Stroud Book Festival programme 2023

Introduction

A celebration of stories, ideas and community for readers of all ages 8-12 November 2023 stroudbookfestival.org.uk

© Hannah Dyson 2023

stroudbookfestival

@bookstroud

www.stroudbookfestival.org.uk

@stroudbookfestival 1

BUY YOUR TICKETS BROWSE this brochure or the Stroud Book Festival website, www.stroudbookfestival.org.uk.

CHOOSE the events you want to buy tickets for.

BOOK in one of the following ways: Online via thesubrooms.co.uk.

By phone:

Sub Rooms Box Office, 01453 796880 (opening hours Tues-Sat, 9am-4pm).

In person

Sub Rooms Box Office, Stroud Sub Rooms, Stroud GL5 1AE (opening hours as above).

BUY THE BOOK “Stroud Book Festival is one of the best in the country – intimate, stimulating and fun.”

Ian McEwan 2

The Stroud Book Festival encourages you to buy your Festival books from independent bookshops wherever possible.

We are delighted to be working with two local independents this year and hope you will support them. www.stroudbookfestival.org.uk

l

S troud Bookshop (stroudbookshop. com) will be selling books at all our core Festival events.

l

T he Yellow-Lighted Bookshop (yellowlightedbookshop.co.uk) will be supplying books for our Schools’ Days.

WELCOME TO STROUD BOOK FESTIVAL Roll up, roll up for the eighth annual Stroud Book Festival. We are proud to present our 2023 programme and whatever your reading persuasion we hope you’ll find events here to excite, inform and stimulate conversation, and – of course – provide reading inspiration.

As always, we strive to bring you a Festival that blends writing local talent with prominent authors who bring valuable outside perspectives to our Five Valleys mix.

This year, we’re delighted to welcome to Stroud such nationally renowned names as Cressida Cowell, Clive Myrie, Tom Kerridge, Adam Kay, Rob Biddulph, Tessa Hadley, Joseph Coelho, Gillian Clarke and Nina Stibbe alongside

Jane Churchill

the wealth of Gloucestershire-based authors who make up almost 50% of our programme.

We aim to be topical and this year present events centred on the environment, politics, the legal system, and the conflict in Ukraine.

We’ll also be celebrating the contribution of the Windrush Generation to the UK 75 years on, as well as the 75th anniversary of the NHS, and the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s First Folio. Not to mention the 30th anniversary of Horrible Histories, 60 years of Doctor Who, and 20 years since the publication of modern children’s classic, How to Train Your Dragon by Cressida Cowell.

Camilla Hale

Shannon Newton

Whatever your reading persuasion we hope you’ll find events here to excite, inform and stimulate conversation...

As the many thank yous listed on our back page demonstrate, Stroud Book Festival is a massive team effort; and we are enormously grateful to all the authors, chairs, sponsors, supporters, venues, volunteers, and publishers who make it possible.

Special thanks to Stroud artist Hannah Dyson who created the glorious Stroud Valleys-inspired design which graces the cover of this brochure.

Finally, thank you to you, our loyal audiences. We hope you’ll come back this year, or perhaps even attend for the very first time. Either way, we hope you enjoy all the fun of the Festival.

See you soon! With love from The Stroud Book Festival team x

Caroline Sanderson

www.stroudbookfestival.org.uk

Dominique Shead

3

FESTIVAL PLANNER

Children’s events are highlighted in yellow

n Sunday November 5

n Friday November 10

19.30 | Cotswold Playhouse Stroud Short Stories No. 26: Love Is Strange

18.30 | Trinity Rooms Intelligent Hands with Charlotte Abrahams & Katy Bevan

n Wednesday November 8

18.30 | Lansdown Hall Wild & Wondrous with Laurie King & Jini Reddy

19.00 | Sub Rooms Pub Kitchen with Tom Kerridge

n Thursday & Friday November 9 & 10 Sub Rooms Stroud Book Festival Schools’ Days with Joseph Coelho, Maz Evans, Natasha Farrant, Tom Percival, Smriti Halls, Ken Wilson-Max

20.30 | Lansdown Hall Glos Mythos with Emma Kernahan, JLM Morton & Mara Simpson 21.00 | Sub Rooms Adventures in Wonderland with Paul Charles

n Thursday November 9 18.00 | Lansdown Hall The Joyful Environmentalist with Isabel Losada

n Saturday November 11

18.30 | Sub Rooms Undoctored with Adam Kay

10.00 | Lansdown Hall Grand Old Oak & the Birthday Ball with Rachel Piercey

20.00 | Lansdown Hall Exploring Shakespeare with Bill Alexander 20.30 | Sub Rooms The English Patient: A Prescription for the Future with Polly Morland & Dr Phil Whitaker

4

19.00 | Sub Rooms Everything is Everything: A Memoir of Love, Hate & Hope with Clive Myrie

11.30 | Sub Rooms Horrible Histories 30th Anniversary with Martin Brown 12.00 | Lansdown Hall Tiny Owl’s Scary Day with Petr Horáček 13.30 | Lansdown Hall 60 Years of Doctor Who with Steve Cole, Mike Tucker & K9

www.stroudbookfestival.org.uk

FESTIVAL PLANNER n Sunday November 12

13.30 & 14.45 | Stroud Library A Squash and a Squeeze is 30!

