Sunday 14th July
10.30 am Creative Writing Workshop with Karen McLeod
Karen McLeod is an author and performance artist. 'In Search of the Missing Eyelash' won a Betty Trask Award and has been translated into four foreign languages.
She is the long-standing night club hostess of the 'arty party' MOONA which takes place seasonally in Waterloo. Ex-air hostess, she is part-time Writer-in-Residence at The Bookseller Crow, Crystal Palace where she runs Creative Writing Workshops. She is currently working on two major projects - a comedy feature produced by the BBC and her second book.
Building on last year’s introduction to creative writing, have your pens at the ready for a 1½ hour practical writing workshop with award-winning author, Karen McLeod. Karen will have you scribbling away within minutes, giving you the opportunity to practice and play and the confidence to create and craft your own characters and stories.
Location: School
10.30 am Marianne Levy
Marianne Levy is the author of ‘Ellie May Would Like to be Taken Seriously for a Change’ and ‘Ellie May is Totally Happy to Share her Place in the Spotlight’.
Combining her talent for humour (she used to be a comic actress and stand up comedian) with her knowledge of children (she was also an after school tutor), her events are fizzy and funny. Marianne invites her audience to explore together what it’s like being famous – from people screaming your name and asking to autographs to having to make Oscar acceptance speeches, being on television and magazines.
Marianne will talk about stories and encourage visitors to write different versions of things that have actually happened to them, and even make up a story together.
This story for children aged 7+ follows Ellie, a child film star so famous she is a household name. She loves nothing more than clothes, bags, shoes and thinking about nail varnish. When she is nominated for Giggle magazine’s Seriously and Unbelievably Stunningly Amazingest Girl Ever! (S.A.U.S.A.G.E.) award, she decides that it is time to prove that there is more to her than clothes and shoes and bags. And so she embarks on a mission to save a nature reserve. With all her fame and celebrity know-how, it couldn’t be that hard . . . could it? Whilst capturing the glitz and glamour of the celebrity world, Marianne Levy cleverly uses humour to gently poke fun at the flaws of being famous.
11.15 am Jim Smith
Jim has written two ‘Barry Loser: I am not a Loser’ books with three more books in the series in the pipeline.
Barry Loser says: ‘Jim Smith is the keelest kids' book spellchecker in the whole wide world amen. As well as spell-checking, Jim offers a free smell-checking service with every book.’
Jim graduated from art school with first class honours and went on to create the branding for Puccino's coffee shops. Jim also does the Waldo Pancake range of cards and gift items. He illustrates all his own work and promises a high-energy interactive session where children will be equipped with pens and paper!
‘I Am Not A Loser’ is the first of three notebooks belonging to Barry Loser. Follow Barry as he tries throw off his loserness, take revenge on the terrible Fronkle-burping Darren Darrenofski and finally become a winner.
Shortlisted for Waterstones Children’s book prize 2013, readers aged 5-12
Barry has a new problem: Gordon Smugly - who's got
the most perfect name for himself ever in the history of having a name, because
he looks like a Gordon and is smug and ugly - has stolen Barry's best friend.
Join Barry as he attempts to get Bunky back, organises a girly-screamvoice test
and tries to avoid seeing his teacher kissing his gran.
11.15 am Fergus McNeill
Fergus McNeill's debut novel ‘Eye Contact’ is the first in a series of contemporary crime novels featuring Detective Inspector Graham Harland. It includes scenes set in West Meon! The second book, ‘Knife Edge’ follows in September 2013, with a third due late 2014.
Fergus has been creating computer games since the early eighties, when he started writing interactive fiction titles. He has since worked with Terry Pratchett to create the first ever Discworld game and moved into interactive movie adaptations. Now CEO at an iPhone game development studio, Fergus lives in Hampshire with his wife and teenage son.
From the outside, Robert Naysmith is a successful businessman, handsome and charming. But for years he's been playing a deadly game. He doesn't choose his victims. Each is selected at random - the first person to make eye contact after he begins 'the game' will not have long to live. Their fate is sealed. When the body of a young woman is found on Severn Beach, Detective Inspector Harland is assigned the case. It's only when he links it to an unsolved murder in Oxford that the police begin to guess at the awful scale of the crimes. But how do you find a killer who strikes without motive?
‘A chilling game of cat and mouse that should keep you awake long after bedtime. DI Harland is a welcome addition to the growing ranks of British detectives.’ Peter Robinson‘A gripping first novel’ Irish Independent
‘A tense police procedural from a new author with a promising future in crime fiction.’ Choice magazine
TICKETS VENUE TBC
12.30 pm LiTTLe MACHiNe
Bring along your lunch and listen to well known poems set to music drawing on three thousand years of poetry from Sappho to now - music that moves the feet for words that move the soul.
WALTER WRAY - guitar playing composer, arranger and singer
STEVE HALLIWELL - multi-instrumentalist, poet and composer
CHRIS HARDY - poet, songwriter and guitarist
They have performed with Carol Ann Duffy, Gillian Clarke, Liz Lochhead, Liz Berry, John Cooper-Clarke, John Hegley, Roger McGough, at Glastonbury and are performing regularly at literary events and festivals in 2013. Their new CD, ‘MADAM LIFE’ is on sale now.
