Chelmsford Science Festival – 26th and 27th October

First up is Anglia Ruskin University’s hugely popular Chelmsford Science Festival, which is hosting two Family Science Days on Saturday 26th and Sunday 27th October.

Activities include interactive exhibits, hands on activities and talks by leaders in their fields. Essex Book Festival is proud to be playing its part by hosting a Traditional Ink-Making and Eco-Printing Drop-in Activity. Why not come along and dabble in some ancient gall oak alchemy!

Find out more about Chelmsford Science Festival at essexbookfestival.org.uk.

Blythe Spirit – The Remarkable Life of Ronald Blythe
Friday 15th November

It is difficult to sum up the remarkable life of Ronald Blythe, author of Akenfield and countless other books and essays, who spent the last forty years of his life living in Wormingford near Colchester.

However, close friend and writer Ian Collins has done an equally remarkable job of distilling and condensing Ronnie’s fascinating life and work spanning 100 years into his new biography Blythe Spirit.

We are thrilled be partnering with Red Lion Books on an author event on Friday 15th November at the Old Library in Colchester Town Hall featuring Ian Collins in conversation with Festival Director Ros Green, who grew up in the now mythical ‘Akenfield’ in East Suffolk in the 1960s.

It’s not often that the venue plays a starring role in one of our events. Who could have imagined that eighty years later the shy reference librarian affectionately known as Ronnie who worked at the Old Library for 10 years, would one day become one of the UK’s leading writers, essayist and editor. Well, he did, and made Essex his home.

Find out more and book tickets at redlionbooks.co.uk.

Hot Off The Press
Tattoos – The Untold History of a Modern Art

Essex Book Festival is teaming up with EA Festival and Firstsite on another exciting event in November: The Launch of Dr Matt Lodder’s new book Tattoos: The Untold History of a Modern Art published by Yale University Press.

Tattoos is the first book to examine the history of tattoo in the West as both a serious profession and an art form.

Contrary to the pervasive stereotype of tattoo culture relating to an underworld of scoundrels, sailors and ne’er-do-wells, it has existed in the West as a professionalized art practice for centuries. Drawing on extensive new research and unprecedented access to largely unpublished private archives of photographs, art, and ephemera, Dr Matt Lodder offers a new perspective on the history of commercial tattooing in Europe and the United States, beginning even before it emerged as a recognizable profession in the mid-nineteenth century.

The event is taking place at 7pm Firstsite on Thursday 28th November.

For more information and to book tickets go to: ea-festival.eventcube.io/events.

Beach of Dreams

Essex Book Festival is hosting a special weekend of activities for four local community groups on 16th and 17th November to explore and reflect on the fascinating history of Harwich. Participants will be invited to tell their own stories of what the town means to them via workshops led by a writer, digital artist and a local archivist. All of the stories created will feed into a new national digital platform as part of the project: Beach of Dreams.

Beach of Dreams aims to engage hundreds of thousands across the UK in a major interdisciplinary programme responding to coastal, environmental and climate themes, Activities include walks; journeys; participatory creative events; digital activity; talks and other events along the UK coastline in the 4 nations of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland from October 2024 to May 2025.

Get involved!

In addition to our four community workshops, Essex Record Office will be hosting a free oral recording session between 4-5pm on Saturday 16th November. If you would like to take part in this session, email [email protected] The more story-gatherers the better!

Find out more at essexbookfestival.org.uk/beach-of-dreams and beachofdreams.org.

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Ian Collins, a close friend of Blythe’s, will be joining us for this very special event on Friday 15th November, in partnership with Red Lion Books, to celebrate the launch of his book Blythe Spirit: The Remarkable Life of Ronald Blythe.

Drawing on unparalleled access to letters, notebooks, published works, drafts, and conversations from decades of friendship, Collins tells the full story of Ronald Blythe for the first time. The result is a sensitive, revelatory portrait which celebrates a fascinating, complex man and casts new light on one of our greatest writers.

This event will take place in the Old Library at Colchester Town Hall, where Blythe worked for 10 years as a reference librarian and where he founded the Colchester Literary Society.

Ian Collins will be in conversation with Essex Book Festival Director, Ros Green, who grew up in Charsfield in East Suffolk in 1960s and 1970s: the inspiration for Ronald Blythes’s Penguin Classic Akenfield: Portrait of an English Village.

Find out more about this event and book tickets at essexbookfestival.org.uk/event/blythe-spirit/.

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