Charmouth Literary Festival

Wendy Knee, co-founder of the Charmouth Literary Festival, believes that everyone can fulfill their creative ambitions. The festival is designed to support, encourage, provide access to writing networks and offer information and advice on self-publishing and beyond.

The event is very much a village affair and the organisers want you to enjoy a day of words and music in a relaxed easy manner, with the added advantage of being located in a beautiful place by the sea.

Bring a picnic lunch if you wish, come with a friend or come alone and enjoy a literary day with a little night music.

When? No idea what's going on in Cahrmouth. News anyone!

Where? Charmouth, Dorest

Who? 2016 TBC

Website? Charmouth Literary Festival

Facebook Page? Charmouth Literary Festival

Established? 2009

Visitor Information? www.charmouth.org.uk

2015 Peter John Cooper,Glenys Newton,David Pollard,Juliette Adair

2014 Authors

Louise Foxcroft

Louise Foxcroft is a historian, writer and broadcaster who specialises in medical perceptions of the human body and at the way these influence our present day experience. She read history at the University of Cambridge and her books include The Making of Addiction: The use and abuse of opiates in nineteenth-century Britain (Ashgate, 2007), Hot Flushes, Cold Science: A history of the modern menopause (Granta, 2009) which won the Longman/History Today Book of the Year award, and Calories & Corsets: A history of dieting over 2,000 years (Profile Books, 2011). All That Matters: Sexuality is published in a new series by Hodder & Stoughton in November this year, and The Irish Pasha: The maverick life of Pum Gayer-Anderson is with Unbound Books.

She has written for The Times, Independent, Guardian, Observer, Erotic Review, and the London Review of Books amongst others, has appeared on BBC TV and radio, RTE, and ITV, and was told a saucy joke in an interview with Sir David Frost on Al Jazeera English.

She was a Non-Alcoholic Trustee on the General Service Board of Alcoholics Anonymous GB for five years, and is company director of Village Underground in Shoreditch, London villageunderground.co.uk.

Juliette-Adair

Juliette returns by popular request to lead a group, literally outside, walking along the shore. The writewalkwild session at the festival will explore what flickers in your peripheral vision; the stories lurking just at the boundary between your physical senses and your imagination – often the stories you most want to tell but didn’t quite know how. And you’ll see the landscape in a whole new way – guaranteed!

Juliette Adair has an MA in Novel Writing from City University, London. Her novel ‘Bog Angel’ won the Christopher Little Award in 2007 and was shortlisted for the A&C Black Centenary prize the same year.

Chella Adgopul

Chella Adgopul is a poet and publisher from West Dorset. She has a masters degree in Creative Writing and worked as an English teacher before starting her own publishing company, Honeybee Books. She now specialises in helping people to self-publish their work, from illustrations and layout to marketing and distribution. She has worked with a range of writers, from beginners and community groups to professionals, and is firmly committed to helping make publishing a more democratic and accessible process.

Peter-John-Cooper

Peter is a playwright, poet and theatre director whose work has been seen throughout the UK during the past 40 years. He presented at Charmouth Literary Festival last year and proved to be such a popular speaker we invited him back to talk about characterisation and the importance of how you choose and use your characters.
Among his prolific output are two adaptations of Hardy novels which have been published online and two books, She Opened the Door: The Wife and Women Who Haunted Thomas Hardy (published by Roving Press) and a self-published e-novel.

John Foot

John’s writing journey began with contemporary songs in the late sixties before taking a more intellectual detour through poetry during the seventies. By the time the eighties arrived, the writing road had led him into the world of children’s fiction where he enjoyed success with a series of multi-cultural plays that were popular in the increasingly forward-looking primary schools of the time.

A life-long educator, he earned his living as a teacher and, later, as an advisor for a Local Education Authority where he worked to help schools to improve children’s writing by organising courses for teachers and facilitating writing projects.

He has written a mountain walking guide book for the Pyrenees and is currently occupied with a book about men who cook. His main passion, though, is the short story genre and a collection of his work entitled Majorcan Tales and Other Stories will be available this year.

His presentation at the Charmouth Literary festival will reflect his personal writing journey while, on the way, examining the importance of a sense of narrative in understanding our lives and the world around us.