Felixstowe Book Festival goes online this weekend with a programme of author interviews, recordings and activities for children.
Six authors are giving live streamed interviews and others have sent in especially recorded videos. Sponsors have helped to save the festival, usually held at the Orwell Hotel and at other venues across the town, and a JustGiving page has also been launched to help cover the costs of the virtual festival.
“After a mammoth effort, Felixstowe Book Festival Online will be seen across the world over the weekend June 26-28,” said Meg Reid, festival director. “The new-style festival is very exciting, and local people will share their festival experience with the fans of the various authors, who could be watching across the world, thanks to the internet.”
The Felixstowe Book Festival Book Group kick off the on-line festival on Friday when author Ruth Dugdall, and librarian & book lover Liz Rastrick, invite everyone to a Zoom (ID: 858 5444 7275) birthday party to celebrate Anne Bronte’s 200th birthday. Nick Holland, a leading authority on the Brontës, will join in to talk about his latest book ‘Crave the Rose: Anne Bronte at 200’.
There will be six live streamed interviews across Saturday and Sunday June 27-28. They are with George Alagiah, newsreader and author of ‘Burning Land’, set in the new South Africa, Nick Cottam (a virtual illustrated tour of the River Deben, ‘Life on the Deben’), Liz Trenow (her novel ‘Under A Wartime Sky’, set at Bawdsey Manor), Harriet Tyce (about her tense crime novel, ‘Blood Orange’), Paul French (writer of a Shanghai Noir, ‘City of Devils’) and writer and actress, Carol Drinkwater (her latest novel is ‘The House on the Edge of the Cliff.’)
Audiences can tune in to listen and to ask questions on the Festival’s Facebook page and on the website.
“Lots of the 2020 speakers have filmed themselves talking about the life of a writer in lockdown and they are scheduled across the weekend and will be available on our website afterwards”, added Meg Reid, “They include Mandy Morton, Nicola Upson and Kate Rhodes.”
The Felixstowe Children’s Book Festival includes drawing and activities and, like the adult authors films and interviews, they will be available on Facebook and the Festival website.
Full details of the programme is on the Felixstowe Book Festival website, but the streamed authors will be broadcast live at the following times:
Saturday June 27:
11am: Harriet Tyce
2pm: Paul French
4.30pm: Carol Drinkwater
Sunday June 28:
11.30am: Liz Trenow
2pm: George Alagiah
4pm: Nick Cottam
To donate to the Felixstowe Book Festival use the Just Giving page:
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