Wednesday 23 April 2014

10 Reasons to go the Finchley Literary Festival

It's the Finchley Literary Festival's third year and I've crawled out of my writing cave and got involved on the committee. It's taking place on the 24th - 31st May and here are 10 reasons why you should go! 

1. Classy Venue - look at that place! You'll feel like you're in Downton Abbey for the day - Ring for Tea! 

2. Talking of Tea - you get a free cup of the stuff (or coffee) and a Danish pastry with every £5.00 ticket for the main event. 

3. Cheap - yes I did just say only £5.00! Thanks to generous sponsors and a really hardworking committee. 

Rosie Canning
4. Hardworking committee - I regularly get emails from Rosie Canning at 2am. She works too hard and is a wonder. Thanks to lovely people like her there are literary festivals - so let's support them! 

5. Abseiling - no, not for everyone! This is a literary festival not an adventure holiday! But I can't not mention committee member, Bettina von Cossel, who's afraid of heights but is going to be abseiling down Church Langley Water Tower to raise money for the festival! 

Maggie Butt
 6. Miracles - apart from the miracle of overcoming vertigo that is.  I'm talking about the wonderful workshops on offer. People say it's  impossible to get poetry published, but have those people been to  Maggie Butts' Get Your Poetry Published workshop? I think not. 

 7. All inclusive - no previous experience is needed for award-  winning writer, Allen Ashley's, family friendly creative writing    workshop Get Started.  Did I mention it's FREE? 

 8. Child friendly - there are workshops for the kids too including a CliFi* workshop with Sarah Holding, author of the SeaBEAN trilogy! (that's *Climate Fiction to you and me). 

9. Social Media for cheaper - I'll be running a 2 hour workshop for just £15.00 (usual price £45) on developing your online author profile with a focus on blogging and twitter. Afterwards we can get more of that tea I mentioned and talk about your ideas! 

10. For the love of Literature - have I convinced you yet? I haven't even mentioned the authors who are coming to talk...

Alex Wheatle, Caitlin Davies, Rosie Fiore

or the Dragon Pen event (like Dragons' Den but for your WIP) with literary dragons Gillian Stern, Cari Rose and Mary Musker...



... or the literary walk where Paul Baker will point out a former Manor House which is haunted by a suspected lover of Anne Boleyn... OOOooooh... did you hear that? Terrifying, right? But not as terrifying as the thought of missing the festival altogether because you forget to put the dates in your diary! Hurry! 

The Main Event will be held on Saturday 31st May 2-6pm 
The £5.00 Ticket includes tea/coffee and a Danish pastry served at Stephens House and Gardens.

Eventbrite - Finchley Literary Festival

For more information, visit the Finchley Literary Festival Blog 


4 comments:

Felicity Hayes-McCoy said...

This post's definitely one for a tweet. (And I'm not even going to be in the right country when the event is happening.)Click. Done.

Emily Benet said...

Thank you Felicity! You are always so generous with your retweets :) I appreciate it. Shame you can't be there! X

Ray said...

This came as a surprise...a literary festival in Finchley. Pity I missed it but then I didn't know that they had one let alone three. Well, I was born in N.12 and I've been chatting with a forum about how our childhood growing up in Finchley have influenced us and looking back with memories of the 50s through to the 80s.

Ray said...

This came as a surprise...a literary festival in Finchley. Pity I missed it but then I didn't know that they had one let alone three. Well, I was born in N.12 and I've been chatting with a forum about how our childhood growing up in Finchley have influenced us and looking back with memories of the 50s through to the 80s.