- 1-31 March 2019
March 2019
- For writers
- Young Essex
Pop-Up Essex Writers House
For Essex Book Festival, Metal is once again transforming their base at Chalkwell Hall in Southend into a Pop Up Essex Writers House for the whole of March, hosting literary events and activities for all to enjoy. Read more
- Guided Tour
- PLACE
Josie Watson
Throughout its history, Colchester has been the inspiration and setting for many novels. This guided walk will take you on a literary quest to discover serpents, detectives, serving wenches and many other fictional characters and their creators who have known the streets of the ancient town. Read more
- Non-fiction
- PLACE
- SOLD OUT!
Ken Worpole
The first of three talks programmed in partnership with the River Stour Festival. Writer and social historian Ken Worpole focuses on 'back to the land' and utopian experiments in NorthEast Essex, including The Adelphi Centre, Frating Hall Farm, the Othona Community and Ardleigh. Read more
- Discussion
- PLACE
Human Library
Human Libraries take place across the world. Just like in a real library, a visitor to the Human Library can choose a book from a range of titles. The difference is that Books are people, and Reading is a conversation. Come along, meet people you wouldn’t normally meet, and celebrate positive differences in our communities. Read more
- Non-fiction
- PLACE
Tim Burrows
In the second River Stour Festival talk, Tim Burrows unpicks the competing narratives about the county everyone thinks they know, from Sabine Baring-Gould's distaste at the illiterate peasants of Mersea, to the days Margaret Thatcher lived in Manningtree. Read more
- Non-fiction
- PLACE
Jennifer Lucy Allan and Luke Turner
For the final River Stour Festival talk, Jennifer Allan explores the cultural history of the foghorn, while Luke Turner reads from 'Out of the Woods', his memoir exploring sexuality and the strange woodland of Epping Forest, followed by a reading from their collaborative 'Leaves/Waves'. Read more
- Memoir
- ONLY A FEW TICKETS LEFT!
Duncan Barrett
Tales of hardship, love and happiness from the factories of Tate & Lyle, revealing the true story of the female workers who toiled in the firm’s factories in Silvertown during their East End heyday in the 40s and 50s Read more
- Non-fiction
Simon Heffer
The folk-memory of Britain in the years before the Great War is of a powerful, contented, orderly and thriving country. In this warts-and-all portrait, Simon Heffer exposes the contradictions and reveals what was really going on in late-Victorian and Edwardian Britain. Simon will be interviewed by journalist, writer and broadcaster Francis Wheen. Read more
- Fiction
Elizabeth Lowry
A thrillingly vivid novel about eight men cast adrift in 1833, with literary references to Melville, Dickens and Shakespeare. From the horrors on the high seas to an asylum for the insane, Dark Water explores desire, starvation, greed and amorality, and makes an unmissable contribution to this year’s hunger for all things ‘gothic’. Read more
- Fiction
- SOLD OUT!
