The Swindon Festival of Literature takes place at the beginning of May. This will be its 32nd outing and this year it is holding a new event – a Book Fair followed by a Creative Writing Workshop.
When a fellow author and I first put the idea of a book fair for local authors to Matt Holland, who set up the original festival, he was a little hesitant about the idea. We assured him that the pair of us would do all the organising.
The festival itself takes place in venues all across the town, but for a book fair it was obvious we were going to need a large space in the centre of the town where there would be plenty of footfall. The Hub is a community space run for the community staffed by volunteers. It occupies what was a large department store right in the heart of the town. Downstairs, as well as offering advice to those in need, it has a coffee shop, a snug area where people can socialise or select a book to read. Upstairs, is a vast open area where various regular events such as a writing group, art groups, Chi Gong instruction and a knitting group. It also hosts one off events. It was the perfect location. We recruited one of the Hub’s Wednesday Writers to join the committee as our liaison with the Hub. Another member in that writing group is a printer, and he volunteered to produce for free all the fliers and posters we would need to help market the event. He was quickly recruited as our fourth member on the organising committee. Once he realised things were underway, Matt has been fully supportive.
Had I realised just how time-consuming the venture was going to prove, I may have had second thoughts, especially as I rashly volunteered to run a creative writing workshop in the afternoon. It’s meant I’ve spent a great deal of April sorting out the details – attending numerous meetings, recruiting authors and, by no means least, preparing the PowerPoint presentation for the writing workshop ‘Pictures Tell Stories.’
If you are in the area on Saturday, May 10th, do pop in and join us.
The Book Fair runs from10.30am to 2.30pm. There will be 21 authors writing in a range of genres including children and young adult books, Science Fiction, fantasy, romance and contemporary, historic fiction, sport and no less than four crime writers.
The Creative Writing workshop is from 3pm to 4.30pm.
Both events are FREE
Venue – Swindon Hub
36 The Parade
Swindon
SN1 1BA
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