Authors Electric

Outside the 2 sisters arts centre Meg Reid of the Felixstowe Book Festival brought a new word into my vocabulary when she asked me to ‘curate’ a day’s events at the Two Sisters’ Arts Centre on Saturday June 25th 2022. The title of the event would be Suffolk and the Sea - the vital words, for me, were books and boats..  I soon realised that the two were already linked by a footpath running from Suffolk Yacht Harbour at Levington, where I could moor my boat  Peter Duck, to Trimley St Mary, location of the arts centre where we would talk about books. The event began to take a yet more appealing shape when I realised how close we were to Broke House, Levington, where Arthur Ransome lived when he was writing his masterpiece We Didn’t Mean To Go To Sea . Our first festival guest should be Nancy Blackett – ‘Goblin’ from the story – who could come and join Peter Duck in the yacht harbour. Book festival attendees could come and meet the boats as well. Perhaps some of them will arriv...

Festive flags at Boomtowm  I’ll never feel quite the same about festivals. Over the last few years I’ve written several posts in response to my happy experiences at the Felixstowe Book Festival . But I've usually been looking from a performer's point of view -- never exactly undervaluing the efforts of organiser Meg Reid and her volunteers, but not setting them centre stage.  Earlier this year, observing my daughter Georgie Thorogood turning her vision of Dixie Fields (her debut country music festival) into reality, I began to get a glimpse of the extraordinary level of challenge faced by all festival organisers. (And here's to you too, Ros Green, at the Essex Book Festival. ) In May I wrote a blogpost apologising to my fictional character, Lottie Livesey, for giving her a festival organiser's role to ensure she was sufficiently off-stage in Pebble to allow my child characters an unimpeded adventure. Poor Lottie, when I'd side-lined her previously (in  A...