Hello booklovers,

I can’t believe it is November already. 2019 has whizzed by… and speaking of whizzing (and fizzing!) of the firework variety…

Remember, remember the fifth of November…

Whilst personally I find the tale of the gunpowder plot quite gruesome, at least it gives us the excuse for a chilly evening spent with friends and family, perhaps over a glass of something tasty and mulled and all in the name of being historical. However, if you prefer your Autumn evening pursuits to be of the indoor variety, the Felixstowe Book Festival has your back – we’re here to provide you with some lovely bonfire night inspired poetry, which may at least help you create the illusion of being at a fabulous fireworks display without having to leave the comfort of your own home. For those who need that toasty feeling, do read on…

November 5th by Anonymous

Fires are flaming,

Flickering, flashing,

Full of fury,

Full of fancy.

Autumn Fires by Robert Louis Stevenson

In the other gardens

And all up the vale,

From the autumn bonfires

See the smoke trail!

Pleasant summer over

And all the summer flowers,

The red fire blazes,

The grey smoke towers.

Sing a song of seasons!

Something bright in all!

Flowers in the summer,

Fires in the fall!

November Night, by Adelaide Crapsey

Listen…

With faint dry sound,

Like steps of passing ghosts,

The leaves, frost-crisp’d, break from the trees

And fall.

Bookish best (until next time!),

Imogen and the Festival Team x

 

P.S. You may like to know that our lovely selection of poetry comes from the marvelous I Am The Seed That Grew The Tree: A nature poem for every day of the year. 

Hello booklovers,

A very happy half term to you all, especially to those budding readers who might be looking for something new to get their teeth into over the school holidays and the next half of term. Look no further for a few recommendations of some brilliant new books for children and young people…

The Time of Green Magic by Hilary McKay

A new novel from the author of The Skylarks’ War, this mesmerising book introduces us to eleven year old Abi and her family – dad Theo, step-mum Polly and step-brothers Max and Louis. At first Abi considers her new family to be a pain in the neck and solely responsible for the move from her beloved childhood home and her grandmother’s return to Jamaica. Max and Theo have their own troubles to bear, and all three children escape their troubles through reading – only it turns out that the ivy covered house that the family has moved to holds a mysterious power which transports the children as they read with both wonderful and terrifying consequences. A fabulous story about family, magic and intrigue, this is well worth a read.

Tunnel of Bones by Victoria Schwab

For those who love a supernatural tale, why not give this intriguing story a try? Cass goes on holiday to Paris with her parents, anticipating some time away soaking up the culture and chomping on some tasty French cuisine. Little does she know that she will be responsible for the escape of a terrible spirit which sets about trying to destroy the whole of the city. It is up to Cass and her ghost hunting knowledge to take to the catacombs of Paris and solve the problem. Perfect for those who love solving mysteries and don’t mind a ghost or two…

With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo

With the Fire on High  tells the story of Emoni, a teenager coping with motherhood and finishing high school, whilst nourishing her passion for cooking. Suitable for older readers,  this brilliant books deals with important issues, such as race and gender, whilst also realistically portraying close family bonds and the importance of overcoming challenges, with a few tasty recipes thrown in on the side.

Hopefully we have sparked your appetite for some fantastic new reads – enjoy!

Bookish best,

Imogen and the festival team x

 

 

 

 

 

“I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers…”

Hello booklovers,

I’ve got to say I’m completely with Anne of Green Gables on this one – I LOVE October. I love the nights drawing in. I love the trees turning copper and late sun and finding autumnal treasures like conkers and bright red leaves as I walk to work. I am not ashamed to admit that I have been on tenterhooks for a good month in anticipation of cracking out my beloved duffel coat and wearing in my new boots.  Just this weekend I was utterly thrilled to be totally justified in cosying up in doors with a cup of tea and a brilliant book as the rain lashed down, without that I should be enjoying the great outdoors and the beautiful sunshine guilt hanging over me. It is a time to take stock and enjoy the changing of the seasons before winter descends. Here at the Felixstowe Book Festival we thought we would take this opportunity to share a selection of our favourite Autumnal poems and verse…

The Morns Are Meeker Than They Were by Emily Dickinson

The morns are meeker than they were,

The nuts are getting brown;

The berry’s cheek is plumper,

The rose is out of town.

