2021 Festival
24th- 25th April 2021
Headliner
Diana Evans
Diana Evans is the author of Ordinary People, which won the South Bank Sky Arts Award for Literature, and was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, the Rathbones Folio Prize and the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction. Her previous novels are The Wonder and her bestselling debut 26a, which won the inaugural Orange Award for New Writers. Her journalism, essays and criticism appear in Time Magazine, the Guardian, Vogue and Financial Times among others. She is an associate lecturer in Creative Writing at Goldsmiths, University of London, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Masterclass
Ruth Brandt
Ruth Brandt is a creative writing tutor and writer. Her short stories and flash fiction have been widely published. She won the Kingston University MFA Creative Writing Prize, has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Write Well Award and Best Small Fictions Award. Her short story collection No One has any Intention of Building a Wall will be published by Fly on the Wall Press in 2021. She lives in Surrey with her husband and has two delightful sons.

The Session
Do you think you would enjoy creative writing but are not sure where to start? Or do you have an idea for a novel or want to write about your life but don’t know how to go about it? This course will touch on the importance of reading for a writer, of being prepared to make mistakes and the necessity of redrafting, and it will introduce you to techniques used to bring characters, real and fictional, to life on paper.
The course will be set in a relaxed, workshop atmosphere where you will be encouraged to write your own creative piece. No previous experience is necessary.