TWO talented women writers have got together to launch a podcast entirely devoted to non-fiction. The first NonFicPod will be online on Tuesday 2nd March, followed by a fortnightly line-up of inspiring and interesting authors to share their tales and tips. Science writer Emma Byrne, author of the successful Swearing is Good for You: The…
FREE access has been extended for events in last year’s successful Reading is Magic Festival, organised by Bath Children’s Literature Festival. The autumn event, featuring a line-up of top children and young adults’ writers and illustrators, reached more than 155,000 children in 30 countries. Festival organisers, who realised that they weren’t able to put on…
BOSCOMBE-based The Outsiders Project has been awarded £175,000 to deliver creative activities for local people who are struggling with their health and well-being. The Outsiders Project provides a creative outlet to help participants deal with some of the everyday issues caused by managing health problems, which may stem from previous drug and alcohol abuse or…
HISTORIAN, poet and cider-maker James Crowden gives the first of a series of “lockdown lectures,” organised by the South West Heritage Trust. The lecture, by Zoom, on Wednesday 3rd February at 7.30pm, focuses on Literary Somerset. The programme runs throughout February and March with speakers covering topics that also include landscape, the Romans in the…
HOW will you remember the pandemic? For some, the memories will be terrible, even sadly tragic. For some traumatic. For everyone it’s been a life-changing experience. And it has brought out the best in some people and some communities. Take Castle Cary, for instance. In March 2020, as the coronavirus really hit and the country…
THE Yeovil Community Arts Association (YCAA) has launched its 2021 international Literary Prize, an annual writing competition with cash prizes in four categories. All money raised supports talented, local youngsters training for careers in the performing and creative arts. Now in its 18th year, the Yeovil Literary Prize has become a highly regarded writing competition,…
THE Bath festivals’ team of 11, which runs the Bath Festival, Bath Children’s Literature Festival and year-round Creative Learning projects, has moved out of its headquarters in Bath Street into the Art Deco former cinema The Forum. The Grade II listed building makes a fantastic arts hub for the wider community to enjoy. Bath Festival audiences…
JOHN Payne is one of Frome’s best known residents – active in many organisations and a prolific writer on a wide range of subjects, from William Morris to Catalonia to the city of Bath. His latest book, which he hints may be his last (but writers rarely do retire, it’s a bug that keeps on…
SOMERSET-based author Jasbinder Bilan has followed up her Costa Children’s Book Award-winning debut novel with a delightful new story, which similarly draws on her family background in India close to the Himalayas. Jasbinder came with her family to the UK when she was still barely a toddler, but although they lived in a big city…
WINDROSE, the rural media charity, has set up an innovative project that combines live singing and old films, provided by internet technology for people in Wiltshire who are living with Alzheimer’s and dementia. Folk singer and song collector Amanda Boyd worked with Alzheimer’s Support Wiltshire to deliver interactive Zoom sessions, which included fascinating old footage…