Burnham-On-Sea’s third annual Book Festival has been hailed a success by organisers after three days of events, displays and workshops.
The festival began on Friday 17th May and ran until Sunday 19th May with a varied programme of activities centered around Burnham’s Princess Theatre and Library.
Organisers, pictured, thanked all those who attended. Co-organiser Lewis Coleman said the event had been “a great weekend with lots of happy people.”
Friday saw Burnham author Damien Boyd hold a restaurant event in the town centre about his writing, while the BBC’s Stephen Moss held a talk on Britain’s Favourite Birds. There was also a poetry and journaling workshop in the library plus humour from travel writer Jonathan Evans.
Saturday’s line-up was jam-packed with four Beatles themed events at the centre of it. Leslie Cavendish, the Beatles hairdresser and stylist, talked about the Apple days and was there at that famous roof top concert.
Prolific Beatles author David Bedford talked about the birth of the Beatles; and John Lennon’s original band, The Quarrymen relived those early days with an In Conversation event, followed by a performance.
On Saturday, the festival also hosted Simon Elliot with his talk on David Hockney; Michael Turner shared his travel stories following in the footsteps of Sir Francis Drake; Mark Steeds entertained with his talk on Bristol’s Pirates and Privateers; while Justin Newland reminded how History Repeats Itself.
Crime writer, Lionel Ward offered a glimpse into his crime series; and Saturday Spotlight author, Elizabeth Delo, shared the journey of her stunning and successful debut, Becoming Liz Taylor.
Elizabeth Delo also led a workshop, Writing Nature, on Saturday; and Polly Hall held a Horror Workshop.
On Sunday, TC Arkle held a workshop “So You Wanna Be A Poet”, while Jeff Dowson organised a workshop “The Mysteries of Crime Writing”; and there were two workshops for authors hoping to self-publish and promote their books, with Justin Newland and Rebecca Strickland.
Sunday also saw a workshop called ‘Voices of Burnham’ when locals were invited to pop in and offer their thoughts on how the town can get a little more creative.
Burnham Book Festival 2024 finished with a packed-out audience for the writing competition award.
The audience of families cheered as the shortlist were called to the stage in anticipation of the announcement of the winners.
Short Story Competition Winners 11 and Under Winner: Moony by Emma Rose Johnson
Highly Commended: Dragons by Rosie Wakefield-Paul
12 – 18 Winner: An Ordinary Day by Alex Shaw-Young
Adults: For the Record by Macaque
Poetry 11 and Under Winner: Flightless by Emma Rose Johnson
Highly Commended: The Ghostly Gramo by Beth Hoare
Highly Commended: The Snake by Fern Bishop
12 – 18 Winner: A Monster is a Man by Hadley Carreras-Bennett
Highly Commended: Artificial Intelligence and the Human Hand by Grace Poole
Adult Winner: Washlands Like These by Sarah Leavesly/James
Highly Commended: Culmstock Beacon by Jamie Coudia
“Two of the winners had been shortlisted the previous two years and this year both came up trumps,” judge and compere, tc arkle said.
“This competition is anonymous, so we were very excited that both of them won their category. Macaque and Alex Shaw-Young deserve a special mention. Burnham Book Festival is clearly nurturing talent.”
“This year’s festival has seen more attendees across the range of sessions than last year,” event coordinator Lewis Coleman says.
“We’ve had lots of positive comments about the different authors from all walks of life. We saw packed out events for Simon Elliiot’s David Hockney talk, Stephen Moss’s favourite birds of Britain and Debut author Elizabeth Delo’s talk on her book Becoming Liz Taylor. Tangent Books of Bristol had three busy events including Mark Steeds on Pirates and Privateers, and Richard Jones Adge Cutler talk. Local author Michael Turner’s talk on Francis Drake was also popular. All our workshops were well attended too, which is something very important to the festival.”
“Beatles fans from all over the country were chuffed to come and spend a whole day to see four events which culminated in a performance by The Quarrymen.”
“On Friday, 155 children came to Alex Cotter’s writing workshops; and 20 adults currently in the early stages of recovery from addiction, came to Rebecca Shamash’s creative writing session.”
“We had some great sessions over at the library too, includingtheir own sold-out session on journaling.”
Organiser Rebecca Coleman said: “We’re very proud to bring this event to Burnham. It takes a lot of work over many months to bring this to town. Everyone on the committee is a volunteer, giving their free time time to give something back to our community. There’s so many people we have to thank, but this event wouldn’t happen without our committee: Jonathan Pinnock, Juliet Farnese, Fiona Hulme, Phil Harvey and Jo Burridge, with support from Sharon and Dave Eldergill.”
“Special thanks to Fay Hicks for her tireless support, Julie Hook, Isaac Cowlard and Craig Denny at the Princess; Caroline Crossley and Nathan Crook at Burnham Library, and Paul and Carol Hellend at Hellend’s Café, who’ve always been supportive. There’s were so many other volunteers who helped out of the weekend, some we drafted in and the Princess volunteers.”
Pictured: Burnham Book Festival underway over the weekend (Photos Burnham-On-Sea.com and Mike Lang)
