9 Days
70 Events
10 Venues
20 – 28 May 2022
Last weekend I took a trip over to Belper to check out the Belper Arts Trail. There was sooo much to see and do with a whole range of talented artists exhibiting their work !
I also happened across some wonderful volunteers promoting the upcoming Derby Book Festival & I figured that is definitely a shout out here.
This years venues include….
Artcore
Deda
Derby College
Derby Theatre
Quad
Landau Forte
Waterstones
I guess you might be able to pick yourself up a copy of the leaflet containing the schedule of events at one of these venues or you can visit the Derby Book Festival Website where you’ll find tons of information !!
There are three ways you can join in and enjoy the Festival….
- Live Stream
- Recorded
- ‘Live’ in person
Some events will be live streamed and/or recorded so you can watch at home either in ‘real time’ or at a time more convenient to you. But joy of joys…we can now attend these events in person (happy dance) !!
A tiny bit of background about the Festival…
Derby Book Festival was born over a glass of wine in QUAD by two book lovers, Jenny Denton and Sian Hoyle in February 2014. With no previous experience of running a Festival, but heaps of enthusiasm and ideas, they approached the key arts and educational organisations in the city. Their response was unanimously positive!
In the summer of 2014, local businesswoman (and former librarian) Liz Fothergill CBE agreed to be our Festival Chair and we set up a management board.
Derby Book Festival was launched one cold January day in Waterstones when, with the support of our partners and friends, we shared our plans for the first Festival, to be held in June 2015 over eight days.
Since then the city has embraced the Festival: it is now an annual event in the cultural calendar with a nine day Festival each June. In October 2019 we held our first three day Autumn Edition.
Our Festival programme is aimed at appealing to all ages and interests with a range of events, including some with a particular Derby resonance, with themes including railways, science, local history and architecture, cycling, walking, birding, cricket – and even real ale.
We pride ourselves on presenting a broad, diverse programme which attracts internationally-renowned writers, poets, historians, politicians, broadcasters, illustrators, storytellers and musicians, whilst also providing support and opportunities for local authors and those taking their first steps towards publishing.
In addition to our two annual Festivals, our work also includes our year-round community programme with three main strands: Shared Reading, Shared Writing and our Schools programme. These enable us to share the joy of books and reading with school children, refugees and asylum speakers, disadvantaged young people, people in residential care and those accessing our city’s libraries.
I’ve got several events ear-marked already…maybe I’ll see you there