Free storytelling events with Vickie Long

10.30 | Lansdown Hall Went to London, Took the Dog with Nina Stibbe

14.00 | Sub Rooms Between the Lies: Domestic Homicide, Fact & Fiction with Jane Monckton-Smith, Louise Tickle & Victoria Derbyshire 15.30 | Lansdown Hall What We Talk About When We Talk About Writing with Rachel Joyce & Sarah Winman 15.30 | Museum in the Park Little Why: A Paper Engineering Workshop with Jonny Lambert

10.30 | Sub Rooms GIGANTIC Fun! with Rob Biddulph 12.15 | Lansdown Hall The Hare-Shaped Hole with John Dougherty & Thomas Docherty 12.30 | Sub Rooms Dragons, Dangerous Space Travel & Very Illegal Magic with Cressida Cowell 14.00 | Lansdown Hall ` The Curse of the Tomb Robbers with Andy Seed

16.00 | Sub Rooms Desert Island Books with Mary Portas

14.30 | Sub Rooms Gillian Clarke: Stroud Book Festival Guest Poet 2023

17.30 | Lansdown Hall Experienced with Kate Young

15.30 | Museum in the Park The Immortal Games: A Creative Writing Workshop with Annaliese Avery

18.00 | Sub Rooms The Glories of Short Stories with Tessa Hadley & Alice Jolly 19.30 | Lansdown Hall The Rooster House: A Ukrainian Family Memoir with Victoria Belim 20.00 | Sub Rooms Politics: A Survivor’s Guide with Rafael Behr

16.00 | Lansdown Hall Cosy But Criminal with Kat Ailes & Debbie Young 16.30 | Sub Rooms Snow Widows & Polar Men with Sue Limb & Katherine MacInnes 18.30 | Sub Rooms The Poetry of Laurie Lee: A Celebration with Jessy Lee, Adam Horovitz & Norah Perkins

www.stroudbookfestival.org.uk

5

SUNDAY NOVEMBER 5

Jamie McCallum tells his story of British food through ever-evolving menus of delicously seasonal dishes Book a table online or call us T: 01452 813688 | W: THEPAINSWICK.CO.UK

STROUD SHORT STORIES 19.30 (doors 19.00) | Cotswold Playhouse

The 26th event from the ever-brilliant Stroud Short Stories brings us ten extraordinary stories, written and read by Gloucestershire authors on the theme of Love Is Strange. Now in its 12th year, SSS’s considerable reputation is based on the unfailingly high quality of the stories read at its events, which are selected from the 100 or so submitted for each one.

The entries for Love Is Strange will be judged by Stroud Short Stories editor and organiser, John Holland, and novelist and short story writer, Debbie Young.

SSS is also celebrating its latest anthology, SSS Volume Three 2018-22, which was recently shortlisted for the Saboteur Book Prize as Best Anthology of the Year.

SSS events almost always sell out in advance, so you should book early to avoid disappointment, particularly as this is the sole SSS event of 2023! Tickets will go on sale from the Cotswold Playhouse website from Friday 13 October: www.cotswoldplayhouse.co.uk.

KEMPS LANE . PAINSWICK . GLOUCESTERSHIRE . GL6 6YB

6

More information from the SSS website: stroudshortstories.blogspot.com

www.stroudbookfestival.org.uk

WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 8

PUB KITCHEN Tom Kerridge

19.00-20.30 | Sub Rooms | £12 “This is food for everyone – it’s the food I’m excited about, it’s the food I like to cook at home.”

So says Michelin-starred chef, British pub champion and food poverty campaigner Tom Kerridge of his new cookbook, Pub Kitchen, which contains a feast of recipes designed to bring pub food to the home kitchen.

In our lip-smacking launch event, we are thrilled to be hosting an in-conversation with Gloucestershire-born Tom. He’ll be giving us his view from the pub kitchen and reflecting on a lifetime of creating good, honest food.

We’ll also be hearing from Lotte Lyster and Miles Connolly from award-winning Stroud local, The Prince Albert, who featured in Tom’s 2020 BBC TV series, Saving Britain’s Pubs. And from Tom Herbert, baker and co-founder of The Long Table.

Pay it forward: If you would like to support the wonderful work of The Long Table, you can opt to pay our enhanced ticket price of £20. This funds a meal voucher for someone who needs it, as well as a ticket to the event for you.

The Central Bar & Kitchen at the Sub Rooms will be serving up a special preshow dinner featuring recipes from Tom’s book, Pub Kitchen. You will be able to book this on the Sub Rooms website at the same time as your ticket.

Chaired by: Caroline Sanderson.

www.stroudbookfestival.org.uk

7

We support, champion and fight for authors At ALCS we value writers for the impact they have on our lives, every single day. That’s why we work hard to protect copyright, authors’ rights, and vital revenue streams for creators.

ALCS

alcs.co.uk 8

www.stroudbookfestival.org.uk

THURSDAY NOVEMBER 9 & FRIDAY NOVEMBER 10

STROUD BOOK FESTIVAL SCHOOLS’ DAYS Joseph Coelho, Maz Evans, Natasha Farrant, Smriti Halls, Tom Percival, Ken Wilson-Max Sponsored by ALCS and The Summerfield Trust.

We are delighted once again to welcome local schoolchildren and their teachers to our 2023 Schools’ Days, with the choice of attending in-person or live online. We look forward to presenting the following fantastic authors: Joseph Coelho Maz Evans Natasha Farrant Tom Percival Smriti Halls Ken Wilson-Max

Thursday Thursday Thursday Friday Friday Friday

In-person tickets: Digital only pass:

£4 per child per event £35 per class per event

9.30-10.30 11.30-12.30 13.30-14.30 9.30-10.30 11.30-12.30 13.30-14.30

Joseph Coelho

Maz Evans

Natasha Farrant

Smriti Halls

Tom Percival

Ken Wilson-Max

(Years 3-6) (Years 3-6) (Years 4-6) (Years 1-3) (Years 1-3) (Years 1-3)

For full information on each of these events, please visit stroudbookfestival.org. uk. You can book secure in the knowledge that if you need to cancel live tickets for any reason, we will offer a full refund or transfer your tickets to digital access.

To book in-person tickets and for further information, please call our Box Office at the Sub Rooms: 01453 796880 or email boxoffice@thesubrooms.co.uk.

