Ipswich Book Festival is back …
- Jul 4
- 3 min read
So just how do you top last year’s inaugural festival - 47 events, I mean who does that in their first year!!
Obviously we wanted this year to be bigger and better, but the plan was to NOT do more than 47 events, and we’re currently up to 54.
As with last year, we’re doing things differently, and we’re doing it our way. This is the Ipswich Book Festival, and we’re doing this for Ipswich and keeping it very Ipswich-centric. Whatever that means.
Our 5 amazing patrons – Ashley Hickson Lovence, Frances Quinn, Matson Taylor, Thomas Taylor and Eva Verde - are all back and doing events at this year's festival, and it’s truly wonderful that 4 of them have brand new books out this year.
We’ve got Stewart White, who for 37 years presented over 8000 editions of Look East on BBC1. His book – See You at 6:30 - reflects on his time presenting the show.
The amazing Peter Berry and Deb Bunt will be talking all about their amazing books about Peter’s diagnosis of early onset dementia, and about their shared love of cycling.
We’ve got music legends Rusty Egan (The Rich Kids, Visage and The Blitz Club) and Derek Forbes (Simple Minds) who will each be doing an event talking about their autobiographies and time as icons of the music world.
We’re absolutely thrilled to have Caroline Quentin talking all about her second book about her passion for gardening, and about finding joy and calm in the natural world.
We’ve also got the one and only Janet Street-Porter, who will be joining us and talking all about her post-war upbringing and the strange relationship she had with her parents.
Add to these teasers a series of 5 creative writing workshops that are in partnership with the University of Suffolk. This echoes something we said right at the beginning of this journey, in that this is a festival that is as much for writers as it is for readers.
The other thing that we said right at the beginning, and that forms the backbone of everything I do in my shop, is that this is a book festival that is as much for kids as it is for adults. We are not simply shoving in one kids event and marketing this as a festival for all, we are doing it properly because getting kids and young people interested in books and reading is of huge importance to us all, and is fundamental as it gets.
Just two of the kids authors we have lined up are the brilliantly bonkers Jack Meggitt-Phillips, who is back with his brand new book Jekyll V Hyde: The Potion of Doom. You can expect the unexpected with this one.
And there’s also the absolutely amazing Brogen Murphy, who will be joining us to talk all about their incredible debut – Wildlands.
If you would like to volunteer with us this year come along to a get together on 1 September to hear all about what it would involve.
All help is gratefully received.
IBF Schools Week
This year we are also going to deliver IBF Schools Week, where in the week leading up to the festival weekend, we are pledging to get a kids author into every school in Ipswich for a session talking about their books, their publishing journey, and highlighting the importance of books and of reading for pleasure. We’re aiming to engage in this way with approximately 5000 kids. And in the National Year of Reading too!
None of this would be possible without the support of Sizewell C, who we are delighted to have on board for this project – so a massive thank you to them.
Tickets on sale and the full programme will be announced early July.
Andrew Marsh from Dial Lane bookshop
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