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.
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.
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.
Marcus, 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?
In 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!
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.
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.