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Hello booklovers,

Still feeling deflated post-festival weekend? How about a little reminder of the brilliant set of volunteers who make the whole event possible…

We pride ourselves in being a volunteer led festival. Everything – from being involved in the main committee, to taking tickets on the door or selling them to our visitors, to introducing the events and providing information for our guests, even to organising the volunteer schedules themselves – is made up almost entirely of volunteers whose help we are eternally grateful for. As with any highly successful event, the festival requires a vast amount of time and dedication (and sanity) but to extremely good effect! I hope everyone involved returned home on Sunday evening feeling thoroughly pleased with themselves and with each other for providing the solid foundation that is crucial to the success of any volunteer-led event.

In a world which is becoming increasingly individualistic, it was so heartening to spend time with a group of people working together as a community. You can’t fake the atmosphere created by a team and it certainly provided the back-bone to the wonderful festival feeling which left all who attended with an irremovable grin all over their faces.

Many congratulations to everyone involved!

“Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.”

Mark Twain

Bookish best,

Imogen

Hello booklovers,

So here it is, the first promised post taking you back to our wonderful festival weekend 2018. I don’t know about you, but when I wasn’t helping out at the fantastic array of children’s events at Felixstowe Library I was to be found skulking in a Golumn-like fashion around the book stall, unable to take my eyes off the gorgeous stock of books.

We were lucky enough to once again be supported by Stillwater Books this year – based in Hamilton Road, the shop provides a delightful selection of fiction, non fiction and children’s books alike and is an absolute jewel in the crown of Felixstowe High Street.

Will and the team from Stillwater Books (who earned a well deserved plug by Salley Vickers at her event, championing the cause of independent booksellers nationwide) did us an excellent service, providing a seemingly never ending supply of beautiful books, waiting to be purchased by our visitors and signed by our fab festival speakers. Without the support of our brilliant local bookshop, I don’t know where we would be! The provision of books is crucial to our festival – not only does it allow our visitors to have their precious new purchases signed by the author, but it also allows them to instantly pursue interests in the new topics and discussions they have discovered at the festival events. The image to the left illustrates but a small selection of the stash of literary delights that my family managed to gather up over the course of the weekend! Thank you very much to all at Stillwater Books for your help and support.

‘I have gone to this bookshop for years,

always finding the one book I wanted – and then three more I hadn’t known I wanted.’

Mary Ann Shaffer, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Bookish best,

Imogen and the Festival Team

 

Hello booklovers!

I think it is safe to say that the Felixstowe Book Festival 2018 was a barn-storming success! Our multiple stages have been graced with fascinating members of the literary community and we are hugely grateful to them all. We are also so very lucky with our wonderful guests – a huge thank you to all who attended our many, many events, contributing so much to the fabulous festival atmosphere. We couldn’t have done it without you. Getting post-festival blues? Fear not, for over the next few days I will be providing you with little snippets and snapshots of our sensational sunny weekend, as a reminder of what fun we had and what fun we will continue to have over the coming year.

Keep your eyes peeled!

“I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! — When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.”

Jane Austen

All the very bookish best,

Imogen and the festival team

Unfortunately, Mr Shukla had to cancel his attendance to our festival for personal reasons.

Any tickets can be returned to the Wolsey (if bought from there) or to our box office at the venue, where you can either exchange them for a different event (subject to availability) or obtain a refund if applicable.

Why not come and hear Humphrey Hawksley and Iain Maitland instead? It promises to be a really interesting event.

We apologise for the inconvenience and disappointment.

Hello booklovers,

Only one sleep left until the Felixstowe Book Festival weekend 2018! After months of preparations, it is almost here – I hope you are all ready for a weekend packed out with literary delights.

It has been a pleasure over the past week being reunited with returning festival guests, including Mandy Morton, Liz Trenow, Oggy Boytchev and Imagine That publishing. We are also thrilled to welcome Damian le Bas back into the folds of our festival.

Damian first visited us in 2015, where his beautiful poetry proved to be very popular with our festival visitors. From a long line of Gypsy Travellers, Damian grew up listening to stories told to him by his great-grandmother in the language of Romany. A strong affection for his family history provides the foundation for his work, much of which underpins his debut book The Stopping Places. Damian joins us this year to chat about his latest creation, which depicts his year-long trip around the UK searching for Britain’s remaining ancient Gypsy sites.

A reflective and fascinating piece of prose detailing an often forgotten but crucial part of our heritage. For more information, click on the link below:

https://felixstowebookfestival.co.uk/events/17-2

If you fancy treating yourself to a little preview of Damian’s work, The Stopping Places has been serialised as part of Radio 4’s Book of the Week. Go on, give yourself an audible treat and have a listen via this link: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b4ztdd

Enjoy!

Bookish best,

Imogen and the festival team

 

Unfortunately, Mr Arditti had to cancel his attendance to our festival for personal reasons.

Any tickets can be returned to the Wolsey (if bought from there) or to our box office at the venue, where you can either exchange them for a different event (subject to availability) or obtain a refund if applicable.

We apologise for the inconvenience and disappointment.