The maple wears a gayer scarf,

The field a scarlet gown.

Lest I should be old fashioned,

I’ll put a trinket on.

An extract from As You Like It by William Shakespeare

Under the greenwood tree

Who loves to lie with me,

And turn his merry note

Unto the sweet bird’s throat,

Come hither, come hither, come hither!

here shall he see

No enemy

But winter and rough weather.

The Leaves Are Green by Anonymous

The leaves are green

The nuts are brown,

They hang so high

They will not come down.

 

Leave them alone

Till frosty weather,

Then they will all

Come down together.

 

I hope you have enjoyed these sweet examples of the inspiration that Autumn can bring. Keep reading booklovers!

Bookish best,

Imogen and the festival team x

Hello booklovers!

We cannot thank you all enough for your support and encouragement of our hugely successful 2019 festival. As you can see we have had a hiatus over the lovely long summer to recover from that busy weekend!

We return to your screens with some exciting news about a Felixstowe Book Festival event happening this week.

We are delighted to welcome author Kerry Hudson to Felixstowe Library on Friday 13th September. Kerry, author of the brilliant memoir Lowborn, will be leading an interactive writing workshop, offering advice and practice for the art of writing memoir. This fascinating workshop is taking place at 3pm at Felixstowe Library and is free – but sign up quick at the Library as places are limited!

Look forward to seeing you there.

Bookish best,

Imogen and the Festival Team

Hello booklovers,

We are so lucky to have such a varied programme here at the Felixstowe Book Festival and we are equally lucky to have a book stall that caters for our diverse events. Once again, we bid an enormous THANK YOU to the wonderful Stillwater Books, our local independent bookstall on Hamilton Road, who have supported the Felixstowe Book Festival for another year.

Will and his team worked hard to provide us all with a wonderful array of delicious books, ripe for author signings thereby making them even more treasured. There is no sight more satisfying than a table heaving with books ready to be read and enjoyed by our festival visitors and guests – being able to take something home in the form of a book provides a lovely memento to a brilliant weekend, particularly if it has been adorned with a personal inscription from the author. Many thanks to Will and the team for all of your support!

Bookish best,

Imogen and the festival team x

Hello booklovers,

I hope you are all enjoying the lovely weather of this post-festival week! As part of our festival round up posts, we would like to wish an enormous thank you to the brilliant team behind all of the technical support over the festival weekend, Breeze Events.

This fab duo, made up of the lovely Andy and Ed, worked incredibly hard over the course of the festival weekend, including the events preceding it and could be found constantly buzzing round the Orwell Hotel catering for all our behind-the-scenes needs. They provided us with all of our sound systems, microphones, computers and presentations and much, much more. We can’t thank you enough for your professionalism, patience and your excellent service, ensuring the smooth running of our festival for another year.

Bookish best,

Imogen and the festival team x

The festival is over and it started with a bang as the winners of the Short Story Competition were announced at our launch event. The judges told us that the 21 entries ‘were stronger than ever’ (Ruth Dugdall). However, there had to be winners and the overall winner was:

Ms Gillian Greenslade with ‘The Green Door Opens’ 

The judges really enjoyed this story – it is fresh and surprising. The story revolves around Royston, who is rescued from his grey world of office, commute and MacDonald’s coffee, by the mysterious Tara, who works in the payroll department. She opens the door to her green world of painting and creativity where he finds beauty and peace. A very powerful and completely absorbing story.

