We’ve had some exciting news – one of our events has been accepted for inclusion in the Big Book Weekend on 8 – 10 May, which we mentioned last week as part of the BBC’s Culture in Quarantine!  We submitted three events and our Debut Author event with Louise Hare and Beth Morrey has been selected.  Both authors were included in The Observer’s selection of 10 best debut novelists whom they believe will make their mark. In Louise’s This Lovely City, her central character arrives on the Empire Windrush to post-war London, but soon learns that new arrivals are treated with suspicion. In ..read more

This week we received a lovely surprise in the form of a poem from Leanne Moden who has recently been leading writing workshops with three secondary schools in the city as part of our Shared Writing community programme. Thankfully, Leanne’s workshops were all completed before the schools closed and the stories are in the process of being produced as a book, which will be available later in the summer. She was due to join us at a special event for the schools on 7 June, which has also been cancelled, but we hope will be rescheduled. Leanne had a special poem for the sharing event, which she has ..read more

Even though we took the painful decision to cancel the Festival, there is still plenty going on behind the scenes. We plan to send you this weekly e-shot at 10am every Monday for the forseeable future to keep you updated on what’s happening and to share our plans – as well as to inspire your reading! We are currently in the process of liaising with all the publishers about the availability of authors for the autumn as we plan to reschedule as many events as possible for the autumn.  This will mean a bigger Festival than we had planned: our Autumn Edition was due to be over three days from 30 O ..read more

We are very sad to have to announce that we have taken the decision to cancel this year’s Derby Book Festival, which was due to be held from 29 May – 6 June 2020.  This decision is not made lightly and has been made in consultation with our trustees and our partners across the city, who have been forced to take decisions about closing their venues.  Our number one priority is to ensure the health and well-being of our audience, authors, interviewers, volunteers and venue staff. We are particularly disappointed as we had just completed this year’s programme with 105 great events, which we truly ..read more

We regret to announce that Derby Reads is cancelled. Like all UK event organisers, Derby Book Festival is having to make plans in response to the Coronavirus pandemic. Due to Government advice issued yesterday, we have reluctantly decided to cancel our 2020 programme launch, Derby Reads, which was scheduled for Wednesday 8 April at QUAD. The Derby Book Festival team is very disappointed to have to make this decision as we had a great programme launch event planned.  We are keeping plans for the Festival itself under review and will inform all our audiences, guests, volunteers, partners and oth ..read more

Like many UK event organisers, the Derby Book Festival team has been closely following the developments of the Coronavirus. We are monitoring the Covid-19 situation daily and will follow the latest available advice from the UK Government and Public Health England and respond accordingly. The outlook for Derby Book Festival 2020 changes daily and we will inform all our visitors, guests, partners, volunteers and other stakeholders of any significant changes to our 2020 plans as quickly as we can. You can find the latest Public Health UK advice here. The post COVID-19 Update appeared first on Der ..read more

Debut author Laura Shepherd-Robinson appeared at our 2019 Festival to talk about her novel Blood Sugar and the journey to becoming a writer. We invited Laura to share more about her literary inspirations with us in a series of guest blogs. Books that inspired me to write #3: Dissolution The best historical fiction, in my opinion, can only take place at the time in which it is set, and in which the setting is as integral to the plot as character and story. One book that certainly meets this standard is CJ Sansom’s first novel, Dissolution, which I read when it came out in 2003. Set in a monaste ..read more

Are you looking forward to our 2020 Festivals? Plans are well underway for our 2020 Festivals.  We are currently finalising events at Derby Theatre and at Déda as their spring brochures are produced before ours.  We only have a few spaces left to fill now in the programme so it’s nearly ready to go to the designers. Autumn Edition 2020 We can now announce the dates for our Autumn Edition 2020.  It will be held from Friday 30 October to Sunday 1 November.   This is a week later than our 2019 Autumn Edition and avoids half term, Repton Literary Festival, Buxton International Festival’s Weekend ..read more

Debut author Laura Shepherd-Robinson appeared at our 2019 Festival to talk about her novel Blood Sugar and the journey to becoming a writer. We invited Laura to share more about her literary inspirations with us in a series of guest blogs. Books that inspired me to write #2: The Quincunx Confession: I like long books. VERY long books. Aside from War and Peace, this one might be the longest I’ve read at a mahoosive 500k words. But my God is it worth it. The Quincunx has a plot of immense complexity, with all the Dickensian themes: a disputed inheritance lumbering its way through the court of ch ..read more

Would you like to help us manage our social media and marketing activities for the Festival? We are offering a freelance contract for a Social Media and Marketing Assistant from February to June 2020. To apply, please send a CV and covering letter to: sian@derbybookfestival.co.uk or by post to Derby Book Festival, 13 Lavender Row, Derby, DE22 1DF. Deadlines for applications: 5pm Wednesday 22 January 2020 Interviews will take place on Thursday 30 January 2020 at Derby Book Festival’s offices. If you have any questions about the role, please contact Sian Hoyle, Executive Director, by email: sian ..read more