To purchase digital passes, please email shannon@stroudbookfestival.org.uk, telling us which events you would like to stream.

Huge thanks to our generous sponsors, the Authors’ Licensing & Collecting Society and The Summerfield Trust, for their continued support of Stroud Book Festival’s schools’ programme.

www.stroudbookfestival.org.uk

9

THURSDAY NOVEMBER 9

CELEBRATING 75 YEARS OF THE

UNDOCTORED Adam Kay

18.30-19.30 | Sub Rooms | £12 | £20 joint ticket with The English Patient “People talk a lot about medics’ dark sense of humour… It’s a form of resistance and it’s the only coping mechanism that doctors are usually ever taught.”

Former junior doctor Adam Kay’s first book This is Going to Hurt – brutally honest and brutally hilarious – was a publishing phenomenon. It has sold more than 3 million copies and been translated into 37 languages (and counting) worldwide.

It was adapted by its author as a BBC comedy drama series which won three BAFTAs, including one for Adam as Best Writer: Drama.

But that was only part of the story. Both a prequel and sequel to This Is Going To Hurt, his latest book, Undoctored: The Story of a Medic Who Ran Out of Patients charts more of Adam’s ‘whiplash moments’ and is just as funny, bracing and heart-rending.

To mark the 75th anniversary of our beloved National Health Service, we are thrilled to welcome Adam to Stroud Book Festival to talk about Undoctored and what happens when a doctor hangs up his scrubs, but medicine refuses to let go of him. It’s an event that promises to be both very funny… but when it comes to cherishing the NHS, also deadly serious.

Chaired by: Caroline Sanderson.

10

www.stroudbookfestival.org.uk

THURSDAY NOVEMBER 9

THE ENGLISH PATIENT: A PRESCRIPTION FOR THE FUTURE

THE JOYFUL ENVIRONMENTALIST

Polly Morland & Dr Phil Whitaker

18.00-19.00 | Lansdown Hall | £10

20.30-21.30 | Sub Rooms | £10 | £20 joint ticket with Undoctored

Author, comedienne and environmentalist Isabel Losada isn’t on a mission to teach us anything else about the climate crisis. We all know how bad it is.

Instead her single-minded focus is on solutions and, what’s more, solutions we can actually enjoy.

For most of us, our most frequent experience of the NHS comes when we make an appointment with a GP. And yet general practice too is under immense strain, prompting central questions about how we maintain an NHS that is both free and fit for purpose. To take the temperature of our current experience of general practice are two expert witnesses.

Writer and filmmaker Polly Morland is the author of the acclaimed A Fortunate Woman: A Country Doctor’s Story. It profiles a GP working within a rural community she loves, shedding light on what it means to be a doctor in today’s challenging world as she interweaves the stories of both patients and practitioner.

Based in Wiltshire, Dr Phil Whitaker has more than 30 years’ experience as a GP. Medical editor of the New Statesman and an award-winning novelist, his latest book, What is a Doctor? features patient stories in a damning portrait of political interference, and looks at what might yet be done to restore the NHS.

Isabel Losada

Join Isabel to explore ‘how to practise without preaching’ in the way we bank, heat our homes, travel, garden, dress, holiday, shop, lobby, volunteer, eat and furnish our homes. She’ll show that all the actions we can take in order to live a 1.5 degree lifestyle and help our planet are also those which most enrich our lives.

No prisoners will be taken. Instead Isabel promises to send us all away with a notebook full of ideas, suggestions and actions we can all put into practice.

Chaired by: Sam Guglani.

www.stroudbookfestival.org.uk

11

‘We are letting our young people down to not educate them with hand skills...’

THURSDAY NOVEMBER 9

Kate Malone mbe

EXPLORING SHAKESPEARE Bill Alexander

20.00-21.00 | Lansdown Hall | £10 “Theatre is the greatest of collaborative art forms, and Shakespeare his greatest exponent: he used the form better than anyone else ever has to speak truth about the world.”

So asserts renowned theatre director Bill Alexander in Exploring Shakespeare.

It’s a personal, forthright and practical book in which he takes us inside the rehearsal room to explore the relationships between actors and director, and how they work together to bring Shakespeare’s vision to life. printed in the UK

Bill, who has lived in the Stroud valleys for many years, is a former Associate Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, and Artistic Director of Birmingham Rep. His landmark productions include the Olivier Award-winning The Merry Wives of Windsor and Richard III, the latter with the late, great Sir Antony Sher in the title role.

@quickthornbooks www.quickthornbooks.com 12

Chaired by: Paul Venables.

www.stroudbookfestival.org.uk

FRIDAY NOVEMBER 10

INTELLIGENT HANDS: WHY MAKING IS A SKILL FOR LIFE

WILD & WONDROUS

Charlotte Abrahams, Katy Bevan & guests

18.30-19.30 | Lansdown Hall | £10

18.30-19.30 | Trinity Rooms | £10

Living in the UK, a densely populated country with fast disappearing biodiversity, many of us feel disconnected from nature, and penned in by the lack of the right to roam. So how far do we need to go to access the wild, and the magic and healing within it? Must we travel to inaccessible parts of the globe to truly experience it? Or can it be found closer to home? To discuss these questions are two authors with wide-ranging experience of nature.

What if becoming an apprentice was as celebrated as going to university?

What is it about the mind that is considered more worthy than the hand? How have we derived this lowly view of practical education and how can we change things?

Intelligent Hands: Why Making is a Skill for Life, a newly published book from Stroud independent publisher Quickthorn, is a rallying call for practical education and the benefits it brings when we value the skills it imparts.

Join the book’s authors, Charlotte Abrahams and Katy Bevan and their guests, including printmaker Sue Brown, to hear why making is good for you.

