Hardly huffing and puffing, we loved stuffing…

It’s Festival programme launch eve and excitement mounts.

This year, we are getting ready for the twentieth Swindon Festival of Literature, which will run from 6th to 18th May.

As a festival organiser, I receive many email and telephone offers from keen companies claiming to be able to improve our design, printing, marketing, and mail outs. For the most part, I resist them because the service we already get from local designers, printers, and marketing folk is just fine, in fact, excellent.

For example, our mail out system may be old-fashioned but it’s very hands on and we love it.

This is what happened this year. An invitation went out to Festival friends and helpers to let them know that there would be an envelope-stuffing evening, with good company, a drop to drink, and home-made pizza, in the cosy old calf-shed at Lower Shaw Farm.

On the appointed day, I lit the woodstove, and Spanish wwoofer Louis helped me carry over boxes of programmes, lists of labels, and mail bags to spread out on the tables. Meanwhile, down in the kitchen, Australian proof-reader Kelly and Swindon all-rounder Jessica were busy rolling out the dough for their pizza specials.

One by one, friends and helpers arrived, had a drink, sat down, and got stuffing. Programmes were flying into envelopes!

Before it was half time in the League One match between Yeovil and Swindon, which was on the radio, half the envelopes were stuffed with the beautiful new 40-page full colour Festival programme. (If you’d like one, ring or email and we’ll happily send. Tel 01793 771080. Email swindonlitfest@lowershawfarm.co.uk)

By the time Swindon had won 2-0, all envelopes were stuffed, stamped, and boxed up ready for delivery to the post office. Also, the trays of pizza were almost empty and international friendships had been made. Louis was calling Swindon Michael ‘El Poeta’ and Kelly and Kauser were laughing out loud about links they’d found.

It’s evenings like this that enable me to resist the slicker twenty-first century mail out operations on offer.

When you see the programme, in booklet or on website, I hope you will not be able to resist coming to the twentieth Swindon Festival of Literature. It’s full of good things.

Looking forward to May.

Yay!

Matt Holland
matt@lowershawfarm.co.uk

Festival Flying!

Director’s Blog has been temporarily discontinued for a good reason. The happy fully-engaged Director simply has no time to write it during the Festival.

But it will be restarted, very soon after the Festival has finished, late May, with a full, frank, and frisky round up of events.

Watch this space, late May. There’s more to say!

Meanwhile, you can always find out what our Festival Chronicler thinks of daily proceedings.

Matt Holland
matt@lowershawfarm.co.uk

Brigid Moss - Thu 17th May - Cancelled

Due to low (no) advance tickets reservations/sales, Brigid Moss has decided to cancel her appearance at the Arts Centre that was scheduled for 6.30pm on Thursday 17th May.

Apologies to those who were planning to attend on the night.

Ali Mcnamara - Tue 15th May - Cancelled

ALI MCNAMARA, who was scheduled to appear at the Arts Centre at 6.30pm on 15th May, sadly cannot appear due to illness. As it is too late to find a suitable replacement, this event has been cancelled.

Apologies from Ali Mcnamara and the Festival.

Ducklings, turkey chick, and the first day of the Festival

On Festival eve, eight ducklings hatched in dairy dining room at Lower Shaw Farm and a solitary turkey chick shell-toothed its way out of a bantam-warmed egg and joined them. They are all, of course, cute beyond belief and an attraction and distraction to Festival authors and workers alike.

But we all managed to tear ourselves away from them to set up for Dawn Chorus at 4am in Lawn Woods. Among the trees, in the early-morning darkness, as the birds’ singing was ending the Festival was beginning. The pipes played, the Samba drummers drummed, the jugglers threw fire, the Scratch Choir threw their voices and the hoola hooper her hoops, the poets and storytellers threw words to the sky, a very nice man with very nice child and a naughty balloon had us in stitches, and light cloud on the horizon parted and the rising sun lit up and warmed the frozen faces of two hundred plus who knew where the action was at dawn on the first spring Bank Holiday in Swindon. It was a great start!

Next, we headed across town to lovely Lydiard Park, story-walked 3k, freedom parkran 5k, and listened to talks on running for life and running for your life. The day ended at the Platform, once a railway workers’ chapel, now a fabulous venue where the Glow Globes played mellow tunes and we had one last story.

