This is a free festival.  No need to reserve, except for workshops.

FRIDAY 6th OCTOBER 2023

10.30 WORKSHOP: COSY CRIME (WITH CAROL MCGRATH)

10.30 WORKSHOP: SHORT STORY WRITING (WITH ALIZON ROBERTSON)

13.00 WORKSHOP: TRUTH TO TALE (WITH RITA WILSON)

13.00 WORKSHOP: MEMOIR WRITING (WITH ANN RICHARDSON)

16.45 LINDSAY BENNETT FORD READS HER STORY ‘ORDINARY PROMISES’

17.00 EVAN FALLENBERG: HOW A NOVEL GETS MADE: FROM IDEA TO BOOKSTORE (A CASE STUDY).

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17.45 GILLIAN PAGE: FACTS INTO FICTION
Gillian has spent many years studying and writing about the medieval period of the Peloponnese and is the author of Being Byzantine: Greek Identity before the Ottomans 1200 - 1420. She will talk about the challenge of taking a time and a place that she had researched exhaustively for an academic book, and bringing it all to life with narratives, characters and incident. We will find out why the history engaged her so much that she wanted to make a novel out of it. Includes a reading of a short excerpt set in the castle of Kalamata.

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18.30 REGINA HERMANS READS HER FAIRY TALE: ADVENTURES OF A FLIP-FLOP

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18.45 CAT/PERSON BY CHRIS HEATH, FEATURING BARBARA SPITZ

“Anyone who had given up hope of finding an audio sitcom that actually makes them laugh will be delighted to learn that Cat/Person is really, really good. Purr-fect comedy – with heart.” (Radio Times)

A live, exclusive reading of the upcoming second series of the audio sitcom, Cat/Person. Written by and starring Chris Heath and featuring (for one night only) Barbara Spitz as Hobson the Cat.

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In the hit Podcast Sitcom, Cat/Person serves up a series of overheard conversations between a broken man Matthew (Chris Heath) and Hobson (Sue Vincent), his sarcastic, selfish, sociopathic rescue cat. Matthew is doing his best to keep himself from falling into a black hole following an unhappy divorce. To get him through the dark days, his friends recommend that he gets himself an emotional support animal. Unfortunately, after a trip to the local Animal Shelter, he chose Hobson.

Matthew is sentimental, messy and lonely.
Hobson is hungry and insisting on a treat. Immediately.

 Click to find out where to listen to the first series 

19.15 CLAIRE PAPAMICHAEL TALKS ABOUT DAMON GALGUT (BOOKER PRIZE WINNING AUTHOR OF ‘THE PROMISE’)

Claire Papamichael has recently translated Galgut’s ‘The Promise’ and describes him as ‘one of the finest writers I’ve ever read’ and ‘a privilege to translate’.

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20.00 QUIZ: UNIVERSALLY CHALLENGED, HOSTED BY JOHN AND MARY HAYES

The organisers of the Lit Fest emerge from backstage to take on a team of challengers from this year’s participants. Can the authors beat the Lit Fest team this time? (Quiz compiled by Mike Heath).

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20.45 DEBORAH SWIFT: REINVENTING THE RENAISSANCE AND WORLD WAR TWO
USA Today bestselling author Deborah Swift gives us an insight into two of her recent works of historical fiction.

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21.30 TROUVERE: MUSIC AND MEDIEVAL TALES
Trouvere are Gill Page and Paul Leigh. Interweaving music and story telling, they are especially into the music of the troubadours and trouveres of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries – music that might well have been heard at the castle of Lefktron, above the bay in Stoupa, 750 or so years ago.