THIS year’s Bridport Literary Festival will run from 5th to 11th November, and the festival has launched a new bursary scheme to help local students planning to go to university.

The BridLit bursary will make grants of £1,000 each to two successful candidates for each year of their three-year degree course, in any subject.

Deirdre Coates, who chairs the festival trust, says: “The festival is now in its 19th year and we feel we should use surplus funds to help the community that has supported it all these years.

“As a registered charity, the festival has as its objective the advancement of education, so what better way to use these funds than to help local students go on to further education?

“The ever-growing costs for university students must be working as a deterrent for some and the bursary may go some way to helping two students a year to decide to read for a degree course.”

BridLit already supports Read Easy, a nationwide charity with an active branch in Bridport, which helps adults with reading difficulties. It also helps the Bank of Dreams and Nightmares, a registered charity which offers free creative writing workshops to West Dorset children aged 7-18.

The BridLit Bursary is open to Year 13 students applying for an undergraduate course beginning in 2023 who are in the Beaminster-Colfox joint sixth-form or who live within Dorset Council’s Bridport ward.

To be considered for one of the two bursaries available for this autumn, students should complete the application form on the Bridport Literary Festival website at bridlit.com/bursaries

Pictured: A 2022 festival event at the Electric Palace and a student and mentor (photograph courtesy of The Sir John Colfox School.)