Barbara Erskine
Barbara Erskine’s new novel The Ghost Tree is a tale of tracing ancestry, exploring the life of her great grandfather, five times removed, Thomas Erskine, who rose from genteel poverty in Scotland to become the Lord Chancellor in 1806. Read more
- Fiction
Kimberley Chambers
Two childhood friends. Two sides of the law. One deadly showdown. As gritty and dangerous as the London streets in which it’s set, this is No.1 Sunday Times Best-seller Kimberley Chambers at her best. Get ready for a shocking read with a sting in the tail… Read more
- Discussion
- Fiction
Essex Book Club Symposium
Join members of book groups from across Essex to hear from Sarah Moss, whose sixth novel Ghost Wall explores the intoxication of power and Northern Britain in the 90s; and Caroline Kirby talking about her stunning debut The Conviction of Cora Burns, a heart-breaking journey through Victorian Birmingham about violence, and nature vs nurture. Read more
- Fiction
Melvyn Bragg
In this special event to celebrate the Forum’s fifth birthday, join writer, broadcaster and presenter of Radio 4’s In Our Time, Melvyn Bragg as he talks about his latest novel. Love Without End brings the 12th-century into the 21st as he breathes fresh life into one of history’s most remarkable and enduring love stories. Read more
- Fiction
- Writers House
Authors Club Best First Novel Award
Lucy Popescu, chair of the Authors Club Best First Novel Award, announces the Shortlist for 2019. She will be in conversation with John McGhie about his 2018 shortlisted novel White Highlands, and the value of literary awards. Set in Kenya, White Highlands is an outstanding evocation of colonial imperialism and its aftermath. Read more
- Non-fiction
- Science & the Imagination
Sue Nelson
In 1961, Wally Funk was among the Mercury 13, the first group of American pilots to pass the Woman in Space programme. None of the women ever went to space. In this offbeat odyssey, journalist and fellow space buff Sue Nelson travels with Wally as she races to make her own giant leap. Read more
- Science & the Imagination
- Workshop
- Young Essex
Tides and Tales Workshop
A flotsam and jetsam inspired creative writing workshop with children’s author and artist Wendy Constance. This fun writing workshop uses plastic and natural debris washed up by the tide as inspiration, and encourages us to think about science and the natural world, pollution and how we can better look after our environment. Suitable for ages 7-11 year olds. Read more
- Science & the Imagination
- Workshop
- Young Essex
Pet Defender: Alien Workshop
The Pet Defenders are the first line in defence against alien invasion. Your dogs, cats, hamster and gerbils are fighting to keep earth safe but they need your help. Fire up you imaginations and join award winning author Gareth P Jones for an interactive, science fiction, musical, unpredictable event in which the audience has to write the story, create the aliens and ultimately save the world! Suitable for 7-11 year olds Read more
- Art
- Science & the Imagination
- Workshop
- Young Essex
Graphic Futures
Explore the fundamentals of comic book storytelling with writer and digital artist Carl Doherty. Carl will take you through visions of the future in comics and graphic novels; tell you about ‘dystopias’ and ‘utopias’; and get you thinking about how changes in the environmental might impact on our future. Come along and illustrate your own predictions of tomorrow. Suitable for 11-16 years Read more
- Fiction
- Science & the Imagination
James Smythe
Delve into the realm of artificial intelligence in this intelligent and touching science fiction novel, a powerful tale of love, loss and hope; a frightening, heartbreakingly human look at who we are now – and who we can be, if we only allow ourselves. Read more
- Science & the Imagination
- Young Essex
Curious Science Quest
Julia Golding, award-winning children's author, will explore the big questions that scientists have asked throughout history – but can science explain everything? Join Julia’s time-travelling quest of discovery as she discusses her latest books Hunt with Newton and Rocky Road to Galileo. The event will include live science experiments performed with the help of a young scientist. Read more
- Festival Finale
- Science & the Imagination
- Young Essex
Festival Finale: Family Fun
An afternoon of family fun to celebrate the end of Essex Book Festival. The Live Poetry Jukebox will beguile all ages with a magical interactive poetry installation, try your hand at making your very own traditional Chinese paper rose, and make your mark on Anita Belli’s The Big Write: Mother Earth Wall. Read more
- Festival Finale
- Fiction
Xinran Xue
British-Chinese journalist and author Xinran Xue begins with the magic and tragedy of one young couple's wedding night in 1950, and goes on to tell personal experiences of loss, grief and hardship through China's extraordinary century. A spell-binding narrative of modern China. Read more
- Discussion
- Festival Finale
- Science & the Imagination
We Need To Talk About Mother
Join in the conversation about Climate Change and its impact on all our lives with writer, broadcaster and former BBC Science Correspondent Sue Nelson, British investigative journalist and environmental activist Clare Rewcastle-Brown, author of The Sarawak Report, a stranger-than-fiction tale of how one woman uncovered the world’s biggest theft which, brought down the Malaysian government in 2018, and artist Lily Hunter Green. Read more