World Book Day – Writing and Words in Notts

To celebrate World Book Day, we briefly caught up with Robin Vaughan-Williams, the organiser behind the recently successful Nottingham Festival of Words which ran from 9 to 24 February. Q. So what were your main highlights from the Festival of Words? A. The two events at Lakeside were very successful and it was great to see so many people coming along to see the poet Alice Oswald and the former Children’s Laureate, Michael Rosen. Attracting such high calibre authors certainly gave a focal point to the Festival. Also, the events at Newstead Abbey went down really well. The atmospheric setting of the abbey is fantastic for stories and the fact that it is the former home of the poet Lord Byron only adds to the sense of occasion. In particular the Poetry, Landscape and Radicals event was very memorable. We were really pleased to see people engaging with the festival at different sites across the city and county, it’s certainly made words and the work of the authors accessible. Q. There’s always been a literary heritage in Nottinghamshire. What emerging Nottinghamshire authors do you think we should look out for? A. Well of course there’s Alison Moore who was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2012 for her novel The Lighthouse. I’d also recommend Megan Taylor, whose current book The Lives of Ghosts is published by Weather Vane Press, a Nottingham independent. Megan helped out this year on a couple of workshops – Writing Your Ghosts and Love Stories, she deserves to get a lot more credit for her work. * all images by Debbie Davies