Felixstowe Book Festival Goes Digital For 2020 – Line-up Announced

Felixstowe Book Festival is going ahead, but in a ‘virtual’ form of live streamed interviews with some of the authors who were booked to come to Felixstowe before coronavirus struck. A JustGiving page has also been launched to help cover the costs of the virtual festival.

“It was a huge relief that everyone, the committee, all our enthusiastic volunteers, sponsors and some of the authors, have been able to work together to create a virtual Felixstowe Book Festival for the weekend of 27/28th June,” said Meg Reid, Festival Director. “We waited as long as we could to see how the situation regarding coronavirus worked out, and I was very disappointed that the Festival, that we had spent months planning, looked as though it would have to be cancelled. The new-style festival is very exciting, and I hope that everyone enjoys hearing the authors being interviewed and talking about their work.”

The Felixstowe Book Festival Book Group kick off the on-line festival when author Ruth Dugdall, and librarian & book lover Liz Rastrick, invite everyone to a birthday party to celebrate Anne Bronte’s 200th birthday.

On Friday June 26th, at 7.30pm, on ZOOM (ID: 858 5444 7275) Nick Holland, a leading authority on the Brontës, will join in to talk about his latest book ‘Crave the Rose: Anne Bronte at 200’. He is also the author of ‘In Search of of Anne Bronte’. Nick will reveal Anne’s brilliance as a writer, her tragic death and her life with genius sisters Charlotte and Emily.

“We also set up a Just Giving Crowd Funding page set up to support the costs of the on-line festival. Any donation, however small, will be much appreciated,” Meg explained. “We are hoping to raise £1000”.

There will be six live streamed interviews across Saturday and Sunday 27th and 28th June. 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 www.facebook.com/FelixstoweBookFest and on the website, www.felixstowebookfestival.co.uk.

Also the Festival has videos from Iain Dale talking politics and Paul French for an author Q&A about China.

“I’m also asking some of the other 2020 speakers if they would like to film on their phones, making a short video of themselves in the place where they write”, added Meg Reid, “which should be fascinating. “

To donate to the Felixstowe Book Festival, the Just Giving page is www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/felixstowe-book-festival.

Full details of the new programme is on the Felixstowe Book Festival website, but the streamed authors will be broadcast live at the following times:

Saturday 27th June

Harriet Tyce 11am, Paul French City of Devils 2pm, and Carol Drinkwater 4.30pm.

Sunday 28th June

Liz Trenow 11.30am, George Alagiah 2pm, and Nick Cottam Sunday 4pm.