Tag Archives: authors

How Can Organizing a Literary Festival be Fun? By Margaret Graham

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Easy peasey, when it’s for a good cause, and you have fantastic writers in support.

The thrust of our fundraising at Words for the Wounded is two-fold. We feel we must earn our donations which help the wounded, and offer opportunities to aspiring writers, and interested readers – hence the writing competitions.

Remember that the three grannies who run the charity absorb all the costs, so every penny goes to the wounded.

Last year, to raise extra funds for the recovery of wounded troops, we grannies, who run Words for the Wounded, decided to throw ourselves out of a plane (with parachutes and a handsome man to cling to, I might add). This year, in August we’re splodging through mud doing a Military Assault Course.

Not quite the same elan, but sons-in-law, who are doing it too, are very much looking forward to not catching us when we toppled from the tyre wall.
skydive organizing a Literary Festival

It seemed, however, a good idea to do something less strenuous in the meantime. A Literary Festival seemed just about the ticket.

First panic: will people come? Build it and see, seemed to be the thing to do. Wasn’t that what Kevin Costner was told about a baseball field?

Second panic: will we attract speakers? Well, let’s try our mates.

So we get on the phone to call a couple of WforW patrons.

Katie Fforde is a Sunday Times No 1 bestseller and a great pal. ‘’Of course,’ she said. ‘Let’s do it. In fact, you and me together, Margaret, chatting.’ Done.

 

margaret graham

Second call to Rachel Cuperman. Rachel writes Midsomer Murders scripts, and if they’re not bestsellers, I don’t know what is.
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Can’t wait. I’ll get my co-writer, Sally Griffiths to come too.’ Done.

Sally
I am kissing the hem of their garments by now.

Penny Deacon is one of the grannies, and a crime writer. She will be talking about her work. Done.

penny landed

A past student, Amanda Hatter, and Catriona Troth, who is a committed member of the Alliance of Independent Authors, are to sit on our self-publishing panel. Me too, me too, to try to keep them under control.

kat4Photo attribution: Ruth Jenkinson

Amanda Hatter.

Catherine Balavage, publisher of Frost Magazine, who would have been with us has a far more important project on the go – a son to be born at about the same time.

Finally, we have a fantastic agent: Felicity Trew of the Caroline Sheldon Literary Agency who is really looking forward to meeting all the aspiring authors in the audience. She will be here for the day, so loads of time for networking.

felicity-trew

Then we have the food: As real foodies the grannies have been planning lunch, with wine, and tea with cake. We’re of an age where life seems to revolve around cake… Join us in pursuit of the calories.

Waterstones will be there, writers will sign books. There will be an artist exhibiting her work. There will be a buzz. It’s the inaugural Literary Festival for Downley Community Centre, which has been fantastically supportive.

So come. Enjoy the day. Tickets in advance to facilitate catering.

It’s been fun organizing it, and will be even more so, on the day.

Remember: the grannies absorb all the costs of the charity every penny we raise goes to where it’s needed.

Where is it needed? See the sort of injuries our service personnel suffer:

https://www.frostmagazine.com/2014/12/wounded-the-legacy-of-war-photographs-by-bryan-adams/

Date: April 18th. 9.30 for 10.00 start until 5.00. Downley Community Centre, High Wycombe, HP13 5TR Tickets £50 to include all refreshments.

Contact: Margaret@margaret-graham.com for information and tickets, or go to www.wordsforthewounded.co.uk

 

 

 

The Yeovil Literary Festival – An Author’s Perspective By Kate Kelly

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If you braved the rainclouds and ventured into Yeovil in the first weekend in November you might have noticed large green banners flying outside a number of venues, for this was the weekend of the Second Yeovil Literary festival. The first Yeovil Literary Festival took place last September, and this year I was delighted to be taking part again.

yeovil2014 Liz Pike, one of the festival organisers.

I was in fact involved in three events across three of the festival venues. They were three very different styles of event, and were only a tiny fraction of what the festival had to offer.

