Abergavenny’s Writing Festival returns on the 21st and 22nd of April to the Kings Arms, the Melville Centre for the Arts and Abergavenny Library.
The Abergavenny Writing Festival is about encouraging everyone to write and express themselves, whether for mental health and wellbeing, as a way of making a living, to bring about change, to keep a record or purely for pleasure. This year’s Abergavenny Writing Festival will be a celebration of writing in all its diverse and creative forms.
Expect talks, discussions, workshops and performances on an eclectic range of topics. 2023 sees the introduction of a “Writers’ Hub”, where writers can come together and exchange ideas in a supportive environment. The Society of Authors and the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators will be present to offer advice and information. In addition there will be some free taster sessions for young people at Abergavenny Library on Saturday 15th April, courtesy of the Abergavenny Rotary Club.
Day one at the Kings Arms will be a day for improving skills and professional advice featuring a poetry workshop with Paul Henry: ‘The Singing Page’, a talk from The Society of Authors on ‘How to Make a Living as a Writer’ and Helen Docherty on ‘Writing Picture Books for Children.’ Hannah Hill will Chair a discussion on Writing and Artificial Intelligence, posing the question: Are our Writing Days Numbered? And Gary Raymond will talk about ‘How Welsh Writers Can Help Redefine our Nation.’
On Friday evening there’ll be an accessible spoken-word open-mic event at The Melville Centre for the Arts. The event will be hybrid so both audience and participants are able to join either in person or via a zoom link.
Saturday 22nd April will see a whole day of events for young people at The Melville, including: Illustration with Max Low, ‘Magnificent Mash-Ups’ with Children’s writer Claire Fayers – a wild and wacky session for seven to twelve year olds. Children’s Laureate of Wales, Connor Allen, will offer a poetry session and later that day there’ll be a ‘Family Singing Session’ with Tanya Walker.
There will be sessions for Welsh speakers, including illustrator and cartoonist Huw Aaron for four to ten year olds (age is for guidance only) and a lunchtime talk and tasting with author and food writer Lowri Haf Cooke.
On Saturday 22nd there will also be a broad range of talks and workshops for adults ranging from a Comedy Writing session with AberLaugh to a workshop with Welsh / Canadian authors Katie Munnik and Tyler Keevil on ‘Place and Landscape in Your Fiction.’
Hamed Amiri (author of The Boy With Two Hearts) will share his story of fleeing Afghanistan and why he was driven to write about this and the subsequent adaptation of his bestselling book to theatre production. Journalist and author Jude Rogers will run an introduction to memoir writing, with a lively hour of tips, lessons learned and short exercises to help you make your writing breathe and sing.
The winners of this year’s Youth Writing Festival will be presented with their certificates from the Mayor and Mayoress of Abergavenny and take part in mentoring sessions with Rhian Edwards, Jude Rogers and Alex Wharton.
The finale evening will be jam packed with comedy, music and words! Starting with some ‘Wordplay Cabaret’ from Mark Blainey; poetry, songs and stories from Alex Wharton and lo-fi alt-Indie music with Folk and Americana influences from Rona Mac.
There will be free sessions at Abergavenny Library, including poetry readings and a ‘Writers’ Hub’, where local authors will be on hand to talk about their work and share advice and information.
The Abergavenny Writing Festival is made possible thanks to the generous support of Arts Council Wales, Abergavenny Town Council, Christie Residential, the Rotary Club of Abergavenny, the Kings Arms Hotel and Ogi.
For full event programme visit www.abergavennywritingfestival.com
Lucie Parkin
