Page 23 - link magazine

Welcome

to the twelfth

Swindon Festival
iJJJ I
^f^
of Literature!
J
1/
.ji 1 )
I -IS May 2005

When people who write books meet people who read them,
enjoyable, interesting, serious, unpredictable, funny, and
memorable things happen.
And that is just what we expect at this year's Swindon Festival of
Literature.To make sure that they do, we have novelists — established
and new; poets — performing and not; comedians — being serious;
scientists — addressing art; politicians — explaining why; broadcasters -
saying why not; philosophers — thinking aloud; commentators — on pace,
grace, and beauty; storytellers — on storywalks and blessing tales;
columnists — on how to and how not; and even sessions on the garden,
the law, the brain, the birds, and the bees!
And there are also days for children and families, a day for writers,
a treat for teachers, a dawn chorus for early risers, plus youth and
all-age Slams!
This is an opportunity, in Swindon, to see, hear, and meet the men and
women who take pains to write well and speak with care, who treat
language as a precision instrument and set out to use it as best they
can. And what's more, every piece of writing on offer, every different
talk, and every story told at the Festival is not only a way of informing,
distracting, or entertaining but also a way of inviting each of us to
discover more that is dangerous, difficult, or delightful about ourselves
and others.
The Festival begins, as ever, with fun and the rising sun, at dawn on that
high ridge overlooking the town in Lawn Woods on May Day morning.
And on each subsequent day there will be three or more events, at
midday, teatime, and in the evening, carefully spaced and placed, to
enable you to attend almost every event, should you have the stamina!
For the full at-a-glance Festival diary, turn over the page.
And then, mark your own diary, so that during the first fifteen days of
May you join us for Swindon's very own communion of words: an
opportunity to celebrate life, or lament it, and to love literature,
togetherA chance to discover that a new idea can be a welcome delight
and that today's stranger can be tomorrow's friend!
All that, and more, at this year's Swindon Festival of Literature.
Please read on, and come along.
MATT HOLLAND
Festival Director

Er