The first event was the Yeovil Prize Winners event on the Friday Morning. The Yeovil Prize was founded by bestselling author, Margaret Graham, with James Mitchell to raise funds for the arts of the area. When Margaret moved from Yeovil, crime writer, Penny Deacon took her place until handing over to Margaret’s ex-student, Liz Pike and her team. It is now in its 11th year and continues to grow. It is an internationally renowned competition, and since its earliest days it has been watched closely by both editors and agents, and as the list of success stories continues to grow it is clear why.

I am one such author – Red Rock was Highly Commended in 2010 and I’m convinced that this helped tip the balance with the agent who was considering it at the time. This year it was lovely to have a number of winners in the poetry category in our midst. We took turns to read our winning entries and talked about what the Yeovil Prize has meant to us.

2 The Yeovil Prize Winners Panel.

If you are interested in reading some of the poetry and fiction that has been shortlisted over the past couple of years, then the Yeovil Prize Anthology is now available.

3Marcus, manager of Yeovil Waterstones with copies of the Yeovil Prize Anthology.

That evening I was honoured to host “In Conversation with Jason Hewitt”. Jason is a debut novelist and The Dynamite Room was published earlier this year. It is a World War 2 story, but one with a difference and is absolutely superb. Set on the Suffolk coast in July 1940, a German officer swims ashore and breaks into a boarded up house. There he finds Lydia, and 11 year old escaped evacuee hiding in the attic. Over the next five days Lydia is held hostage in her own home – but there is more to the German that meets the eye – for how is it that he knows her name?

4In Conversation with Jason Hewitt.

I really enjoyed meeting Jason and chatting to him. The ‘In Conversation’ style of event was a lot of fun, very relaxed, and Jason had so many interesting things to tell us that the time simply flew!

5 Jason Hewitt and “The Dynamite Room

The following day was my third event, and quite a change from what had gone before. This time I was in the Yeovil Library running a writing workshop for children.

6 Outside Yeovil Library.

The event was well attended and I couldn’t have asked for a better bunch of kids to work with. They were all so enthusiastic and imaginative and half an hour after the event had ended were all still sitting scribbling away. I suspect there might have been some budding authors in their midst.

Of course, these were only three events in a packed programme. The organisers have really built on last year’s success and I can’t wait for next year.

 

 

‘Do Good, Get Good’.

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Coldplay and Noel Gallagher have already signed up to the new currency at www.bluedotworld.com, which gives fans access to live shows and exclusive material by artists, authors and movie stars in return for donations, volunteer work and media sharing.

Blue Dot is the new social currency given to people who do good things for their favourite charities by sharing on social media websites, volunteering and donating to any one of the 100k non-profit organisations globally. The idea also influences young people to get involved with charities, as a recent survey conducted by SAGA showed that people over the age of 75 are the most likely generation to give to charity… yet Blue Dot is hoping to overturn these figures by rewarding youngsters with amazing prizes for ‘doing good’.

Within moments of the site going live, Noel Gallagher offered last chance tickets to his debut UK dates exclusively to Blue Dot citizens. Within 48hrs, thousands of positive actions had been taken for causes, including cash donations to over 70 UK different charities. Coldplay also used Blue Dot in the UK and US, to offer the chance to see them live exclusively to fans of Blue Dot.

Blue Dot is rapidly claiming recognition and credibility… founder of Blue Dot, Chris Ward, filmed exclusive backstage footage for Blue Dot with artists at BBC’s Children in Need, including with Ed Sheeran, Rizzle Kicks, Coldplay, JLS, One Direction, Snow Patrol, The Saturdays, Elbow and James Morrison.

One Direction have commented: “We’re thrilled to be part of Blue Dot; It’s a brilliant concept and a great cause. We really hope that our exclusive dressing room acoustic performance of ‘What Makes You Beautiful’ encourages people to donate.”

Nichole Scherzinger, Professor Green, Katherine Jenkins, Rebecca Ferguson, Anton Du Beke and Joe McElderry are amongst others that have donated singed albums and tour tickets.

Blue Dot Founder, Chris Ward said: “I was previously Creative Director of the UK’s Comic Relief, where we work first hand with major stars and brands to create attention-grabbing moments that engage millions of people in volunteering and charitable giving.

I created Blue Dot, as a genuinely new & innovative way to enable every single Cause to create that same impact, every single day of the year.”