Mrs Greenslade received a £ 50 book voucher, an annual subscription to the Suffolk Magazine and her story will be published in the August edition.

The runner ups, who both received a subscription to the Suffolk Magazine, were:

Ms Morag Liffen with ‘Make Do and Mend‘

The judges thought this was a sweet story, a real heart-warmer – very genuine and not contrived. The writing style is very easy and unselfconscious and the judges liked the way the changing the world in this story lay in small things: daily economies, neighbourliness, engaging a child’s understanding of his wider world.

and Mr Alan Stafford with ‘Biodegradable’.

The judges loved the clever word play and verbal dexterity in this story, and its almost gleeful, dark humour. They also enjoyed the central dance metaphor, and some wonderful imagery which radiates through the story. This is someone who can really write with originality. Their only quibble was that the theme of ‘green’ is rather less defined than in other stories and for that reason they awarded it ‘runner-up’.

We congratulate all three winners and thank all of the authors for their wonderful contributions to the competition!

Hello booklovers,

I don’t know about you, but I am still completely over the moon about our brilliant festival weekend. In order to get you through this difficult post festival week, where it is dawning slowly on us all that we have to wait one whole year before our next bout of festival fun, we are going to remind you of some of the most brilliant aspects of our festival. It seems pertinent to start with a thank you to some crucial people who are essential to the smooth running of our festival each year…

Throughout the weekend you will have seen various lanyard-clad folk stationed around the festival – behold, our brilliant volunteers! We are so lucky to have such a dedicated team of people who are the backbone to our festival, dealing with all from ticket selling, to manning the information desk, to stewarding events, being members of our committee and much much more… we thank you – we couldn’t do it without you! As you can all guess booklovers, there are many complexities to our festival which have been expertly handled by our volunteers and we are so very grateful.

Here’s to more festival fun in 2020!

Bookish best,

Imogen and the Festival Team x

Hello booklovers,

WOW. What a magnificent weekend! I am sad to say that the 2019 Felixstowe Book Festival has come to a close – but what a brilliant weekend. We are all on an absolute book-filled high here at Festival HQ!

I want to say a huge THANK YOU to you all, our wonderful festival visitors. Your enthusiasm and passion for our festival is fundamental to our success and we cannot thank you enough for your time, your support and your appreciation.

If post-festival blues have already set in, fear not! Keep your eye on our blog over the coming week for some FBF 2019 round up blog posts to remind you all of a simply smashing weekend.

A very happy Monday to you all, the Felixstowe Book Festival team are now collectively lying down in a darkened room…

Bookish best,

Imogen and the festival team x

 

Hello booklovers,

The moment we have all been waiting for has arrived! The 2019 Felixstowe Book Festival is officially underway! After a barnstorming success with the fabulous Prue Leith last night, the festival weekend is now your oyster. We have a weekend ahead crammed FULL of creative writing workshops for young and old, non fiction events, historical and crime fiction events and poetry events plus a packed out programme for children and young people to boot!

We are delighted to be hosting TWO (yes two!) launch events for the 2019 festival. Head on down to the Orwell Hotel this evening to see festival favourites Martin Newell and the Hosepipe Band. This much loved group are returning to our festival to perform their ‘Greatest Hits’ package of East Anglian poems and music, which will prove for a wonderful start to the festival weekend.

Launching the 2019 children’s programme we are thrilled to welcome festival favourite Hayley Long and students from Felixstowe Academy as they showcase Felixstowe.docs. Hayley and her merry band of fantastic students have been working hard over the past few months on this special creative writing project to produce an anthology of creative writing all about our lovely home town, and tonight they will be presenting it to book festival guests. Exciting times indeed!

Don’t forget you can purchase your delicious festival books to be signed by visiting authors from the Stillwater Books stall at the Orwell Hotel. Now all that is left for me to say is… have a fantastic, book-filled festival weekend! See you on the other side…

Bookish best,

Imogen and the Festival Team x