Pizza for supper and a great sense of gratitude for a wonderful first day of the nineteenth Swindon Festival of Literature.  And more to come. Yay!

Matt
matt@lowershawfarm.co.uk

New Authors, Winning Poets, and Broody Bantam

Wade Allison

Two new authors have taken the places of two who had to cancel.

On Thursday 10th May at 6.30pm Professor Wade Allison steps into the slot vacated by Mark Lynas and tackles a not dissimilar topic. In his talk, after the title of his book, Radiation and Reason, he will outline a clear, positive, and accessible scientific account of the effect of radiation on life.

John Summers

On Thursday 17th May at midday, John Summers replaces Ian Leslie, honestly. Occasional broadcaster on Radio 4 and former worker at Saatchi & Saatchi, John takes a light-hearted look at the art of complaining.

This week, the results have been announced of the nation-wide Swindon Artswords Battered Moons poetry competition, that is part of this year’s Festival. There were hundreds of entries from all over the British Isles.

The winner comes from London but the runner up is a local poet and member of Swindon’s BlueGate Poets. Also, among the four entries that were highly-commended is another local poet, from Wootton Bassett.

To have two out of seven winners come from our area is terrific and represents a real achievement for local poets.

Chief judge, Professor of Poetry in Manchester and prize-winning poet in his own right, Michael Symmons Roberts said, ‘The final decisions were tough, because the standard was so high and the entries so very varied.’

Fellow judge and London Poetry winner Cristina Newton said, ‘It is a privilege for me to be involved in the Battered Moons Poetry Competition. It really is putting Swindon on the literary map.’

To which I would add this. Not only is it exciting that Swindon Artswords’ first national poetry competition has had so many entries and been so successful but also, that two of its winners are, so to speak, home grown and Festival followers. This is wonderful, that these two local writers have done so well in such a tough competition that includes poets from far and wide. It bears testimony to the way in which Literature and the love of good writing and reading is thriving here.

Come to the Festival and see!

Now, must go. The broody bantam is off the turkey eggs and is calling for a slice of soaked bread. -
Yes, I know, that needs some explaining. Will do, anon.

Matt
matt@lowershawfarm.co.uk

Events, eggs, and excitement.

Barely two weeks since launch date, and one event, the Mindfulness Workshop, has already sold out. Hot on its heels for popularity and up-take of tickets are Camila Batmanghellidjh, John Simpson, Mark Williams, Will Hutton, Melissa Ben, Claudia Hammond, Stuart Maconie, John ‘Boycie’ Challis, and the Swindon Think Slam!

Talking of competitions, as I write, final judgements are being made, from hundreds of entries, for our big Battered Moons Poetry Competition. And judging is already complete in the smaller but equally intriguing Young People’s FLIT180 novel-into-a-film competition Talking of competitions, entries are coming in fast for both Swindon Slams, the poetry and the think one. At this rate, final contestants may have to be drawn from a hat.

The pre-Festival warm-up event has happened, in the shape of Paraguay at the Platform. It was great to flex our organisational and technical muscles at a new venue; learn a few more things about the importance of getting it right on the night; and then enjoying the fruits of our labours. The harpists, in costume, excelled themselves, as did the stand-in Mastermind contestant. And the Paraguayan food, chipa and sopa, hand-cooked by two natives of that country, who are better know as composer-conductor and banker-‘ambassador’, hit the spot too. By the end of the interval, it was all gone.

And at the Festival’s HQ, Lower Shaw Farm, spring’s first chicks have hatched, live, in front of our eyes, in the Dairy. It is reckoned that you have not lived till you have seen a chick come out of an egg. If that’s true, then a whole bunch of children and grownups have well and truly lived as they witnessed every dinosaur-like little cheeper shell-tooth its way into the world. Once dried and straightened out, the multi-coloured chicks are cute beyond belief.

On Easter Sunday, at 3pm, residents and visitors from Lower Shaw Farm, plus a good few adventure-seekers from Swindon, will be egg-rolling on the slopes of Avebury. A real tradition and loads of fun. You can come too.

Matt Holland
matt@lowershawfarm.co.uk