‘It’s my great privilege to be the warm-up act for LiTTLe MACHiNe. It's a long time since I heard something so exciting .. the most brilliant music and poetry band I've seen in decades.’ Carol Ann Duffy, Poet Laureate, April 2012.
‘Little Machine's sophisticated way with poetry made me fall in love with old favourites and new ones all over again .. as Carol Ann said to me, the poems not only sounded good but better for the music.’ Gillian Clarke, National Poet of Wales, April 2012.
‘I just want to thank you all for such a fantastic gig. I loved every minute and to judge from the feedback we have received so did the entire audience. It has inspired me to go back and explore the poetry.’ Melissa Brooks, Director, ChagWord Festival, Dartmoor, March 2013.
1.45 pm Kate Mosse
Kate Mosse began writing in 1996 and is co-founder and honorary director of the Orange Prize for Fiction. Her bestselling books have sold millions of copies in over 40 countries.
Her worldwide best-selling novel ‘Labyrinth’ won the ‘Best Read’ category at The British Book Awards in 2006 and is now a TV series on Channel 4. ‘Sepulchre’ - the second novel in the Languedoc Trilogy is also an international bestseller. The third and final book is ‘Citadel’.
Carcassonne 1942. A spirited and courageous young woman, Sandrine, finds herself drawn into the world of the Resistance in Carcassonne under German Occupation. Her network - codenamed 'Citadel' - is made up of ordinary women who risk everything to fight the sinister battles raging in the shadows around them.
As the war reaches its violent and bloody conclusion, Sandrine's fate is tied up with that of three very different men. But who is the real enemy? Who is the real threat? And who is the true guardian of the ancient secrets that for generations have drawn people to the foothills of the Pyrenean mountains?
'Citadel is a deeply satisfying literary adventure, brimming with all the romance, treachery and cliffhangers you would expect from the genre. It is also steeped in a passion for the region, its history and legends, and that magical shadow world where the two meet'. The Guardian
2.45 pm Jane Rusbridge & Joanna Rossiter
Jane will be talking about the inspirations behind her second novel ‘Rook’ set on the West Sussex coast and with its layers of recent family history interleaved with the Saxon past, and with a vivid description of the locality and its natural history.
A mesmerising story of family, legacy and turning back the tides, ‘Rook’ beautifully evokes the shifting Sussex sands, and the rich seam of history lying just beneath them.
‘I love the way she combines dextrous storytelling with deliciously descriptive, poetic prose. The people, the landscape they inhabit, even the birds in the air, are all vividly rendered in this mesmerising and multilayered story.’ Marika Cobbold
‘Rusbridge’s sympathetic and respectful handling of a sensitive issue conveys an emotional impact that resonates long after the closing pages.’ The Times Literary Supplement
Joanna Rossiter grew up in Dorset and studied English at Cambridge University before working as a researcher in the House of Commons and as a copywriter. In 2011 she completed an MA in Writing at Warwick University. ‘The Sea Change’ is her first novel. She lives and writes in London.
‘The Sea Change’ is about the loss of landscapes – the Wiltshire village of Imber appropriated by the War Office in 1943 and, a generation later, a coastal community in India ravaged by tsunami. Joanna explores a mother and daughter relationship transformed by both incidents.
‘Joanna Rossiter shines with lovely, fluid, restrained writing…this is such a moving story.’ Helen Dunmore
‘Rossiter has a gift for bringing geography to life...she writes with fluency and grace. It seems implausible that ‘The Sea Change’ is a debut novel, but it is. And the prospect of more work as good as this, or even better, is tantalising.’ Katie Ward
4 pm Stephen Moss
He was the original producer of BAFTA award-winning series Springwatch and over the years has worked with Sir David Attenborough, Bill Oddie and Chris Packham.
He is the author of more than 20 books and articles on British birds and wildlife. He writes a monthly Birdwatch column for the Guardian, presents the BBC Radio 4 series ‘A Guide to Farmland Birds’ and writes for numerous other nature and birdwatching magazines.
His books include:
‘Wild Hares and Hummingbirds: the natural history of an English village’ – a personal account of a year in the British countryside, at a time of great change.
‘Birds Britannia’ – accompanying the BBC4 series on the British and their love of birds.
‘The Bumper Book of Nature’ – a family guide to getting children back in touch with nature.
‘A Sky Full of Starlings’– the diary of a birding year.
And ‘This Birding Life; the best of the Guardian’s Birdwatch’ – a collection of short articles, many of them autobiographical.
‘Magical book’ – The Independent on ‘Wild Hares and Hummingbirds’
‘An enchanting book, ‘Wild Hares And Hummingbirds’ is a combination of celebration for what is and regret for what is passing.’ Express
5 pm Village Ramble
Celebrate your increased awareness of the natural world and join us for a free and easy hour-long ramble around the village. (Walking level: Easy)
