Saturday 17th October
Today marked the third day of the Plymouth International Book Festival; a festival that first ran in 2012 and was the first large scale celebration of international and UK writers that Plymouth had ever seen.
It is a literature festival, celebrating local and international authors, promoting their works through a number of events: readings, talks, poetry, workshops, and discussions. The festival itself is a partnership between Literature Works, Peninsula Arts, Plymouth University and Plymouth City Council; this event has opened the community to an annual programme of literature that everyone can enjoy.
As a Plymouth University student, I have the opportunity to attend the festival for free; for a graduate English Literature student, would I pass up the opportunity of attending? For this year’s festival, I chose to be a volunteer, I got to go behind the scenes and experience the festival first hand, and today was my first volunteering session. I got to meet and greet with the writers; two of which were debut novelists, as well as assisting them, I got an all access pass to watch their unique discussion titled ‘Branding The Writer’. Of course, writers come under all sorts of labels, and what was at the heart of this particular discussion was whether or not certain labels were relevant to the work of the 21st century writers.
Our panel consisted of four authors; two debuting novelists, one successful local thriller author and surprise, my very own short story module leader from my undergraduate studies! The two debuting authors; Tim Clare and Anna Freeman, both debut writers with a background in poetry and creative writing, were the light and soul of this lively discussion – it was a real treat to see such different characters express themselves so freely in front of an eager audience.
Tim Clare’s charismatic energy was the spotlight, his character was a pure delight and his insight to the world of writing was so full of life. Anna Freeman’s dry comical approach was endearing and supported her overall attitude towards life – her book titled ‘The Fair Fight’ is an extreme tale of stories that aren’t well known, I won’t give the plot away, but as each of the authors read a few paragraphs, I was blown away by the first page of her particular debut.
Mark Sennen, a local Plymouth author and writer of the DI Charlotte Savage thriller novels, is a prime example of a writer who excels in his work. He started off as a self-published novelist, because a number of publishers rejected his work. His first novel Touch, sold over 86,000 copies, self published, and then finally his talent was picked up by HarperCollins Imprint Avon book publishing. His relaxed approach to the discussion was both informative and exciting. Tom Vowler; a familiar face, short story writer and novelist (also my short story module leader during my second year of my undergraduate degree) had, as always, a delightful approach in engaging both audience and writers.
The discussion concluded that being branded a writer was neither good or bad – but each author expressed different views. Tim Clare’s novel was his first attempt at writing fantasy fiction, with a number of people spotlighting his poetry background, comparing and expressing his work in relation to certain poets who Clare had neither read or was inspired by.
It was the prime talk of what being a writer meant to an individual; Clare expressed deeply that he much prefers being an individual first because being called a writer, labels him and on the days he feels like writing is too hard, he feels he’s fails himself as writer. This approach was mirrored similarly by Vowler and Sennen. Freeman expressed how she felt that she was only able to justify her title as a writer, when she was published. But now, she feels that to call yourself a writer, you must first value writing dearly. She quoted ‘I think you first become a writer when you start to really care about what you are writing.’
Overall the discussion was lively, entertaining and extremely insightful, and I was more than happy to attend; both as a volunteer and a member of the audience.
I also managed to get two signed copies of both Clare’s debut novel ‘The Honours’ and Sennen’s ‘Tell Tale’! So yeah, I guess that means I’ve kind of been around famous people.
How has everyone else’s Saturday been?
Ramblings of a Country Gal 