Book here: www.stroudtrinityrooms.org/whatson

Laurie King & Jini Reddy

Environmental writer Laurie King is co-editor of Wilder Journeys, an anthology of work by adventurers, nature lovers and nomads – including Hamza Yassin and Roz Savage – who have taken extreme journeys on a quest to connect to the animal essence of their natures.

Travel writer Jini Reddy has journeyed the world, following her passion for nature. In her acclaimed book Wanderland, she roams the UK in search of magic in the British landscape.

Chaired by: Jo Durrant.

www.stroudbookfestival.org.uk

13

14

www.stroudbookfestival.org.uk

FRIDAY NOVEMBER 10

EVERYTHING IS EVERYTHING: A MEMOIR OF LOVE, HATE & HOPE Clive Myrie

19.00-20.00 | Sub Rooms | £12 In his more than 30-year career, Clive Myrie has reported from over 90 countries worldwide. From fronting the BBC News to presenting Mastermind, the BBC Proms and his own primetime series, Clive Myrie’s Italian Road Trip, he is one of the Beeb’s most versatile broadcasters.

In his first book, Everything is Everything, Clive reflects on some of the major stories he has reported on: from wars to politics to earthquakes to racial divides. Revealingly melding the professional with the personal, his memoir is also a heartfelt tribute to the Windrush generation of which his parents – who came to the UK from Jamaica in the early 1960s – were part.

We’re thrilled to welcome Clive to Stroud Book Festival to reflect on his life, and on a career defined by a determination to succeed on his own terms.

Chaired by: Caroline Sanderson.

Sponsored by: Bailey Paints, a Rabart Decorating Centre.

www.stroudbookfestival.org.uk

15

FRIDAY NOVEMBER 10

Emma Kernahan

JLM Morton

Mara Simpson

GLOS MYTHOS

ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND

20.30-21.30 | Lansdown Hall | £10

21.00-22.00 | Sub Rooms | £10

Published by Stroud’s Dialect Press, Glos Mythos brings together the poetry of the Laurie Lee Prize-winning JLM Morton with the satirical prose of Emma Kernahan and original cartoons by illustrator Bill Jones.

“I was always, and still am obsessed with what great artists do – and how they do it.”

Paul Charles

Emma Kernahan, JLM Morton & Mara Simpson

The collection emerged from friendship, dog walks and a shared fascination with the ways in which ideas about archetypes, folklore and myth gain popularity during times of adversity.

Don’t miss this dynamic performance by the authors of Glos Mythos, with music by the critically-acclaimed composer Mara Simpson, written in response to JLM Morton and Emma Kernahan’s words.

Paul Charles is one of the leading music agents on the planet. He has worked with some of the biggest names in music, at various times managing the careers of Van Morrison, Ray Davies of the Kinks, Gerry Rafferty, The Waterboys and Dexys Midnight Runners. Involved with Glastonbury Festival since its early days, he has been in charge of booking acts for the Acoustic Stage for the past 30 years. All this and Paul is a songwriter and published crime writer too.

In his riveting first non-fiction work, Adventures in Wonderland, he looks back on his eventful career, which began when he was a music-mad youngster in 1960s County Derry, managing his first act at the age of 15. Join Paul for some jaw-dropping stories and the inside track on many famous names from the music world.

Chaired by: Peter Van Hooke.

16

www.stroudbookfestival.org.uk

www.stroudbookfestival.org.uk

17

SATURDAY NOVEMBER 11

GRAND OLD OAK AND THE BIRTHDAY BALL

HORRIBLE HISTORIES 30TH ANNIVERSARY

Rachel Piercey

11.30-12.30 | Sub Rooms | £8 | Ages: 8+

10.00-11.00 | Lansdown Hall | £6 | Ages: 5+

To celebrate 30 Horrible Years of the world’s best-selling children’s history series, we are thrilled to welcome Horrible Histories’ illustrator Martin Brown to Stroud Book Festival for an event which promises fun for all the family.

Expect savage stories, foul facts and deadly drawings as we revisit the best worst bits of history from Horrible Histories: The Worst in the World.

Martin Brown

Welcome friends and settle in: There’s lots to do and see As I tell you the story Of our oldest, wisest tree…

With its gnarled trunk, giant branches and glossy leaves, Grand Old Oak is Bear’s favourite tree in the woodland. So when Bear learns that Oak is 500 years old, he decides to plan an extraspecial birthday ball.

Step into the wonderful imaginary world of Brown Bear Wood with acclaimed poet Rachel Piercey as she encourages us all to appreciate the wonders of nature and the power of poetry (and maybe even get started on writing some of our own!).

18

As well as providing some wicked drawing tips, Martin will also be revealing what else he has been working on, including his new Nell and the Cave Bear series.

Horrible Histories Trail (7-12 November): To celebrate both Stroud Book Festival 2023 and the 30th anniversary of this brilliant and bestselling series, written by Terry Deary and illustrated by Martin Brown, we have teamed up with the Museum in the Park to present a free Horrible Histories trail for children of all ages. Come along and take up the challenge to see how many characters you can spot hiding around the Museum. For more information, pick up a flyer at the Museum in the Park or call 01453 763394.

www.stroudbookfestival.org.uk

SATURDAY NOVEMBER 11

TINY OWL’S SCARY DAY

60 YEARS OF DOCTOR WHO

Petr Horáček

Steve Cole, Mike Tucker & K9

12.00-12.45 | Lansdown Hall | £6 | Ages: 4+

13.30-14.30 | Lansdown Hall | £8 | Ages: 9-99!

Internationally acclaimed Czech illustrator Petr Horáček is the author illustrator of such gorgeous picture books as Blue Penguin, The Greedy Goat, A Best Friend for Bear and Puffin Peter.

2023 marks the 60th anniversary of Doctor Who – one of the best-loved TV shows ever! We’re delighted to mark this momentous occasion with a lively look back on six decades of monsters and mayhem on TV and beyond, for Time Lord fans of all ages.

