Looking ahead to our latest edition of Lincoln Book Festival

This year will be the 15th edition of Lincoln Book Festival and, like any successful long-running literary series, we’ve looked to build on established foundations while looking for ways to innovate and keep things fresh.

Taking the theme ‘revolution’, we have a diverse programme of literary events (22nd-29th September 2018) on topics spanning the science of the big bang to the cultural explosion that was seventies punk rock – and plenty from the 13.8 billion years or so in between!

Our chosen theme pays tribute to the centenary of some British women winning the right to vote through the 1918 Representation of The People Act and a fulcrum in this year’s programme is on Thursday 27th September with a much-anticipated evening of talks with a trio of Britain’s finest writers on the story of women’s rights: Professor Maggie Andrews, Dr Janis Lomas and Jane Robinson. They will describe moments in the history of women’s fight against injustice and oppression, including some lesser known heroines from down the decades in ‘Sisters of the Revolution’.

This post is not so much about the content of the programme though than an insights into how it is put together. Lincolnshire has a wonderful literary heritage, and deserves a book festival which plays to its strengths. Unlike some of the larger literary festivals elsewhere in the UK, ours is organised entirely by volunteers, including trustees, boosted by the incredible input from a wide array of supporters and partners.

We are grateful this year for grant funding from Arts Council England through the National Lottery which has helped us plan what we think must be our biggest and boldest programme to date. The festival has relied for a number of years entirely on ticket sales and the generous support of our sponsors from the local business community to cover costs. The extra grant funding this year is helping us do more, both in delivering a rich and varied programme of literary events and reaching new audiences, not least through our revamped website (thank you for visiting!).

We have enjoyed the continued support from long-term partners like Visit Lincoln, Lincoln BIG, and of course our main venues, Lincoln Drill Hall and The Collection. Committed corporate sponsors have again provided funding for our flagship author events. Waterstones and Lindum Books provide book sales without which no book festival would be worthy of the name. Heritage organisations such as The Society for Lincolnshire History and Archaeology contribute greatly, particularly to our local history day. The city’s two universities are stalwarts. And we have welcomed new partners too in 2018, such as the Oxfam bookshop and Mansions of the Future, the city’s exciting new community arts venue.

We are running our flash fiction short story competition which generated such interest last year, particularly from local schools, with prizes of £30 in book vouchers on offer for authors of the best 50-word stories on the theme revolution, and with First Story and The Mighty Creatives starting a new search for a Lincolnshire laureate with their Wordsmith poetry competition.

One of the most significant changes to the festival format this year is a broadening of the scope to incorporate a series of family friendly fringe events in the form of theatrical adaptations of literary works: Michael Morpurgo’s Private Peaceful and Julia Donaldson’s Stick Man. These performance elements continue with a new open mic poetry evening hosted in conjunction with the Oxfam book shop on Cornhill and a unique insight into the amazing true story behind the upcoming Lincoln Mystery Plays with playwright Stephen Gillard, whose The World at Her Feet is inspired by the Lincoln City ladies football team who defied an FA ban on the women’s game almost a century ago.

We cater for writers as well as readers (and both!) so have a workshop on the hardest step of all in the writing process – getting started.

The stars of the show though are our guest authors, including Michael Morpurgo who will be talking about his latest novel and most personal story yet, In the Mouth of the Wolf, inspired by the true story of his family’s contribution and sacrifices during the Second World War. County born historian Tracy Borman brings her debut novel, The King’s Witch, about the 1605 Gunpowder Plot, and Sally Nicholls, the award-winning YA fiction author, will be offering inspiring tips to young writers. Biographer Rebecca Fraser tells the remarkable story of one family among the Pilgrim Fathers in her acclaimed new title, The Mayflower Generation, and science writer and broadcaster Marcus Chown, winner of The Sunday Times Science Book of the Year 2017 award, takes audiences on a tour through time to understand recent revelations in our understanding of the origins and nature of universe. Friday evening turns appropriately to anarchy with music journalist John Robb on his definitive history of punk rock, and Oxford historian Dr Marc Mulholland on his brilliant new book on an infamous French revolutionary who shocked Victorian England, The Murderer of Warren Street.

We say Lincoln Book Festival has history at its heart and there a few finer cities in which to host a festival dedicated to history writing and historical fiction. We look forward to welcoming all our audience members at our festival events over the coming days. As always, after the months of planning the festival itself will seem to pass by in a flash, but like the best books, we hope it will linger long in the memory – until the 2019 edition at least!