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Lowdham Book Festival – the last Saturday

Saturday, 29th June, 2019    
10:30 am - 4:30 pm
Lowdham
Various, Lowdham

Lowdham Book Festival ends its twentieth year with its traditional “last Saturday”, including the region’s biggest book fair, lots of free talks for adults plus a children’s programme, a cafe, and a day out in the country (well, ten miles from Nottingham).

The main festival is organised by The Bookcase in Lowdham, but the last day by Five Leaves.

Contact us for stall details.

Full programme timing

Saturday 29 June 10.am-5.00pm

All; Day Bookfair and Cafe
Throughout the day the Village Hall hosts a cafe serving hot and cold drinks, salads and panini, cakes and ice cream.
The bookfair is srpread over the Village Hall, a big marquee behind the Village Hall and assorted gazebos. It features publishers, charities, book trade organisations and booksellers with new and second-hand books. There are displays of old-fashioned letter press printing equipment.
The author talks and talks about books are all free. No need to book but turn up early for any you are particularly keen on, to guarantee a seat!
Entry is free to the bookfair and all events.
This is our twentieth “last Saturday”, this year with an emphasis on fiction. There’s lots to listen to and discuss, with children’s activities in the field behind the Village Hall.
11.00-12.00
Difficult issues? Not so difficult issues?
Troy Jenkinson (The Best Mummy Snails in the Whole Wide World, about children with lesbian parents), Rose Robbins (Me and My Sister, about having a sibling with autism) discuss writing books about “issues” for younger children.
This event is for parents/carers, teachers, librarians and writes (and anyone else interested!).
Committee Room in the Village Hall
 
Watson Fothergill – an illustrated talk by Darren Turner
The Victorian architect Watson Fothergill left a distinctive stamp on Nottingham, making him the most famous local architect of the period. His works can still be seen all over the city.
Methodist Chapel, Main Street
Stephen Booth – crime fiction, set in the Peak District
Stephen makes a welcome return to the Festival, and brings us up to date with murder and mayhem in the Dark Peak. His Cooper and Fry series is now up to 18 books. It’s dangerous in Derbyshire!
Marquee A behind the Village Hall
 
Ruth Charnock on Joni Mitchell, critical listening
In this sound and image-illustrated talk, Ruth Charnock looks at Joni Mitchell’s work as a musician, composer, cultural commentator and antagonist, thinking particularly about Mitchell’s album Blue and its depiction of desire, free love, and the late ’60s, whilst also exploring Mitchell’s wider cultural contributions and significance.
Women’s Institute, Main Street
 
12.30-1.30
Shoestring Poetry Hour  
John Lucas presents Malcom Carson and Paul Binding, stalwarts of the independent publishing scene.
Malcolm has three full collections, BrecciaRangi Changi and other poemsRoute Choice and a pamphlet, Cleethorpes Comes to Paris. Paul Paul Binding is a novelist, critic, poet and cultural historian.  He has written on Eudora Welty and Lorca as well as his own poetry.
Committee Room at the Village Hall
Bird Therapy with Joe Harkness
About depression and bird watching – how becoming a bird watcher saved Joe.
‘I can’t remember the last book I read that I could say with absolute assurance would save lives. But this one will’ Chris Packham
Methodist Chapel, Main Street
 
Rules are meant to be broken
Darren Simpson (Scavengers) and Kate Mallinder (Summer of No Regrets) write for teenagers. Kate’s novel is about four sixteen-year-old best friends who pledge to live a summer regret-free, taking risks however much it scares them. Darren’s character Landfill lives as a scavenger, behind the wall, swimming with turtles and eating fresh gull. But he wants to explore the world outside.
Marquee A behind the Village Hall
 
Protest and Power:  the battle for the Labour Party with David Kogan
Journalist David Kogan’s talk can best be described by these quotes about his book:
‘If you want to understand Corbyn’s long march to take control of Labour this is the only book to read (Robert Peston)

New insights, vivid interviews, granular, often objectively funny details, combine to build a portrait of the British left that is both honest and dignifying. (Zoe Williams Guardian)

Women’s Institute, Main Street
 
2.00-3.00
Lux, historical fiction with Elizabeth Cook
King David sings his psalms. A world away, King Henry plots. And courtier Thomas Wyatt sees them both, his beloved falcon Lukkes on his armLux is a story of love and its reach, fidelity and faith, power and its abuses.
Elizabeth Cook was orn in Gibraltar, she spent her childhood in Nigeria and Dorset. She is the author of the novel Achilles, which won a Fringe First at Edinburgh. She wrote the libretto for Francis Grier’s The Passion of Jesus of Nazareth, broadcast by the BBC
Committee Room, Village Hall
Welcome to the Cheap Seats, with Andrew Graves
This is an illustrated talk on working class film, with a strong Nottingham element including the films of Shane Meadows, of Alan Sillitoe’s books as well as KesTo Sir , with Love and many others that show the working class speaking for itself. Especially Vicky McClure. Based on Andrew’s book, this being its first public appearance!
Methodist Chapel, Main Street 
“Don’t mention the war”, with Clare Harvey
Clare is the author of several books set precisely during WWII, including in Nottingham. As well as reading from the books she will be talking about her research, her development of strong female characters and how to set stories within, well, a war.
Marquee A, behind the Village Hall
Epic Continent, with Nicholas Jubber
Award-winning travel writer Nicholas Jubber journeys across Europe exploring Europe’s epic poems, from the Odyssey to Beowulf, the Song of Roland to the Nibelungenlied, and their impact on European identity in these turbulent times.
Women’s Institute, Main Street
3.30-4.30
Mug without a Handle, Life after Loss of a Long-term Partner, One Woman’s Experience.
Local poet, Alison Chippindale, will be reading from her latest collection, taking us through her journey,setting out, the sadness, adjusting, strategies, to going forward.
Committee Room, Village Hall
I Went for a Walk, with Gabriel Stewart
“Just over a year ago I decided I wanted to go for a walk, a rather long one. I had a plan. I’d use my home in London as a base and strike out into the countryside, starting small – short jaunts to Brighton or Norwich, leading up to walking London to Penzance and finishing my year with a walk to Edinburgh. That was the plan. And it couldn’t have gone more wrong.”
Methodist Chapel, Main Street
Our Lady of Everything, with Susan Finlay
Susan’s debut novel is set in Nottingham, 2004. It chronicles the lives of Eoin O’Shea’s friends and family, and what happens to them when he,  a second-generation Northern Irish soldier, is posted by the British army to Iraq.  The Games Workshop, Broadway Cinema, the Post, and Nottingham’s Polish church all feature, as does chaos magik and Warhammer (fourth edition).
Women’s Institute, Main Street
Milkman and other novels from the North of Ireland, with Deirdre O’Byrne
Milkman, by Anna Burns, which won the Booker Prize, was set in Belfast during the height of “the Troubles”. In this talk Deirdre discusses the book in relation to other novels set in the North at a time when Irish writing has rarely been so popular with British readers.
Marquee A, behind the Village Hall
 
Saturday extras in the big marquee!
 
12.00 and 4.00, for twenty minutes each time
Join Clare Stevens and a group of writers from Maggie’s, Nottingham reading their own material by Maggie’s stall. Like all our events today, these are free, but there is a Maggie’s collecting box!
 
1.30 and 3.00 for twenty minutes each time
Join Tuesday Shannon, Pippa Hennessy and Elizabeth Hourston from Soundswrite women’s press, reading their poems about Orkney, archaeology and quantum physics (!) by the Soundswrite stal