The sun is almost out (it's trying!) and it's starting to feel abit more summer like (dare I speak too soon) and one of the things I absolutely love about the summer season is all the festivals, but specifically literature festivals!
What could be better than a summer festival, in the sun all about books, reading and writing?
At the moment, so much of my twitter feed is full of publishers, authors and readers talking about Hay Festival and I'm gutted that I couldn't make it this year (although I am determined to go next year) so I thought I'd do a little post around the festivals.
Hay on Wye Festival is obviously the biggest fest of the year in the book community. Everyone gets together in the town of books to talk about all things literature. This year they've had some really great YA line ups (which makes me even more sad I couldn't make it!). Some of the biggest YA events included Malorie Blackman doing a YA Q&A with Melvin Burgess; Patrick Ness talks about the appeal of YA and a sneak peak at his new book and Sally Gardner and Nick Lake discussing whether YA needs happy endings.I think the whole festival has such a great atmosphere and you know that you are surrounded by people just like you who love reading, writing and books in general! What I also love about Hay, is as well as the festival you have a town that is full of bookshops and fully embrace the festival spirit:
Here are some of my favourite tweets from across the week:
@CastleJohnF I love @hayfestival. You can ask a stranger what they’re reading and they don’t look at you like you’re an alien!
@gazpachodragon I’m so very in love with #hayfestival. It’s like another world. A cleverer, quainter, more hopeful world.
You can read more on their blog here!
Bath Festival is another big hit for the reading folk, taking place each year run by The Independant and has a range of both literary discussion events and those to cater for the younger audiences.
I think one of the highlights for this year was definiely J K Rowling talking about her transition from Harry Potter to the Casual Vacancy.
Stokey Newington Festival is next week and they have a great eclectic range of events on their programme for this year - almost worth bunking off work for?
They've got a talk on the rising state of Independant publishing, everything you need to know about Doctor Who (okay, so that's not strictly YA but it's still worth mentioning!) and a 'Literary Death Match' where a selection of writers compete against eachother with their tales and fight to the death (metaphorically, I hope!) - now if that isn't something new and exciting, I don't know what is!I was thinking about what it would be like to have a YA specific festival, getting together loads of YA authors - big names as well as small ones to talk about all things Young Adult. I think it would make for some interesting events, don't you think? Especially with the rise of New Adult as well as the massive community of bloggers, there could be lots of opportunity for discussions and Q&As. What do you think? Who would you have at this kind of festival if you could?
Have a great weekend!
I'll be going to Durham Book Festival this October.
ReplyDeleteI didn't make it to Hexham Book Festival this year but it's marked on my calendar already for next year.
Unfortunately I live in the North and well... The North is largely ignored in favour of the more affluent South. So it's only smaller events for me I'm afraid - but one year I will save up every single penny (hello to no new books :( ) and go to a few of the larger ones.
I went to Bath's last year and met YA authors such Moira Young, Sophie McKenzie and many more!
ReplyDeleteI went to Worcestershire's Literary Festival this year! :)
I soooooo wish something like BEA took place in the UK!! I would DIE to attend something like that!