pictures Blyton painted in her Famous Five Collection instilled in me as a child a passion for reading which has never left. I still have one collection, which tells the tales of Julian, Dick, Anne, George and their dog Timmy’s adventures around Kirrin Island and Smuggler’s Top. In my mind, I can still see each of the characters so clearly. I always imagined myself as George, the tomboy, always fearless (which I certainly wasn’t as a child!) with her faithful border collie by her side. It took me 50 years, but I finally got to own a border collie myself. I smiled that day, thinking that I had finally morphed into George.

 

Kerry Addison

When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit by Judith Kerr

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is one of the first books I remember reading as a child that I actually enjoyed. It’s the first of Judith Carr’s Out Of The Hitler time trilogy, and tells the story of Anna, whose wealthy Jewish family is forced to leave Berlin when Adolf Hitler is elected. I borrowed it from my local library when I was a primary school, and finally able to choose for myself. It was such a change from the enforced school library numbered reading scheme, with its dry abridged versions of Charles Dickens and other classics. Today, I still love reading – historical fiction, biographies and war history – and this book is as relevant now as when first published over 50 years ago.

 

 

These are our favourite childhood books – please tell us yours!

Memories of this summer’s Felixstowe Book Festival may still be fresh, but work has already started on next year’s event. New festival committee member Louise Millar takes us behind the scenes of what happens next for 2025.

This year I joined the steering committee of the Felixstowe Book Festival – and what an eye-opener it’s been to see what is involved in the planning of next year’s event. Over the years, I’ve attended as a novelist, a panel chair, a ticketholder and a volunteer.

 

The festival has long been one of my personal favourites for two reasons. First, the friendly atmosphere and the varied programme, set in the Edwardian splendour of Harvest House, with tea and cake and a bookshop on tap, and just a few minutes’ walk from the beach. Second, while the festival might be a prestigious listing in the UK literary events calendar, its deep roots in the local community give it a relaxed, welcoming feel. And, as I found, that extends to committee meetings, held at Founder and Director Meg Reid’s home close to the sea (if you get lost, look for the pile of book packages from publishers on the doorstep) among Meg’s hundreds of books, with accompanying tea and cat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yet when it comes to festival work, there is no slouching. After a well-deserved summer off to recuperate, the committee is already hard at work for 2025. Meg explains that at this time of year, her email inbox is now full of new title catalogues from book publishers, listing authors who are available for book events from January to June 2025. ‘Individual authors are emailing me details of their books, too,’ she says. Meg reads the new titles she thinks the festival audience might enjoy, seeking a mix of non-fiction, biography, fiction and poetry, then starts to invite the authors to attend in 2025. She is thrilled to reveal that best-selling novelist Barbara Erskine has already agreed to attend,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and will be interviewed by fellow author Mandy Morton.
‘It’s especially exciting to welcome Barbara back,’ Meg says, ‘as she was one of our very first guest speakers when we began the festival back in 2013.”

Meg is hoping that by 31 December that she ‘will have answers to most of my invitations, and be able to meet the print deadline for our festival bookmarks which we will distribute in February.’ As we wait for more speaker news, the planning goes on. The festival relies heavily on its brilliant volunteers, and supporting Meg on the committee is Kerry Addison, a solicitor by day, who looks after the festival’s sponsors, the loyal supporters who have again committed to sponsoring this popular event for 2025. ‘With out their sponsorship the Felixstowe Book Festival wouldn’t be able to carry on,’ she says. As part of that work, this year Kerry had the excellent idea to launch a new LinkedIn page. “I’m pleased to say that we already have 29 followers,’ she says. ‘If you’d like to support the
festival, we are always looking for more sponsors so please follow our new LinkedIn page and get in touch to find out more. We are looking forward to highlighting the sponsors and
the brilliant work they do in the community.’ Meanwhile, journalist Stephanie Mackentyre, who promotes stories about the festival in local press, reveals she is already getting the ‘publicity feels’, now the author invitations have gone out. ‘I’m excited firstly as a booklover to meet and photograph some of my favourite authors,’ Steph says, ‘and then lucky enough to be there over the festival weekend, taking inspiration from hearing about their work, writing about their attendance and letting our loyal band of supporters know about it too.’ As for me, the newest member of the committee, I’ll be looking after the festival’s blog over the next eight months, updating progress on our line-up, and inviting next year’s authors, as they’re announced, to tell us about the new books they’ll be discussing at the event, and to share insights into their writing lives. As for us, next month, Meg, Kerry, Stephanie and I will be sharing the childhood books thatinspired our own love of reading. Maybe you’ll share some of your own with us?

The Felixstowe Book Festival weekend is 27-29 June 2025 with accompanying weekday events to be announced.

Tom Sykes, author of Coast of Teeth

I love literary festivals for their diversity – and I use that term in its most diverse sense. Many forms and genres are represented, and there’s huge variety amongst the attendees. Twenty years ago, I had an experience that was
unsettling then, but that now I think is symbolic of the wonderful, motley and surprising nature of festivals. At a showcase of new writers, I read a story about a crazed US president who wrecks relations with other nations to trigger nuclear armageddon because he believes he’ll be raptured into heaven. By the end of my reading, all faces were longer than Shergar’s… and the room as lively as Shergar is today. I received no applause. The reader after me was a chirpy woman in a green quilted coat. ‘It’s National Bird Day today!’ she beamed. ‘And I’d like to read you a poem about a gorgeous kingfisher who keeps visiting my garden.’ She got applause. Her poem couldn’t have been more different to my story. At the time, as an insecure newbie writer, I resented her stuff being liked and not mine. But now I see the funny side of the contrast and appreciate that this eclectic event may have exposed an attendee to something new and unexpected. Literary festivals are a wonderful mixed bag like that.

Tom Sykes will be speaking in the Conservatory at 3pm on 29 June

 

Emily Howes, author of The Painter’s Daughter

I am standing in a cold church, wired up to a Britney mic. Rain is hammering outside, but the pews are full of audience members shaking off umbrellas and peeling away damp anoraks. It is my first literary festival as an
author, and my heart is beating with relief. Book-writing is a quiet, solitary commitment, driven by individual passion. But finally, right at the very end of it all, comes, hopefully, this moment of communion. My fellow debut authors share the highs and lows of book festivals in our newly formed Whatsapp group. The wobbly stools that threaten collapse at any moment. The stomach-lurching moment of silence before the first question. But above all, the joy and surprise of seeing that people have come, and care, and are interested in the work we have given four or five years of our lives to. Tomorrow I’ll sit down again in silence with only my dog and my laptop for company, and book two waiting in some corner of my mind to fill the blank screen. For now, though, there are piles of my finished first novel on the table, and I can savour how it feels to be able, finally, to share my first story, the untold story of Peggy and Molly Gainsborough, and to talk to other people about how it caught my imagination so vividly and privately for so long.

Emily Howes will be speaking in the Conservatory at 11.30am on 30 June

I designed the book festival artwork with Felixstowe’s identity in mind. Having explored the pier and the promenade in recent years, I decided it would be great to make the port the focus this year.

Felixstowe has an important global connection, with thousands of goods being imported and exported at the docks. The huge container ships can be seen for miles, bringing in their brightly coloured shipping containers to be further distributed.