The 14th Small Wonder Festival, that celebrates short form writing and fiction, has announced its 2017 programme, with the likes of Penelope Lively, Mark Haddon and Tessa Hadley due to appear.
The festival will take place in Charleston, Sussex, from Wednesday 27th September until Sunday 1st October, with themes of identity, immigration and protest filling the five-day schedule.
Famous faces at the festival
Writers Mark Haddon, Tessa Hadley, Cynan Jones, Anne Enright, Nikesh Shukla, Gwendoline Riley, Peggy Seeger, Olive Senior and David Szalay are among those appearing at the event.
Sessions will look at the refugee experience and what it means to be British, along with explorations of different aspects of the short form, from novellas to song lyrics and letters.
In addition, the 100th anniversary of the Hogarth Press will be celebrated with two stories from Haddon and Alison MacLeod, inspired by Bloomsbury.
UK and international authors will also celebrate contemporary writing from the Caribbean featuring Jamaican Olive Senior among others.
What’s more, Small Wonder will welcome its third British Council International Writer in Residence, Greek-Bahamian author Helen Klonaris, who will participate in readings and workshops.
Groups visiting the event will also get to see British writer of fiction, Penelope Lively, awarded as recipient of the Charleston-Bede’s Award for a Lifetime Excellence in Short Fiction.
Workshops and activities
The event will include fringe activities, such as day-long creative writing workshops with BBC National Short Story Award winner K J Orr and BBC producer Liz Allard on Writing for Radio.
New for this year will be the Small Wonder Reading Group and Salon, as well as Open Mic sessions running on the Saturday, open to anyone with work to share.
An interactive event featuring two standout debut collections from Julianne Pachico and Jessie Greengrass, as well as the agent and publisher who worked with them, will attempt to answer the question ‘How do I get published?’
In addition to Charleston-Bede’s Award for a Lifetime’s Excellence in Short Fiction, the festival also hosts events dedicated to the BBC National Short Story Award, as well as the Sunday Times/EFG International Short Story Award.
Groups interested in the Small Wonder Festival can book their tickets on www.charleston.org.uk/small-wonder/tickets/ or call 01323-811626.
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