www.lynnlitfests.com Programme

T h e W e e k e n d ’ s E v e n t s

Please arrive in good time to be seated. Readings will commence

promptly at listed start time

Doors will open around 30 minutes in advance

We cannot guarantee that all the writers will take part in the plenary

sessions

All seats are unreservedEvents and writers are correct at

time of printing

The organisers reserve the right to make changes without notice

Please tell us if you have changed your address or wish to join the

mailing list

I N F O R M A T I O NAll events take place at The Town Hall,

Saturday Market Place, King’s Lynn PE30 5DQThe Fiction Festival presents some of the best contemporary writers in a congenial and informal

setting. The authors read and discuss their work and will be available to chat and sign your purchases from the festival’s well stocked book stall. You are welcome to join them and the festival

organisers for lunch at restaurants near the festival venue - details given at the morning events.

Ticket PricesAll events £8.50

Bargain Season Ticket £37.50Concessions for students

BookingBy post with

stamped addressed envelope to

Hawkins Ryan Solicitors19 Tuesday Market Place

King’s Lynn PE30 1JW

By telephone01553 691661 (office hours)

In person at the above address, by website or at the door on the day

Please make cheques payable to The Fiction Festival

Raffle PrizeThe festival closes with the raffle

draw for our unique prize - a book handwritten by all the writers in

the festival

The Fiction Festivalis grateful for support from

Hawkins Ryan Solicitors

Programme and website advertisers

Monthly Draw Club membersFor joining details, see back page

T H E W E E K E N D ’ S E V E N T S

Friday 13th March7.30pm

Saturday 14th March8.00pm

ROMESH GUNESEKERA MICHAEL HOLROYD

LYNN SHEPHERD D J TAYLOR

Chaired by Rachel Hore LASHONDA KATRICE BARNETTChaired by D J Taylor

Saturday 14th March11.00am

Sunday 15th March11.00am

RACHEL HORE JILL DAWSON

TERESA WAUGH LOUISE DOUGHTY

ANN THWAITEChaired by Christopher West

Chaired by Christopher Bigsby

Saturday 14th March3.00pm

Sunday 15th March3.00pm

DISCUSSIONThe Novelist as Historian

The WritersChaired by Ed Tonkyn

DISCUSSIONCensorship of Fiction

It is 200 years since the death of the Marquis de Sade, and 100 years since

D H Lawrence’s The Rainbow was published, prosecuted and

suppressed. Where are we now?The Writers

Chaired by Christopher BigsbyThe festival closes with the raffle draw.

ROMESH GUNESEKERA

Romesh Gunesekera was born in Sri Lanka in 1954. He moved to England when he was 17 and now lives in London. He has published five novels and two books of stories. His first novel, Reef (1994) was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Guardian Fiction

Prize. The Sandglass (1998) won the First BBC Asia award and Heaven's Edge (2002) was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and was a New York Times Notable Book. Of his most recent novel, The Prisoner Of Paradise, set in Mauritius, the Guardian wrote ‘Despoiled paradises and desecrated Edens have always been at the heart of his subtle and elegiac fiction.’ Noon Tide Toll (2014) is a moving and fascinating collection of stories centred on the adventures of a taxi driver in post civil war Sri Lanka.

LYNN SHEPHERD

Having studied English at Oxford, where she still lives, Lynn Shepherd spent 15 years in the City working in PR, before going freelance; this gave her the opportunity to realise her dream to become a writer. Her first novel was Murder at Mansfield Park,

published in 2010. It recreates the world of the classic Regency novel and involves Austen’s characters in a thrilling murder mystery, proving a hit with Austen readers and crime fans alike. Her second novel, Tom-All-Alone's (2012), employs the characters and setting of Charles Dickens' Bleak House. A Treacherous Likeness (2013) reconstructs events in the lives of the Romantic poets Shelley and his wife, Mary, and Lord Byron. The Pierced Heart (2014) is her latest novel and is inspired by Bram Stoker’s Gothic classic, Dracula. Praise from The Dracula Society: ‘It captures some of the best passages and elements of Dracula, while at the same time creating a thrilling and absorbing crime novel.’

RACHEL HORE

Rachel Hore lives in Norwich and is the author of seven novels including supernatural chiller, A Place of Secrets (2010) and the 2011 best-seller, A Gathering Storm. Her latest novel is A Week In Paris, published late last year. The seeds of her writing career

were sown during her days as senior editorial director of fiction at HarperCollins in London. Rachel is a regular reviewer of fiction for The Guardian and The Independent on Sunday. She teaches publishing at the UEA and is married to writer DJ Taylor. We welcome her back to King’s Lynn to read and host an event.

ANN THWAITE

Ann Thwaite, born in 1932 in London, has published a charming book of short stories,  Running in the Corridors (2015). She is internationally known for her five major literary biographies which are lauded as being amongst the finest, respectively of Frances

Hodgson Burnett , A A Milne, Emily Tennyson, Edmund Gosse and his father Philip Henry Gosse, which was described by one of our most testing critics as one of the ‘ten best biographies.’ She is also a well known writer of children's books and ran a library for children in her own home. She and her husband, the poet Anthony Thwaite, have supported these festivals since they began.