In this storytelling session with live drawing, Petr will introduce you to his latest book, Tiny Owl’s Scary Day, about an adventurous little owl who is determined to explore during the daytime! Mummy Owl says the day can be dangerous but Tiny Owl isn’t scared.

Our expert guides to the Whovian universe are Steve Cole and Mike Tucker. Bestselling children’s writer Steve has co-authored more than 30 Doctor Who books over the past 26 years. Mike is a BAFTA-winning effects designer for TV and film who has worked behind the scenes on Doctor Who since the late 1980s.

They’ll be giving us fantastic exclusive insights into the programme’s past, present and future. Not only that but they’ll be bringing along one of the versions of the legendary K9 robot dog!

www.stroudbookfestival.org.uk

19

The Nailsworth charity inspiring a life-changing love of reading Schools r look out fo n o th a d ea R our event with o h Joseph Coel in March 2024!

Over 40 years, our Readathon® sponsored read has encouraged millions of children and young people to read for fun, whilst raising money to provide books and storytellers to UK children’s hospitals including Gloucestershire Royal.

We rely This year, our READ Gloucestershire! campaign entirely on delivered an incredible 7,500 new books to donations – to local schools and challenged the county’s support ou children to read for one million minutes! work please r readforgoo visit d.org/ Find out more about our work at: donate Registered charity 1130309 (England & Wales) and SC041036 (Scotland). Read for Good®, Readathon® and Track My Read® are registered trademarks.

Read for Good is registered with the Fundraising Regulator. ©Copyright Read for Good 2023.

20

www.stroudbookfestival.org.uk

SATURDAY NOVEMBER 11

A SQUASH AND A SQUEEZE IS 30!

Free Storytelling Events Vickie Long

LITTLE WHY: A PAPER ENGINEERING WORKSHOP Jonny Lambert

13.30 & 14.45 | Stroud Library | Free | Ages: 3-6

15.30-16.30 | Museum in the Park | £12 | Ages: 6-11

Wise old man, won’t you help me please? My house is a squash and a squeeze.

Little Why just can’t stay in line. There is so much to see – like Giraffe’s long-lofty leggy legs and Wildebeest’s spiny-spiky horns. Why can’t he have legs and horns like them? And then Little Why spots Crocodile’s snippy-snappy teeth… LOOK OUT!

You are invited to celebrate 30 years of A Squash and a Squeeze – Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler’s classic picture book and the first book they ever made together. Get ready for storytelling, singing and lots of fun activities…and while you’re about it, why not come dressed as your favourite farm animal?

You can also join Lewis in the Library Lab to make and colour some special A Squash and a Squeeze story souvenirs to take home.

Free but please book in advance using the QR code, or pop into the library to reserve your place.

Don’t miss this exciting, hands-on workshop with author and illustrator Jonny Lambert, based on his picture book, Little Why, which stars an excitable little elephant. You’ll learn all about paper engineering as you try techniques in cutting, creasing, forming and glueing to create your very own pop-up elephant!

Sponsored by: Renishaw.

All materials provided. | 30 places only | Adults do not need to buy a ticket but must remain on the premises for the duration of the workshop.

www.stroudbookfestival.org.uk

21

SATURDAY NOVEMBER 11

BETWEEN THE LIES: DOMESTIC HOMICIDE, FACT & FICTION

WHAT WE TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT WRITING

14.00-15.00 | Sub Rooms | £10

15.30-16.30 | Lansdown Hall | £10

At a time when domestic abuse and femicide are high on the political agenda, this powerful event brings together two expert authors to examine what happens to those who find themselves at the sharp end of the family justice system, with the safety of domestic abuse victims and their children at stake.

When two novelists get together, what do they talk about? And how do the novels they have loved influence what they write? Rachel Joyce and Sarah Winman are both friends and mutual admirers of each other’s work. In conversation, they will share their thoughts on the creative process, its challenges, and how novels come into being.

Jane Monckton-Smith is professor of Public Protection at the University of Gloucestershire and the author of In Control: Dangerous Relationships and How They End in Murder, published last year. She is an expert on interpersonal violence, and how to prevent homicide.

Sarah will also talk about her latest and widely-acclaimed novel Still Life, winner of the Books Are My Bag Award for Fiction as well as a BBC Between the Covers Book Club Pick. Moving from the Tuscan Hills to the smog of the East End and the piazzas of Florence, it’s a sweeping, richly-peopled novel about beauty, love, family and fate.

Louise Tickle is an award-winning Stroud-based journalist who has reported widely on family courts, domestic homicide and child protection. Her debut novel, Between the Lies tells the story of Cherry Magraw, the sole survivor of a domestic homicide on the night of her ninth birthday. It draws on the many secret family court hearings observed by its author.

Rachel will discuss her latest novel, Maureen and the Angel of the North as she looks back on her writing career, a decade on from the publication of her hugely successful debut novel, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, now set to be a musical as well as a film.

To chair this compelling event, we welcome BBC Newsnight’s Victoria Derbyshire.

Sponsored by: Sofas & Stuff.

Jane Monckton-Smith & Louise Tickle with Victoria Derbyshire

22

Rachel Joyce & Sarah Winman

www.stroudbookfestival.org.uk

SATURDAY NOVEMBER 11

Proof party DESERT ISLAND BOOKS

EXPERIENCED

16.00-17.00 | Sub Rooms | £10

17.30-18.30 | Lansdown Hall | £10

2023 has been another super-busy year for Mary Portas, not least with the filming of landmark Channel 4 series, The Big Climate Fight and her continuous work with the Better Business Act to change UK law so that every company puts balancing people, profit and planet at the heart of their business.

Bette is in love, for the first time in her life. Until recently she’d been dating men, but with her 30th birthday came the world-altering realisation that it’s women she’s interested in. Now she’s met Mei and everything is perfect.

