Lowdham's Last Saturday

Lowdham Book Festival – Saturday 29th June

10am – 5pm All Day Book Fair and Café, Village Hall, Main Street, Lowdham

The final Saturday of the Lowdham Book Festival is always one of the highlights of Nottinghamshire’s literary calendar. This year’s is the Festival’s 20^th last Saturday.

Throughout the day the Village Hall hosts a cafe serving hot and cold drinks, salads and panini, cakes and ice cream. The bookfair is spread over the Village Hall, a big marquee behind the Village Hall and assorted gazebos. It features publishers, charities, book trade organisations and booksellers with new and second-hand books. There are displays of old-fashioned letter press printing equipment, and an eclectic mix of talks and readings.

No need to book but turn up early for any event you are particularly keen on to guarantee a seat! Entry is FREE to the bookfair and all events.

Take a look at the order of play:

11am Difficult issues? Not so difficult issues?

Committee Room, Village Hall Troy Jenkinson (The Best Mummy Snails in the Whole Wide World, about children with lesbian parents), and Rose Robbins (Me and My Sister, about having a sibling with autism) discuss writing books about "issues" for younger children.

11am Watson Fothergill - an illustrated talk by Darren Turner Methodist Chapel, Main Street

The Victorian architect Watson Fothergill left a distinctive stamp on Nottingham, making him the most famous local architect of the period. His works can still be seen all over the city.

11am Stephen Booth – Peak District Crime fiction Marquee behind the Village Hall

Stephen makes a welcome return to the Festival, and brings us up to date with murder and mayhem in the Dark Peak. His Cooper and Fry series is now up to 18 books. It's dangerous in Derbyshire!

11am Ruth Charnock on Joni Mitchell  WI Hall, Main Street

In this sound and image-illustrated talk, Ruth Charnock looks at Joni Mitchell’s work as a musician, composer, cultural commentator and antagonist, thinking particularly about Mitchell’s album Blue and its depiction of desire, free love, and the late ’60s, whilst also exploring Mitchell’s wider cultural contributions and significance.

12.30-1.30pm Shoestring Poetry Hour  Committee Room, Village Hall

John Lucas presents Malcom Carson and Paul Binding, stalwarts of the independent publishing scene. Malcolm has three full collections, Breccia, Rangi Changi and other poems, Route Choice and a pamphlet, Cleethorpes Comes to Paris. Paul is a novelist, critic, poet and cultural historian.  He has written on Eudora Welty and Lorca as well as his own poetry.

12.30-1.30pm Bird Therapy with Joe Harkness Methodist Chapel, Main Street

On depression and bird watching - how becoming a bird watcher saved Joe. 'I can't remember the last book I read that I could say with absolute assurance would save lives. But this one will' Chris Packham.

12.30-1.30pm Rules are meant to be broken Marquee behind the Village Hall

Darren Simpson (Scavengers) and Kate Mallinder (Summer of No Regrets) write for teenagers. Kate's novel is about four sixteen-year-old best friends who pledge to live a summer regret-free, taking risks however much it scares them. Darren's character Landfill lives as a scavenger, behind the wall, swimming with turtles and eating fresh gull. But he wants to explore the world outside.

12.30-1.30pm Protest and Power:  the battle for the Labour Party with David Kogan WI Hall, Main Street

Journalist David Kogan's talk can best be described by these quotes about his book: 'If you want to understand Corbyn's long march to take control of Labour this is the only book to read’ (Robert Peston) ‘New insights, vivid interviews, granular, often objectively funny details, combine to build a portrait of the British left that is both honest and dignifying.’ (Zoe Williams Guardian)

2-3pm Lux, historical fiction with Elizabeth Cook Committee Room, Village Hall

King David sings his psalms while King Henry plots. Courtier Thomas Wyatt sees them both, his beloved falcon Lukkes on his arm. Lux is a story of love, fidelity, faith and power. Elizabeth Cook was born in Gibraltar, and spent her childhood in Nigeria and Dorset. She is the author of the novel Achilles, and wrote the libretto for Francis Grier’s The Passion of Jesus of Nazareth, broadcast by the BBC.

2-3pm Welcome to the Cheap Seats, with Andrew Graves Methodist Chapel, Main Street

This is an illustrated talk on working class film, with a strong Nottingham element, including the films of Shane Meadows, and of Alan Sillitoe's books as well as Kes, To Sir, With Love and many others.

2-3pm "Don't mention the war", with Clare Harvey Marquee behind the Village Hall

Clare is the author of several books set during WWII, some in Nottingham. She will be talking about her research, her development of strong female characters and how to set stories within a war.

2-3pm Epic Continent, with Nicholas Jubber WI Hall, Main Street

Award-winning travel writer Nicholas Jubber journeys across Europe exploring Europe's epic poems, from the Odyssey to Beowulf, the Song of Roland to the Nibelungenlied, and their impact on European identity in these turbulent times. 

3.30-4.30pm Mug without a Handle: Life after Loss of a Long-term Partner with Alison Chippendale Committee Room, Village Hall

Alison will be reading her own poems about dealing with widowhood.

3.30-4.30pm I Went for a Walk, with Gabriel Stewart Methodist Chapel, Main Street

"Just over a year ago I decided I wanted to go for a walk, a rather long one. I had a plan. I'd use my home in London as a base and strike out into the countryside, starting small - short jaunts to Brighton or Norwich, leading up to walking London to Penzance and finishing my year with a walk to Edinburgh. That was the plan. And it couldn't have gone more wrong."

3.30-4.30pm Our Lady of Everything, with Susan Finlay WI Hall, Main Street

Susan's debut novel is set in Nottingham, 2004. It chronicles the lives of Eoin O'Shea's friends and family, and what happens to them when he, a second-generation Northern Irish soldier, is posted by the British army to Iraq.  The Games Workshop, Broadway Cinema, the Post, and Nottingham's Polish church all feature, as does chaos magik and Warhammer.

3.30-4.30pm Milkman and other novels from the North of Ireland, with Deirdre O'Byrne Marquee behind the Village Hall

 Milkman, by Anna Burns, which won the Booker Prize, was set in Belfast during the height of "the Troubles". In this talk Deirdre discusses the book in relation to other novels set in the North at a time when Irish writing has rarely been so popular with British readers.

Saturday extras in the big marquee!

12pm and 4pm (for 20 minutes each time)

Join Clare Stevens and a group of writers from Maggie's, Nottingham reading their own material. Like all our events today, these are free, but there is a Maggie's collecting box!

Maggie’s Stall, Main Marquee

1.30pm and 3pm (for 20 minutes each time)

Join Tuesday Shannon, Pippa Hennessy and Elizabeth Hourston from Soundswrite women's press, reading their poems about Orkney, archaeology and quantum physics (!).

Soundswrite Stall, Main Marquee

The full programme can be read HERE