Charmouth’s do-it-yourself literary festival
October 20th, 2009
Saturday’s first-ever literary festival in the village of Charmouth in Dorset proved a wake-up call. The underlying message was clear. Don’t grovel at the feet of the literary lions; get up out of your arm chair, you too can be an author. And it’s never too late. You can start at forty, fifty or even seventy-five.
One of the two main organisers, Wendy Knee, pictured left, has just published a self-help book, Never Die Wondering. The title comes from her father’s words of advice to her when she was aged seventeen. www.wendyknee.com
www.neverdiewondering.wordpresss.com
I didn’t appreciate what he meant until I was 35 and didn’t act on it until I was in my forties. In my fifties I began to live it. Before that I lived a life of conformity. I was the aggrieved teenager, the dutiful wife and the devoted mother. But I broke out.
And the message of her latest book is that you too can live the life you want if only you have the courage to follow your dreams.
Wendy is a Lancashire lass who joined the Women’s Royal Air Force aged 17. That must have been a stiff dose of conformity. But after she broke out she travelled to Uzbekistan, Ecuador, Guatamala and many more countries. And at 58 she learnt to play the saxophone.
Phew.
The other festival organiser, Sallyann Sheridan has been a writer most of her life. She began as an advertising copywriter, went on to writing non-fiction books like The Good Handwriting Guide and Painting for Pleasure. More recently she has published short fiction in magazines. And now she has published her first novel, If Wishes Were Horses. Apparently this is a murder mystery set in Lyme Regis and tells the tale of one Jetta Fellowes, who decides to embark an a new career as a murderer in her eightieth year. http://www.sallyannsheridan.com/
Another of the authors who spoke on Saturday, Colin Ive, pictured left, has written about drama in real life in I Knew You’d Come!; Stories from a firefighter.
One of the people who was glad he had come was our own dear Queen, because Ive was one of the firefighters who was called to the blaze at Windsor Castle, just in time to save most of the Royal paintings.
Most of the authors live in Charmouth, but Eve Cox, pictured left, lives in nearby Budleigh Salterton, which they tell me has its own literary festival. She has just published Dark Secrets, a mystery novel, whose main character is Tom Lynsey, an army man wounded in the Gulf War. When he returns home he discovers that he has inherited a large property on Dartmoor. Lucky man, you might think. But according to the blurb, he is in for an emotional rollercoaster ride in which he discovers shocking family secrets. www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/
Another self-help writer, Anne Orchard, author of Their Cancer – Your Journey, was talking about how to self publish. She has written a guide, How to Self Publish, which is packed with practical advice only on printing and publishing but on writing and editing.
The organisers have already decided to make the festival an annual event.
In 2010 it will be on Saturday, October 16, in the Village Hall.