Kate Young

Mary Portas

Whatever her latest project, books have always provided Mary with stimulation and inspiration. When a guest on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs in 2010, she selected the Collected Poems of Persian poet and philosopher Rumi for her Desert Island book.

Except, out of the blue, Mei announces that she wants a three-month break for Bette to do all the exploring she missed out on in that decade of misdirected dating. So, reluctantly, Bette is on a dating odyssey which leads to Bristol’s queer scene, to great sex (and some less than great), and the community she longed for. But the last thing she wants is to find love where she least expects it...

Now join Mary in conversation with Stroud Book Festival Programme Director Caroline Sanderson to discover which books have been inspiring her lately, and which, if cast away to a Desert Island once more, she would not want to be without.

In a world exclusive, we are delighted to celebrate the debut novel of Stroud author, Kate Young. This is your chance to get the hot gossip on Experienced – a queer romantic comedy set to be a publishing sensation when it comes out next year, both in the UK and the US, and in many other countries worldwide.

Ticket price includes a proof copy of Experienced and a glass of wine or soft drink. Chaired by: Caroline O’Donoghue.

www.stroudbookfestival.org.uk

23

So, what does Stroud mean to you?

Friendly streets, rebellious spirit, big-hearted locals, lively debates, artistic tendencies, community drive, love for nature?

The essence of Stroud cannot be easily pinned down, but whatever matters to you about your town, we want to hear your views.

Stroud Town Council is the local council that cares.

Have you got something you want to share?

Pop by: Thanet House, 58 London Road.

Give us a call: 01453 762817 Drop us a line: council@stroudtown.gov.uk

www.stroudtown.gov.uk 24

www.stroudbookfestival.org.uk

SATURDAY NOVEMBER 11

THE GLORIES OF SHORT STORIES Tessa Hadley & Alice Jolly

Victoria Belim

18.00-19.00 | Sub Rooms | £10 Gems of the creative imagination, the best short stories provide the reader with intense concentrated pleasure. They also often provide a starting point for aspiring writers of longer fiction. To explore this challenging but also eminently accessible form, we welcome two award-winning practitioners of the genre.

Tessa Hadley is the author of eight acclaimed novels, and three collections of stories of which the latest is After the Funeral. In each of the 12 stories contained in this masterful collection, she plumbs the depths of everyday life to reveal the shifting tides and hidden undercurrents of ordinary relationships.

Alice Jolly is a novelist, playwright and non-fiction writer as well as the author of short stories. Her wide-ranging collection, From Far Around They Saw Us Burn contains stories including Ray the Rottweiler which won the 2014 VS Pritchett Memorial Prize, as well as the title work, which in 2021 received an O. Henry Prize, the most prestigious short story award in the US. Chaired by: Tom Conaghan.

THE ROOSTER HOUSE: A UKRAINIAN FAMILY MEMOIR

Sponsored by: Sofas & Stuff.

19.30-20.30 | Lansdown Hall | £10 Writer and translator Victoria Belim was born in Kyiv when it was still a city in the Soviet Union, to a Russian father and a Ukrainian mother. Her book – The Rooster House: A Ukrainian Family Memoir – is an enthralling, richly layered story, told across four generations, in which she investigates a family mystery: the fate of her maternal great-great uncle Nikodim who vanished in the 1930s, fighting for a free Ukraine.

The book powerfully explores the context of the current conflict in Ukraine, but goes beyond it too in reflecting on culture and geography, art and language, and how they influence the complexities of who we are.

We are thrilled to welcome Victoria to Stroud Book Festival to illuminate the turbulent history and heritage of her native land.

Chaired by: Caroline Sanderson.

www.stroudbookfestival.org.uk

25

SATURDAY NOVEMBER 11

SUNDAY NOVEMBER 12

POLITICS: A SURVIVOR’S GUIDE

WENT TO LONDON, TOOK THE DOG

20.00-21.00 | Sub Rooms | £10

10.30-11.30 | Lansdown Hall | £10

“A book whose wisdom runs very deep” – Jonathan Freedland.

Have you ever turned away from the news in despair? Or do you sometimes scroll through social media and come away angry, frustrated and listless due to the toxic state of modern politics? Help is at hand from political journalist and Guardian columnist, Rafael Behr, who argues bracingly that instead of switching off in the hope that it will all go away, our democracy can only work if enough people stay engaged, without getting enraged.

Ten years ago Love, Nina, the brilliant first book by Nina Stibbe, was published.

Acclaim, awards, four novels and a BBC TV adaptation of Love, Nina by Nick Hornby all followed, and Nina is now firmly established as one of our most beloved comic authors. Her new book, Went to London, Took the Dog finds Nina back in London, 20 years after leaving, accompanied by her cockerpoo, Peggy. It’s the marvellously entertaining diary of her year as a “60-year-old runaway”, on a break from married life in Cornwall, or perhaps making a fresh start altogether.

In an uplifting and galvanising event based on his widely-acclaimed book Politics: A Survivor’s Guide, Rafael draws on insights gained from three decades as a political commentator and foreign correspondent, as well as his own nearfatal cardiac crisis, to lead us to a state of hope for a better way of doing things.

We’re overjoyed to welcome Nina back to Stroud Book Festival for a treat of an event in which she’ll share her midlife adventures living back in London. Expect a bundle of laughs but also wisdom about forging forwards in the third act of life.

Chaired by: Stephen Kinsella.

Your ticket price includes a hot beverage and a Sunday morning pastry.

Rafael Behr

Nina Stibbe

Chaired by: Caroline Sanderson.

26

www.stroudbookfestival.org.uk

SUNDAY NOVEMBER 12

GIGANTIC FUN! Rob Biddulph

10.30-11.30 | Sub Rooms | £8 | Ages: 5+ Get set, on the final morning of Stroud Book Festival 2023, for some GIGANTIC fun with Rob Biddulph, author, illustrator, and world recordbreaker for the biggest online art lesson ever.

