Book Festival News. Chipping Norton Literary Festival. Chipping Campden Literature Festival

Chipping Norton Literary Festival 21 - 24 April 2016 announces the line-up of highly acclaimed authors for its 2016 programme. The festival running 21-24 April, will host a variety of distinguished writers from a wide range of genres including fiction, nature writing, politics and cookery.

  Headline speakers include Ben Miller, Stuart Maconie, Prue Leith and David Nicholls. We have recently confirmed events with the legendary Fay Weldon and Charlotte Brontë’s biographer, Claire Harman, who will be celebrating the novelist’s 200th anniversary. During the four-day event, attendees can hear authors speak in a number of intimate venues in the Cotswolds market town, including the Theatre, Town Hall, Methodist Church and 16th century pub, The Chequers. Familar faces being welcomed to the famous Chipping Norton Theatre will include the inimitable Brian Blessed discussing his memoir, Absolute Pandemonium, and Joanne Harris author of wildly successful novel Chocolat.   For crime lovers, Mark Billingham, Christopher Brookmyre and Vaseem Khan discuss how a crime’s location is as important as the crime itself. Fans of nature writing can hear from gardener Alys Fowler and bumble bee expert Dave Goulson. And we will be marking the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death with workshops on his plays and sonnets.   This is the fifth ChipLitFest and the most diverse programme yet, all to be enjoyed in a beautiful Cotswold setting. Alongside the big names, there are debut novelists with very bright futures and much-loved writers from many genres including a host of children’s writers and creative writing workshops. Acclaimed novelist, Tessa Hadley, will be presenting one of these workshops as well as judging a short story competition that has already seen entries from across the world. We are joined by two young people, a 10 year old and a teenager, on our blogging team who are interviewing many of our children’s authors.   Tickets are now on sale: for booking information, please visit the festival website, www.chiplitfest.com or call the box office on 01608 642350 Chipping Norton Literary Festival takes place from 21 - 24 April 2016 in partnership with The Theatre, Chipping Norton, and Jaffé & Neale Bookshop & Cafe.The festival is entirely run by volunteers, and is the only festival in the UK to work cooperatively with its speakers, splitting any profits equally between the authors involved in the event. In 2014 the festival received the Cultural Events and Tourism Award in the Oxfordshire Business Awards. To receive regular festival updates, follow us on Twitter @ChipLitFest, find us on Facebook /ChipLitFest or sign up for the newsletter. For further information, contact Jenny Dee on 07958 344078 or email info@chiplitfest.com   ______________________________________________________________________  

Chipping Campden Literature Festival 3-8 May The aim of seventh independent Chipping Campden Literature Festival is, as in previous years, to celebrate the joy of reading, the beauty of physical books, and the sharing of ideas.

To these ends we have put together a highly original six-day programme of thirty-two events including two workshops, a literary lunch, and a printers’ Wayzgoose. The participants include thirty-three published authors. There are also actors, a theatre director and theatre critic, journalists, and musicians both classical and jazz. Emily Dunn from the local children and YA bookshop has also put together a comprehensive programme of author visits to local schools. Evening and weekend main festival events in the Chipping Campden School Academy are free to full time students. The theme for 2016 is History, and on the Festival Saturday we have events to mark four hundred years since Shakespeare’s death. Speakers include the historians Peter Frankopan, Janina Ramirez and Anna Keay, novelists Dinah Jefferies and Justin Cartwright, philosophers AC Grayling and Roger Scruton, Shakespeare experts Stanley Wells and Paul Edmondson, biographers Andrew Lownie and Hugh Purcell, children’s author Philip Womack, and Anna Pavord and Charles Foster writing on the landscape and wildlife.   Vicky Bennett and Mary Gray run the Festival with neither public nor corporate funding, relying entirely on ticket sales and small private donations. To receive a printed programme email postal address to vicky@campdenlitfest.co.uk To download a printed programme and booking form www.campdenlitfest.co.uk Online booking from 14^th March at www.campdenlitfest.co.uk. Follow us on twitter @campdenlitfest and find us on Facebook