LADY TERESA WAUGH

The novelist and translator, Lady Teresa Waugh, was born in 1940 and is the author of nine well-made novels. The latest is A Long, Hot, Unholy Summer (2014), in which an idyllic family holiday in France is ruined when one of the daughters disappears with a man

she has met on-line. Strange coincidences link with an 18th Century Archbishop ‘the suggestion that shaped by time and circumstance, we are all equally guilty and innocent.’ Her first novel was published in 1984, and this is her first since The House (2002). Teresa is the daughter of the 6th Earl of Onslow, widow of Auberon Waugh and daughter-in-law of Evelyn. She has four children and lives in Somerset.

SIR MICHAEL HOLROYD

Biographer Sir Michael Holroyd was born in 1935 and was educated at Eton College. His first book was his 1964 biography of the writer Hugh Kingsmill. The publication in 1967 and 1968 of his biography of Lytton Strachey was hailed as a landmark in

contemporary biography. The four volumes of his life of Bernard Shaw appeared between 1988 and 1992 to critical acclaim, securing his place as one of the most influential modern biographers. He was Chairman of the Royal Society of Literature (2003-2008) and has written for radio and television. In 1989 he was awarded the CBE for services to literature. His latest book, the autobiographical novel, A Dog’s Life (written in 1953, published in the UK in 2014) is Sir Michael’s first venture into the realm of fiction. He is married to novelist Margaret Drabble and lives in London and Somerset.

DJ TAYLOR

Born in 1960, the novelist, biographer and journalist, DJ Taylor lives in Norwich and is a regular feature at our festival. Educated at Norwich School and Oxford he is a distinguished novelist, critic, biographer - notably of Thackeray (1999) and Orwell: The Life, for

which he won the 2003 Whitbread Biography Award. His numerous novels include English Settlement (1996, winner of Grinzane Cavour prize), Trespass (1998, longlisted for Booker Prize), and Ask Alice (2009). Taylor’s recent novel, The Windsor Faction, published in 2013, explores an alternative history of Edward VIII. His latest is a collection of fifteen short stories, Wrote For Luck, which was published in January this year. He is married to writer Rachel Hore.

LASHONDA KATRICE BARNETT

LaShonda Katrice Barnett was born in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1974, and grew up in Illinois. She writes full time from her home in Manhattan’s upper west side. Her short stories are much published in American journals. A scholar of music of the African

diaspora and an avid interviewer, Barnett has conducted over one hundred interviews with musicians and edited the volumes, I Got Thunder: Black Women Songwriters On Their Craft (2007) and Off The Record: Conversations With African American & Brazilian Women Musicians (2015). She has also written a trilogy of plays, The Appropriate Ones, and has hosted her own jazz radio programme in the States. She has taught history and literature at Columbia University, Sarah Lawrence College, Hunter College and Brown University. Her debut novel, Jam on the Vine, was published in February this year and tells of the struggles of a black woman journalist living in the deep south at the beginning of the 20th Century, only 30 years after emancipation.

JILL DAWSON

Jill Dawson is the best-selling author of eight novels, including Fred & Edie (short-listed for The Whitbread and Orange Prize) and Watch Me Disappear (longlisted for the Orange Prize). Her excellent 2009 best-seller, The Great Lover, about Rupert

Brooke, was a Richard & Judy summer read. Her latest novel is The Tell-Tale Heart (2014), described by Hilary Mantel as ‘an uncanny and atmospheric novel by a skilful storyteller’. In addition to writing fiction, Jill has edited six anthologies and won awards for poetry and screenplays. She has held many fellowships, including the British Council Writing Fellowship at Amherst College, Massachusetts and the Creative Writing Fellowship at University of East Anglia in Norwich, where she also taught on the MA course (2003). In 2006 she was awarded an honorary doctorate by Anglia Ruskin University, in recognition of her ‘exceptional giftedness’ as a writer, and her mentoring work with emerging writers. Jill lives with her husband and two sons in the Cambridgeshire Fens.

LOUISE DOUGHTY

Louise Doughty was born in 1963 and is a graduate of the Creative Writing Course at UEA. Her seven novels - the rights for which have been sold in 21 countries - include the internationally acclaimed Fires In The Dark (2003) and The Stone Cradle (2006),

based on the history of the Romany people and her own family ancestry. Whatever You Love (2010) was shortlisted for the Costa Novel award and longlisted for the Orange prize. A Novel In A Year (2007) was based on her hugely popular newspaper column. Her 2013 novel, Apple Tree Yard, was a Richard and Judy choice. She reviews books for The Observer and is a cultural commentator both at home and abroad. She has judged many awards including the Man Booker prize.

King’s Lynn Literature Festivalscontinue to welcome your support

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We look forward to welcoming you to thePoetry Festival, 25-27 September 2015

www. lynn l i t fes ts .com

You can contribute to help fund future literature festivals. Join the Monthly Draw Club this weekend.Subscriptions only £5 per month.

Valuable literary and cash prizes to be won monthly and you’ll receive one discounted festival weekend

pass each year. Hand your completed standing

order form to any of the organisers before you leave.

Funds generated by the Monthly Draw Club will be used exclusively to

help finance the King’s Lynn Poetry and Fiction Festivals.