This fun-packed session for all the family will feature live drawing, stories and lots of laughter as Rob brings his award-winning books to life, including his brand-new character, Gigantic, a small blue whale with a big heart. And in one of Rob’s famous Draw With Rob draw-alongs, everyone will get the chance to learn how to recreate one of his characters, step-by-step. So start sharpening your pencils!

Sponsored by: Renishaw.

www.stroudbookfestival.org.uk

27

SUNDAY NOVEMBER 12

THE HARE-SHAPED HOLE John Dougherty & Thomas Docherty

12.15-13.00 | Lansdown Hall | £6 | Ages: 4-7 When Hertle vanishes, her best friend Bertie is distraught. How can he bring her back…and what if he can’t?

In a comforting and heart-warming event complete with drawing and music, Stroud’s very own award-winning children’s author John Dougherty and acclaimed illustrator Thomas Docherty present their beautiful new picture book, The Hare-Shaped Hole.

28

www.stroudbookfestival.org.uk

SUNDAY NOVEMBER 12

DRAGONS, DANGEROUS SPACE TRAVEL & VERY ILLEGAL MAGIC Cressida Cowell

12.30-13.30 | Sub Rooms | £8 | Ages: 8+ We are almost on fire with excitement to present this unmissable Stroud Book Festival event with multimillion-copy selling, award-winning author Cressida Cowell.

Join us to celebrate the anniversary edition of Cressida’s book, How to Train Your Dragon. Since it was first published 20 years ago it has sold more than 8 million copies in 42 languages, and is also a major DreamWorks animated film franchise and Netflix TV series. Incredible!

And there’s more enchantment as Cressida will also be talking about her brand-new book, Which Way Round the Galaxy, the second book in her out-of-this-world Which Way series. But be warned: it contains Dangerous Space Travel and Very Illegal Magic.

Sponsored by: Stroud High School.

www.stroudbookfestival.org.uk

29

Over the past 50 years, Renishaw’s products have revolutionised key aspects of component manufacturing and scientific research, contributing to the ability to make the high performing, precision products that we use in our daily lives.

From the manufacture of aircraft, cars, smartphones, electric vehicle batteries and solar panels, to brain surgery and dentistry, there is barely an industry that does not in some way benefit from our innovations.

To find out more visit www.renishaw.com Renishaw plc New Mills, Wotton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire GL12 8JR T +44 (0)1453 524524 F +44 (0)1453 524901 E uk@renishaw.com

www.renishaw.com

30 Renishaw Stroud Book Festival Ad 2023_194x132.indd 1

www.stroudbookfestival.org.uk

17/08/2023 09:52:29

SUNDAY NOVEMBER 12

THE CURSE OF THE TOMB ROBBERS Andy Seed

THE IMMORTAL GAMES: A CREATIVE WRITING WORKSHOP

14.00-15.00 | Lansdown Hall | £6 | Ages: 7-11

Annaliese Avery

When ancient Egyptian friends, Nub and Iteti, overhear a gang of tomb robbers plotting to raid Queen Neith’s royal tomb, they set off on a quest to stop them unleashing a terrible curse.

15.30-16.30 | Museum in the Park | £12 | Ages: 11-16

For this fantastic code-cracking event based on his book, The Curse of the Tomb Robbers, we welcome brilliant Gloucestershire and Blue Peter Award-winning author Andy Seed back to Stroud Book Festival.

Expect to solve puzzles, decode hieroglyphs and even get up-close to a life-sized replica of a sarcophagus in this fun and interactive session full of fascinating facts about ancient Egypt.

Have you ever thought of using dice to help you write stories?

If not, you’re sure to be inspired by this creative writing workshop in which Annaliese Avery, author of YA romantasy The Immortal Games, will show you how using dice while writing can inspire you and aid in your story creation.

This interactive workshop will guide you through the three fundamental elements of fiction, as you use dice to generate ideas and then start writing a story following the hero’s journey structure.

Sponsored by: Renishaw.

All materials provided | 30 places only.

www.stroudbookfestival.org.uk

31

Supporting Stroud Book Festival

SUNDAY NOVEMBER 12

You can judge a book by its cover!

Smart new paint Bold new name Same Great value Simple and practical self-catering.

Perfect.

Cainscross Road Stroud Formerly Five Valleys Aparthotel Same owners

01453 764496 Book direct for the best price

⇓

www.cotswoldaparthotel.co.uk/book/ 32

STROUD BOOK FESTIVAL GUEST POET 2023 Gillian Clarke

14.30-15.30 | Sub Rooms | £10 Born in Cardiff and a former National Poet of Wales, Gillian Clarke, winner of the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry among many other awards, is one of the best-known names in UK poetry today. Now in her 80s, she is also a popular poet in schools and her work has been a fixture on the A-level and GCSE syllabus for more than 30 years.

Her poems examine nature, womanhood, art, music, Welsh history; always with the lyric and imagistic precision by which her poetry is instantly recognisable.

But perhaps her greatest inspiration is our landscape and all the human stories that it hosts; and she is also a major poet of our endangered environment.

Former Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy has said of her work, “Gillian Clarke’s outer and inner landscapes are the sources from which her poetry draws its strengths.”

We are thrilled to welcome Gillian to Stroud Book Festival. She joins us to read a selection of her poetry, and discuss her inspirations in conversation with Stroud poet, Adam Horovitz.

www.stroudbookfestival.org.uk

SUNDAY NOVEMBER 12

COSY BUT CRIMINAL

SNOW WIDOWS & POLAR MEN

16.00-17.00 | Lansdown Hall | £10

16.30-17.30 | Sub Rooms | £10

With the stellar success of authors such as Richard Osman, the so-called ‘cosy crime’ genre has never been so popular. But why? What are the elements of a successful cosy mystery? And with murders in the mix, is it really as cosy as all that? To discuss these questions and more are two Gloucestershire authors of novels that are cosy but very definitely criminal.

Robert Falcon Scott and the men of his polar party were heroes of their age, their tragic exploits in the Antarctic the stuff of British legend. But they were also husbands, fathers, sons and brothers. What of the women they left behind whose lives would be forever changed by their derring-do? We invite two author experts from Gloucestershire to consider this question.

Kat Ailes published her debut novel – The Expectant Detectives – earlier this year after it was runner-up for the Comedy Women in Print Unpublished Prize 2021. Inviting the reader to solve “the mother of all murders”, it features unexpectedly pregnant detective Alice who has recently moved to a Cotswold village. Then a dead body turns up at the antenatal class...

Sue Limb, renowned dramatist, scriptwriter, columnist and the author of books for all ages, began writing her extraordinarily revealing biography Captain Oates: Soldier & Explorer while still a teenager. During her research for the book she met Oates’s sister, Violet and was given access to her archive.

Kat Ailes & Debbie Young

Sue Limb & Katherine MacInnes

Debbie Young is the author of the hugely popular Sophie Sayers and St Bride’s cosy crime mystery series. She lives in a Cotswold village where she runs the literary festival, and has worked at Westonbirt School, both of which inspire her writing. Her latest book Artful Antics at St Bride’s is the new instalment in her St Bride’s series, which features crime-solving teacher, Gemma Lamb.

Katherine MacInnes recreates the lives of five female relatives of the polar party in her book, Snow Widows. They include Kathleen Scott, a sculptor of national renown; Oriana Wilson, scientist and wife of the team doctor; and Caroline Oates, whose son so famously sacrificed himself.

Chaired by: Caroline Sanderson.

www.stroudbookfestival.org.uk

33

SUNDAY NOVEMBER 12

THE POETRY OF LAURIE LEE: A CELEBRATION Jessy Lee, Adam Horovitz & Norah Perkins 18.30-19.30 | Sub Rooms | £10 If I ever saw blessing in the air I see it now in this still early day…

For this year’s Stroud Book Festival Finale, we are delighted to present a celebration of the life and work of Stroud’s most famous son, Laurie Lee, to mark the publication of his Collected Poems.

This beautifully presented, landmark new edition of his work from Penguin Classics gathers Lee’s much-loved poetry in one volume for the first time. It also incorporates a generous selection of previously unseen verses from the Laurie Lee archive.

Our event will include readings of Lee’s work by his daughter, Jessy Lee, and by Stroud poet, Adam Horovitz. And, together with Norah Perkins, literary agent for the Laurie Lee estate, Jessy will also provide insights into how the collection came together.

During the event, we will also be announcing the winners of the 2023 Laurie Lee Prize for Writing, now in its second year.

Supported by: Stroud Arts Festival.

34

www.stroudbookfestival.org.uk

WITH GRATEFUL THANKS Olivia Adams Atlantic Books BBC Radio Gloucestershire Sally Barker BBC Books BBC Children’s Books Bath Publishing Katy Bevan Bloomsbury Bloomsbury Children’s Books Boldwood Books Esme Bradbury Julia Brookes Tessa Browning Canongate Carcanet Chatto & Windus Chicken House Tom Conaghan Hereward Corbett Cotswold Life Dominic Cotter Meesha Cru-Hall Penny De Lotz Victoria Derbyshire Jessica Derham Dialect Doubleday Jo Durrant Hannah Dyson Katie Fforde Jemma Forino Five Valleys Shopping Centre Fourth Estate Frances Lincoln Children’s Books Will Gardner

Gloucestershire Community Foundation Good on Paper Jennie Greenshields Harper Collins Children’s Books Heligo Books Hitchins Family Trust Alex Hobbis Hodder & Stoughton Hodder Children’s Books John Holland Adam Horovitz Hot Press Books Rob James Katie Jarvis Alice Jolly Stephen Kinsella Tammy Kwan Lansdown Hall & Gallery* Abigail Large Jessy Lee Christian Lewis Little Tiger Helen Lokyer Emily Lowe MacLehose Press

Macmillan Children’s Books Magic Cat Ian McEwan Candia McKormack JLM Morton James Mullarkey Museum in the Park* N&P Print Nick Hern Books Nosy Crow Caroline O’Donoghue Fiona Orwin Otter-Barry Books The Painswick Hotel Steve Palmer Pen & Sword Penguin Classics Norah Perkins Hugh Phillimore Picador Chris Pockett Mary Portas Quickthorn David Rawlings Read for Good

Stroud Book Festival Committee & Directors Ian McEwan, Patron Jane Bailey Louise Brice John Denton John Dougherty Katie Fforde Jamila Gavin

Adam Horovitz Stephen Kinsella Sue Limb Harvey Sagar Charles Tongue Darrell Turk

www.stroudbookfestival.org.uk

Janet Saunders Scholastic Simon & Schuster Children’s Books Debbie Sleep Sofas & Stuff Stroud Arts Festival Stroud Bookshop Stroud High School Stroud Library* Stroud Short Stories Stroud Town Council Stroud Subscription Rooms* Stroud Wines Tangy Media Bev Tanner Charles Tongue Trapeze Unbound Peter van Hooke Paul Venables Virago Waitrose Stroud Walker Books Watkins Publishing Simon Wells Wide-Eyed Editions William Collins Lucy Yarham The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop Kate Young Zaffre And all our wonderful volunteers * Special thanks to the amazing teams at our Festival venues Designed by Steve Palmer Printed by Tewkesbury Press

35

We are very grateful to all our supporters, sponsors and funders for their generosity

36

www.stroudbookfestival.org.uk